POP MUSIC REVIEW : Mary’s Danish Serves Originality at Troubadour

In opening a sold-out four-night stand at the Troubadour on Sunday night, the celebrated local band Mary’s Danish didn’t do Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxey Lady,” formerly a staple of its live set and an inclusion on both its two latest records. Instead, front-women Julie Ritter and Gretchen Seager found an even funnier gender-ignorant cover choice to wrap up with: the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man.”

Which they aren’t, of course--not even in figurative rock ‘n’ roll spirit. Ritter and Seager, who’ve obviously taken certain feminine/ feminist cues from shrill-but-winsome stage-setter Exene Cervenka, nonetheless don’t look or act like any other rock figures, not even other women rock figures.

Alternating or sharing lead vocals, these two trade in an almost workmanlike (workwomanlike?) aggressiveness that’s the de rigeur post-punk stage stance. Yet they also project pieces of both the maturity that’s creeping up on them and the over-ironic college girl that’s not long behind them. In other words, they’re more or less originals, and definitely a kick.

It certainly doesn’t hurt that behind them they have a band that’s as engaging on instrumentals (the fusion riff “Mr. Floosack” and the sax-driven rave-up “Tracy in the Bathroom Kicking Thrills,” both from the new grab-bag album “Circa”) as on those numbers predominately awash in harmony.

Bassist Wag (who bared the scar from his recent hip-replacement operation, showing those who went to his benefit concert “what you invested your money in”) played in the locally ever-popular slap-funk style. Meanwhile, his hard-hitting companions concentrated on metal, psychedelia, moody ‘70s rock stylings and--in “Venus Loves Leonard” and the double-time chorus of the controversial “Axl Rose Is Love”--classic X-style punk.

A great sense of dynamics, a passing thrashiness even more fun than the cleanly mixed album, the portent that this is a band that’ll get much better before it gets worse, and a bargain-hunter’s attention-grabbing $7 door price . . . Mary’s Danish is love?