Do That Voodoo

While a helluva lot of music from the 1990s really sucked (Spice Girls, Ace of Base, all those boy bands), one brief moment toward the end of the decade caused mainstream robots to wrap their heads around the Swing Revival movement. With the indie film Swingers re-defining cool and raking it in at the box office, bands such as ’40s/’50s kingpins Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the ’20s delta swingers Squirrel Nut Zippers were suddenly propelled to the top of everybody’s playlist. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy hit hardest and regularly played the Derby in Silver Lake, where guys and dolls threw one another around the dance floor to “You & Me & the Bottle Makes Three”—desperate to undo years of ’80s pogoing and skip-dancing and actually learn something fancy. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy are now mostly relegated to the symphony circuit, but so what? They’re here to play, not pump out fad records. Get your pinstriped suit, and go, daddy, go!
Wed., Dec. 17, 8 p.m., 2008