POP REVIEW : Low-Tech Crash Test Dummies at the Whisky

The more the music world gets high-tech, the more there’s a place for low-tech. The more rappers and metal-heads scowl through life, the more there’s a place for happy hippies. In other words, there’s definitely a place now for Crash Test Dummies, a relatively low-tech, relatively happy-seeming Canadian folk-pop band that leaves all harshness in its name.

The only question left after the band’s pleasant, unpretentiously ingratiating show at the Whisky on Wednesday was whether it’s ready to take that place. As of now, the Winnipeg quintet comes up short of Austin’s Poi Dog Pondering, the leading light of neo-hippie-folk-pop. And there could well have been half-a-dozen acts playing Hollywood coffeehouses Thursday that have at least as much to offer.

The grabber in the Dummies is singer-songwriter Brad Roberts’ voice, a low rumble that bears an uncanny resemblance to Iggy Pop’s and is as much a contrast to the rest of the sound as the band’s name. Benjamin Darvill’s mandolin and harmonica and Ellen Reid’s harmony vocals, keyboards and occasional penny whistle provided the musical color, and on “Here on Earth,” perhaps the band’s best song, the Dummies achieved what Roberts termed “rhythm and blues-Celtic fusion.”