[A bunch of crap about Brian Setzer snipped...]

Incognito at the back of the room that night were Setzer's labelmates Rocket from the Crypt, who know a few things about Elvis fixations, matching outfits, and rock-and-roll horns. They were in town to play at the Middle East the following night, where, clad in leopard-print shirts and flanked by two huge tiger's-head murals, they pounded out more than an hour's worth of prime R&B- and soul-inflected punk rock, beefing up the greaser/doo-wop-influenced hardcore as done by the Misfits with sax and trumpet straight out of Memphis's Stax and the Motor City. "We got into town yesterday and it was the hottest day in Boston history," cracked sideburned frontman Speedo in his jive-ass MC dialect. "And that's no coincidence, 'cause whenever we get to town, the temperature goes through the roof." Some of Speedo's more gratuitous ramblings had even his bandmates wincing, but the group had the piss and venom and heat to back them up.

Although they eventually reached back to '92's Circa: Now! (Headhunter) for "Sturdy Wrists," and to their 1995 major-label debut, Scream, Dracula, Scream (Interscope), for "Stuck in the Middle/Born in '69," they stuck mainly to material from their new RFTC. Streamlined into short volcanic bursts loaded with ridiculously catchy choruses and cathartic group harmonies, it's a leaner, meaner album than the layered, Phil Spector-style orchestral overkill of Dracula. And live the band hit early with RFTC's most turbocharged material: the searing three-chord, amphetamine-laced punk-rock-and-roll "I Know"; "Break It Up," with its sly "Jailhouse Rock" references; the teenage crime-wave soundtrack "Panic Scam"; the punkified roller-rink disco soul of "Made for You." After a brief respite during the lascivious frustrated-boyfriend come-on "Let's Get Busy" -- masquerading as a gentle, hand-holding soul ballad -- it was back into overdrive on the rumbling, obscene "Dick on a Dog" and the album's (actually sweet-themed) anthemic first single, "Lipstick." Nothing special, really -- just another stop for a group who, for all the flash of their matching suits, are simply one of the best no-nonsense rock-and-roll bands playing.