A few moments with The Crabs

Yes, the Crabs are the most affable band in American music today. Yes, their latest K Records album Brainwashed is chock full of verse-chorus-verse lovelies. Yes, the promo photos show that guitarist Jonn and drummer Lisa are utter cupcakes. Yes, they've made the excellent choice to join Providence's Purple Ivy Shadows and our very own floorpilers at a concert in the TD common room this evening. But...can they bake a cherry pie?

The Crabs

Yes. Not only do the Crabs cook, they actually cook.

"We met through a mutual friend in the winter of '92," Jonn explained in a recent phone interview. "We both came over to bake a pie. I noticed that Lisa had a drum set." "And I noticed that Jonn was cute and made a really good pie," Lisa added. They've been rocking and rolling and shaking and baking ever since.

"Actually," Lisa said, "we've cooked a lot this tour. A pumpkin pie made with fresh pumpkin and a few cobblers, berry and peach." If their desserts are half as tasty as their latest album, fans would do well to stay after the show and beg for recipes.

Brainwashed, the group's second CD, distills the bittersweetness of unattainable crushes and difficult loves into a batch of two- to three-minute pop confections. On the title track, Jonn laments the futility of unrequited love: "Recognize me coming down the block, / I say hello but she won't even stop." Ouch. Impressively, Jonn manages to sound hopelessly lovelorn while conveying the sense that he really ought to know better. His voice is an amazing conduit for emotional truth. Lisa's lilting vocals put her heart on her sleeve (and mine in my throat) as well.

But the Crabs are equally sincere and evocative on the album's two instrumental songs. In the slow-dancing "Prom Night," a deliciously simple sax solo reminds me of streamer-laden high school gymnasiums, chiffon dresses, and a head rested on the shoulder of a date who you think you might almost love, maybe. Sigh.

Lovely though these songs are individually, they work particularly well because the Crabs have enough sense to occasionally lay their heartfeltness aside, turn up their amps, dig into the instruments, and play some punky rock and roll. Of course one would expect such versatility from a band which cites the Jam, Curtis Mayfield, Stereolab, Barry White, and the Smiths as its beloved inspirations.

A tune entitled "Jean-Paul Sartre" is likely the album's lyrical standout. It discusses Ameri-gallic cultural differences and the social role of literary figures. But bright guitar and a "ba-ba-de-da" chorus erase any suggestion of the Crabs as une bande pretentieuse. In the last verse, Jonn sings, "Yeah he won the Nobel prize, / Beat out all the other guys. / Took a chance with Libations. / All he sees are crustaceans."

When asked to explain this enigmatic last line both Crabs began to laugh. "This is a story we like to tell a lot," Lisa said. "We have this friend, two friends actually, who're really familiar with Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir," Jonn said. "They told us how Sartre once OD'd on some mescaline and hallucinated for several months that he was being followed around Paris by crabs and other crustaceans." The anecdote clearly demanded a song.

Incidentally, the band is named the Crabs for the seafood and not the nasty venereal disease. "A lot of people interpret it the wrong way," Jonn said. "Not that we're offended," Lisa assured. The name stems from Jonn's former career as a fisherman and the early incarnation of the Crabs as a surf-rock band.

When not inspiring visions of sugar plums in boys' and girls' heads, Lisa works for an environmental organization and Jonn helps small communities combat racism and anti-semitism. "Basically," Lisa said, "we're a band you can bring home to Mom and Dad." "Unless Mom and Dad are really right wing," Jonn cautioned.

But the Crabs promise to bring temporary crab tattoos for all concertgoers, regardless of political affiliation.