Fri. Oct. 10

The biggest band on the Cape - well,they certainly have a lot of players - is back at what used to be Toast and is now Precinct in Somerville's Union Square, Friday Oct. 10.  It's the wild bunch known as the Chandler Travis Philharmonic. What gives the CTP its appeal? Says Travis: "The Chandler Travis Philharmonic is a band that has grown accustomed to being detained. Their magical mixture of Ray Davies' steadfast provinciality, Charo's gelatinous combustibility and Hopalong Cassidy's swarthy good looks has been drawing the kind of crowd that prefers unpredictability to being set aflame and cast into a pit of angry rodents." Some of this maybe true, some not. Travis continues, "The band is concentrating more lately on frolics, rhumbas, and  indecipherable mumbling, and that the horn section (the June Trailer Dancers, led as always by maverick saxophonist Mark Chenevert), has been paying a lot more attention to its gardening, despite the nasty weather. The band has just come off the cancellation of a tour to Memphis, in which they almost played in Washington DC, Asheville, NC, and Worcester, MA; as usual, the condition of drummist Rikki Bates is described as "stable, with squirrels." Do you need more enticement?" Let's just say jazz, pop, lounge music and all kinds of genres get scrambled up in the CTP's hands and the singer can be counted upon to be barefoot and pajama clad. Ready for bed it migh seem, but not really: This is his stage uniform. He's ready to perform. Should get under way around 9.

70 Union Square, Somerville, 617-623-9211 www.theprecinctbar.com