From the piney backwoods between Billy Bragg and Captain Beefheart come Los Duggans, an electric folk-punk-blues foursome burning through murder ballads (a fearsome “Pretty Polly”) and urging workers to “rise up!” That exact kind of thing got Joe Hill and Upton Sinclair arrested—and then made them famous—and so naturally it works great for a hard-charging rock ‘n’ roll band, too. The Monks’ banjo masher Dave Day and the ferocious latter-day Link Wray (whose ripping country-rock albums on Polydor Los Duggans must surely know and love) would both find things be proud of in the Duggans’ new Hard Ways. Like the man once said, there is pow’r in a band of workingmen.
Sat., Aug. 15, 9 p.m., 2009
