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12
TUESDAY
Go to an Asylum Street Spankers show and shut up. This Austin, Texas-based group draws big, rowdy crowds fueled by songs about boozin’, ballin’, and tokin’—and plays entirely without amplification. It works: The audience becomes a well-timed part of the show, quiet for Christina Marrs’ purring vocals, laughing at the wordplay of madman Wammo, and cheering for solos by the likes of violinist Korey Simeone, clarinetist Stanley Smith, and D.C. guitarist Nevada Newman (the Resonators), who joined in July. The Spankers cook up a sort of punked-up hot jazz that’s seldom merely gimmicky: Despite having done a whole album of songs about intoxicants (2000’s Spanker Madness), the band is as far from slackerdom as it is from getting an invitation to a White House lunch. Listen for the swingin’ medley of “It’s Tight Like That” and Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died,” buy its newest, My Favorite Record, and unplug all appliances when the band plays at 8:30 p.m. at IOTA, 2832 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. $14. (703) 522-8340. (Pamela Murray Winters)