ASYLUM STREET SPANKERS

A schizophrenic, engrossing po-mo jug band

By COLIN ASHER

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Take some Robert Johnson, a little Muddy Waters, some B-52's, a pinch of Prince, a sprinkle of washboard bluegrass and a dash of early, beat-boxing hip-hop. Throw it in a blender and the viscous, yet buoyant result might sound something like the Asylum Street Spankers.

"We play a very schizophrenic mix of music," singer Christina Marrs says. Marrs has been with the band since its inception, 14 years ago. She is one of only two remaining original members: dozens of musicians have come and gone since the group was established. The Spankers, founded in 1994, began touring in 1997. Eleven years in, they are still on the road a grueling 140 days a year, driving up, down and across the country. On their current tour, they'll see Texas, Ohio, Washington, Idaho and, this Wednesday, Cambridge.

ASS also have an engrossing stage presence. This time out, the group is touring with seven musicians and a two-person road crew. No doubt Passim's stage will be filled with a menagerie of instruments, from ukuleles to guitars, washboards and harmonicas, bass guitars and drums ... all played by musicians from far-flung locales, recruited through word of mouth and advertisements in alt-weeklies, and sometimes even auditioned by telephone. Their shared, eclectic and seemingly incongruous musical taste draws them together.

A Spankers' show has a crowded stage and a quiescent audience. For years, they were known for playing without the benefit of microphones or amplification. They live-mix their instruments, which requires their audiences to "tune their ears to what we're playing," Marrs explains. As their venues got larger, they made a concession to technology and began miking vocals, but they are still "as quiet as the room allows us to be," she says. "We turn every room into a listening room."

Founded after a late-night jam session, held near the former locale of Austin's state mental hospital (hence "Asylum Street"), the band is a collective of proficient and enthusiastic players, or "spankers." Almost as difficult as describing the troupe is listing the band's influences: Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Bessie Smith, Johnny Cash, the Violent Femmes, ad infinitum. "You'd need a paragraph to explain it," Marrs says. "I've never been able to come up with a three-word catchphrase that really describes us." So far, the best description she's read? "Post-modern jug band."

However you describe them, the Spankers have something for everyone. "We're the kind of band that your parents would like, and you'd like too," she says. What you won't find is ... too much solemnity. While they have oodles of respect for the music they play, they play it their way, and never too seriously. "It's hard to walk the line we walk between reverence and novelty," Marrs says, "but we do. We're not purists. We'll play anything.

"We don't give a damn."

ASYLUM STREET SPANKERS

WITH CARSIE BLANTON

WEDNESDAY 7.30.08

CLUB PASSIM

47 PALMER ST., HARVARD SQ.

CAMBRIDGE

617.492.7679

8PM/ALL AGES/$23 MEMBERS, $25 GUESTS

CLUBPASSIM.ORG

ASYLUMSTREETSPANKERS.COM