The Primate Fiasco is not your usual band. They take Dixieland instrumentation and lay down a mean old-school New Orleans groove, but they also tackle more modern sounds, even straying into a euphoric brand of funk. Their originals are often beautifully delivered tunes that refuse to fit into easy categories; one particularly lovely number sounds something like Fisherman's Blues-era Waterboys, only with, well, banjo and tuba.
At the Iron Horse this Saturday night, Feb. 16, the simian escapade on tap is a Primate take on the entirety of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It's an unusual undertaking, not quite like a tribute, not as easy as a cover or two. It's also one of the only passable excuses for trying to cover the Beatles in an era when nearly every kind of Beatles sound has been strip-mined of all its important elements and/or covered to death. Much seems possible when thinking of "A Day in the Life" with banjo.
Many a tribute effort falls far short of the original (it's a little-known truth that every time a Tom Waits song is covered, somewhere, an accordion dies). But if anyone can walk this particular tightrope successfully, it is the Valley's finest sonic antidote to feeling low. Here's wishing them the best of monkey luck.
