POP MUSIC REVIEW : College-Level Neo-Toga Rock

The animals were in the house at Club Lingerie, as two leaders from the latest fraternity of college-level goofball bands played their neo-toga rock.

Double D Nose might perceive itself as a shotgun wedding between Metallica, James Brown and the Beastie Boys, but it’s more like the Blues Brothers from Hell. Talk about your unlikely frontmen: 90-pound weakling Daniel Weizman (a.k.a local underground rock critic Shredder) snarled and screamed and grabbed his crotch, playing the hyperactive foil to Josh Schreiber (son of comedian Avery Schreiber), a Yeti-like apparition in bad platforms and old Cheap Trick tour jacket.

Pledging allegiance to their special brand of funk and rapping about the pleasures of preschool Monday night, this bizarre duo managed to get by on sheer panache and the vise-tight backing of a seven-piece band complete with snappy horn section, bodacious female singers and a trio of long-haired rock dudes. Double D Nose is an animated cartoon, more silly putty than def jam, and a perverse assault on preconceived notions of how rock/rap/funk performers are supposed to be.

Dread Zeppelin manages to milk a whole set out of a single concept: a bad fat Elvis imitator fronting a band playing reggae versions of Led Zeppelin songs. It’s initially a big hoot that becomes numbingly predictable--you just know this group will do “Stairway to Heaven” for an encore. And they do. All that was missing was Jaye P. Morgan striking the gong. The sextet has already developed a rabid following, though, which is more culturally ironic than anything in Dread Zeppelin’s one-joke pastiche.