POP MUSIC REVIEW : Bob Forrest at Club Lingerie

As the front man for local noise boys Thelonious Monster, Bob Forrest is known for performances that border on self-exorcism. So it’s semi-logical he’d some day take this one-two combination of spleen-venting and soul-baring into that confessional rocker’s refuge known as The Acoustic Set. As the opening act Sunday at Club Lingerie, Forrest and his Monster partner, guitarist Mike Martt, at least showed they still had enough brain cells left to keep it under 20 minutes.

Forrest--looking suspiciously like Peter Case’s evil twin--may have learned his guitar lick from watching old Elvis Presley movies, but away from the Monster’s infamous wall o’ guitars, he proved to be a winsome, affecting vocalist, particularly on Bob Dylan’s classic plea for transcendence “I Shall Be Released.”

Along with Forrest’s customary seriocomic stage patter, the evening’s highlights ranged from an old Little Feat number to a “born-again Christian song” to several favorites from the Thelonious Monster songbook. It was all very autobiographical.