Spoon

Spoon trivia 101: The band appropriated its name from a song by German underground experimental (Kraut)rock icons Can. Spoon trivia 201: Front man Britt Daniel has long acknowledged the Austin band's debt to enigmatic art-punks Wire, whose jagged sensibility dominates 1998's criminally overlooked A Series of Sneaks. Of course, those beloved influences don't mean a thing when Daniel whips out the pop Picassos of 2001's beloved Girls Can Tell. Splitting the difference is last year's Kill the Moonlight, which managed to be both toe-tapping and artistically challenging at the same time. Daniel, right-hand man Jim Eno and company continue to tear it up on the highest level attainable (Merge Records) without bowing to the major-label hooligans. Opening are Spoon's promising Austin buds This Microwave World, a biting groove-fusion of postpunk (Wire, the Fall, Gang of Four) and New Wave. Zany locals Fishboy lead off.