On the opening track of Trees Without Leaves' album, Don't Say Uh Uh!, a master of ceremonies comes on to announce the band, in grand fashion, before they come barreling out in full, goofy force. The over-the-top blues rock of Trees Without Leaves is indebted to the similarly winking tradition of groups like Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, Tom Waits, and the bluesier elements of Captain Beefheart or, more recently, the positively hallucinatory soul of That Handsome Devil. The lead vocals of Stewie Crockett are howlingly absurd, hugely animated odes to those manic preachers that used to be spotted in stale, smoky nightclubs and barrooms lined with peanut shells. It's all a delirious mixture that lands somewhere in the area of doting homage and full-throated hysteria. 

[The New Frontier Lounge, with Midnight Salvage Co., the Purrs, 9 p.m., cover TBA, 301 E. 25^th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]