Pop Music Reviews : Feelies Build Up a Head of Steam at the Roxy

How fitting that the Feelies played the Stones’ “Paint It Black” and the Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat” during their Roxy set on Tuesday. As their forebears the Velvets had done in the kaleidoscopic ‘60s, the Feelies, starting in the late ‘70s, stripped the color from the music of their day, reducing punk and new-wave styles to basic blacks, whites and grays. But at the Roxy, many colors burst forth at once in an often dynamic show.

The brightest tones came from other artists’ songs and obvious references to the Feelies’ touchstones: Besides the Stones and the Velvets there was Neil Young (a sparkling version of his “Barstool Blues”), and the Feelies established a new land speed record with the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer,” only to break it with the Beatles’ “Everybody’s Got Something to Hide (Except for Me and My Monkey)” and Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner.”

By comparison, much of the band’s own material seemed static and sterile. Still, a series of songs toward the end of the 90-minute show built an impressive head of steam behind group founders Bill Million and Glenn Mercer.

The two hunched over their microphones when singing, jerked backward and forward alternately while not, all the while beating out interlocking primal rhythms on their guitars, matching the manic twitches of percussionists Stanley Demeski and Dave Weckerman. At its peak it was like a Sufi dervish ritual in hyperdrive.

The Chickasaw Mudd Puppies’ opening set was much less compelling, coming off like a teaming of John Fogerty and Jethro Bodine. Guitarist Ben Reynolds played like a real swamp-rocker, but singer Brant Slay--sitting in a rocker, stompin’ rhythm on a board--looked like an actor playing a hillbilly.