Also this issue:

Lefty Hooks
Lefty’s Deceiver picks up new tricks and throws down the rock on Cheats.
-John Vettese

The Folksman
The music world pays tribute to Philadelphia’s living legend Gene Shay.
-Mary Armstrong

Mallard Rising
Synth music avatar David Borden updates the Moog cookbook.
-A.D. Amorosi

Mary Bichner
-Patrick Rapa

Haley Bonar
-M.J. Fine

Mastodon
-Paul Burress

Adrian Crowley
-Sam Adams

The Party of Helicopters
-John Vettese

May 8-14, 2003

musicpicks

Fruit Bats

Like their namesake, Chicago's Fruit Bats may be small, but they can fly anywhere they please. It's a bit of a shock to shuffle through the press pack accompanying Mouthfuls (Sub Pop) and find a picture of only two people -- Eric Johnson and Gillian Lisee -- both because the last time they flapped through town the Bats all but filled The Khyber's stage (no mean feat in those days), and because two heads don't seem like enough to fuel this record's hothouse

creativity. From the rustic psychedelica of "Rainbow Sign" to the off-kilter ballad "Lazy Eye," Mouthfuls might be a metropolitan, millennial answer to Crowded House's Together Alone, a collection of languorous, lazy-day pop sounds that are more likely to dissolve in a wash of electronic squiggles than build to a rapturous climax. Take two and relax.

Fri., May 9, 10 p.m., $8, with Holopaw and Mono, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888.

—Sam Adams