CONCERT PREVIEW: CHANDLER TRAVIS @ CAFFE LENA 1/27/24

1 + 1 x 2 = Chandler Travis.

Saturday, Jan. 27 at Caffe Lena, Travis introduces not one but two new duos in what he calls Chandler Travis 2 by 2. It’s a return to the scene of the fun where he played with his (four-piece) Three-O in 2017; they also played the Hangar on the Hudson that same year.

A sweet-voiced hyper-imaginative and clever craftsman with heart-on-his-sleeve sincerity, Travis is a sort of musical Swiss Army knife. He makes pop, rock, and folkie-sounding fare, some with Frank Zappa-style jazz accents, and leads a bevy of bands.

Here’s how things add up.

The Buttercups are Travis singing and playing guitar, and maybe bass, with lanky groove drummer Rikki Bates, a longtime band mate in the seven-or-more-piece, often pajama-clad Chandler Travis Philharmonic. After a previous area Philharmonic show, I suggested, “Think Tower of Power waking up from a nap and ready to rock.”

Before that, Travis and Bates played in the three-piece Incredible Casuals who are to Cape Cod summers what Jimmy Buffett was to the Florida Keys. They play fun in the sun pop music, happy and light-hearted, though they’re more ambitious than simply sounding like sun-block smells. 

The third Casual, guitarist Johnny Spampinato, also played in NRBQ with his older brother Joey, ‘Q co-founder, bassist and singer Joey Spampinato. The brothers later played in Baby Macaroni, the Spampinato Brothers and recently in trumpeter-singer (and Joey’s wife) Kami Lyle’s Sing-A-While Band. A recent Boston show by this crew marked Joey’s return to the stage after a lingering illness.

Just as Travis’s bands have opened for many NRBQ shows, Travis and Steve Shook opened for comic George Carlin for years as Travis and Shook and the Club Wow. And, Lyle sometimes plays with the Philharmonic.

OK, back to now, to Saturday at Caffe Lena. 

Travis’s other new duo, dubbed Channy n Johnny, pairs Travis with studious-looking jazzy bassist John Clark, also a member of the Philharmonic, as well as the Three-O. Of this four-man crew, Travis asked, rhetorically, “What good is a Three-o with only three people?”

We know this new duo works from recent videos of Channy n Johnny (again, that’s Travis and Clark) in a 2019 London show. “Hold Me In Your Arms” is a jaunty falsetto love-song and “Born to Disappear,” a soulful ballad, actually features the whole (mostly pajama-clad, as usual) Philharmonic. But it’s also a duet; the rest of the Philharmonic stands or sits silent while Travis and Clark have their say.

There’s no video or audio available yet on the Buttercups, but Travis said they’ve started recording their debut album at Brick Hill in Orleans, Mass. (on the Cape), with John Evans producing. His credits include G. Love and Tori Amos.

Travis’s 50-plus albums feature projects with his Philharmonic, Three-O, the Incredible Casuals, the Catbirds, Lester (a band whose lifespan measured months, or minutes), the Travis and Shook duo, several compilations with his label mates on Sonic Trout Records plus collaborations with the similarly prolific, imaginative and accomplished Greenwich resident David Greenberger – “Bocce and Bourbon: The Comforting Songs of Chandler Travis and David Greenberger.” Albums erupt from his imagination so quickly it’s hard to keep up, even with such vividly titled efforts as “The Dog Ate My Album” or “The Ivan Variations.” Challenged to play the same song over and over, Travis led a mini-orchestra with strings and horns in 13 attacks on the same tune. Its cover resembles those of the classy German classical label Deutsche Grammaphon Gesellschaft. If that sounds like Zappa-esque lampooning, Travis goes for the playful rather than the polemical, light-hearted and not heavy-handed. 

Asked how he decides which band gets which songs to play, Travis replied, “My songs aren’t written for any particular band, they seem to just show up, sometimes demanding particular instrumentation, and sometimes you really don’t know what to do with them.” He said, “The latter situation can be particularly interesting, and, if you’re lucky, sometimes leads to new bands, dammit.” He then speculated, “It’s possible I’m over my quota.” 

Comparing his two duos in Saturday’s Chandler Travis 2 by 2 he said, “Channy n Johnny, with longtime string bassist John Clark, quiet, acoustic, and dignified; and the Buttercups, with legendary Casuals/Philharmonic drummist Rikki Bates, noisy, electric, and nuts… the ying-iest and the yang-iest!”

Showtime for Chandler Travis 2 by 2 is 8 p.m. Saturday at Caffe Lena (47 Phila St., Saratoga Springs). $23.41members, $26.41 general public, students $12.50. 518-583-0022 www.caffelena.org. Fans anywhere can stream the show live over caffelenatv.