Ian Svenonius is an artist in the truest sense of the word. Regularly described (endearingly) as a mouthpiece and even "slyly legendary," Svenonius has written books and hosted online talk shows, but is best known for fronting bands that teetered on the artistic ledge, from his first D.C. outfit Nation of Ulysses, which made it its goal to destroy the "corrupt medium" of rock and roll, to the Make Up and the band's self-ascribed genre "Gospel Yeh-Yeh," to Cupid Car Club, to Weird War, to his newest incarnation, Chain and the Gang - which incorporates a strict set of musical rules that materialize into familiar, reductionist, prison-blues tropes, a call and response backbone and a driving R&B feel.

But the band is as much - if not more - about the tongue in cheek, freedom is fucked message.

Chain and Gang - through Svenonius' still-prime sneer and swagger - emanate like a band that knows the score. Their main conceptual point: liberty breeds destruction in the form of "fast food, bad architecture, militarism and rampant greed." The Dream is a lost cause. Chain and the Gang have come to terms with this, and they're done playing. If this is what liberty is all about, they'd rather be locked up - and you can throw away the fucking.

Chain and the Gang

with Nightbeats, Basemint, DJ Dub Narcotic, Saturday, July 3, 9 p.m., $5
The New Frointier Lounge, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma
253.572.4020