Blues lucky for local band

Even when he was young, his tastes ran old.

"I was considered a weird guy in high school because of my musical choices, because I listened to Little Richard and Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. People were like, why are you listening to that?" Luke Metz says, smiling. "I just always wanted to put together a band that had the energy of punk rock, but that was playing blues and roots music, because there was no one really doing it."

Years later, Metz is a bassist and singer in said band, the bluesy, combustible The Lucky Cheats, a group that sounds as if they were born with the sole purpose of immolating juke joints on Saturday nights.

This Saturday at the Beauty Bar, The Lucky Cheats will release their debut record, "Sugar in the Tank," a raucous suite of jams overheated by frontman Jeff Koenig's hellfire harmonica, Wade Braggs' fleet, expressive guitar playing and drummer Joe Perv Mascolino's jazzy swing.

In true blues fashion, they sing of long nights, lonely highways and good things gone bad.

Mascolino grew up in Chicago, and the blues is in his blood. He cut his teeth playing such storied Windy City haunts as the Checkerboard Lounge, backing greats such as Junior Wells.

"I was rubbing elbows with the real deal," says Mascolino, a fast-talking, animated dude, attempting to talk over the din of an NBA telecast at a P.T.'s on a recent Tuesday night. "I didn't even realize what was up at the time."

He does now, as the Cheats are a synthesis of traditionalism and torque, their sound both vintage and visceral.

"There's a lot of guys who do the blues and they mix in the jam band stuff and Southern rock and stuff, and we don't do any of that," says the sturdily built Metz, clad in a black Nekromantix T-shirt. "We go farther back. With our originals, some of them are more contemporary in their sound, but they still have the roots in them."

As such, the Cheats have been able to gig at a wide range of venues, from blues festivals to punk dive the Double Down, country bars to casinos in Yuma, Ariz., fashion shows to opening for Social Distortion at the House of Blues.

Through it all, they retain an organic, uninhibited edge.

They may play hard, but they don't think hard.

"We're not calculated with what we're doing. We're just playing, you know?" Mascolino says. "It's the emotion, man. That's what the blues is supposed to be all about."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.