Anyone who's ever seen the Chandler Travis Philharmonic live knows that there's more to the band than its sound. Band members' penchant for wearing pajamas and boxer shorts, often accessorized with festive headgear, is an attention-grabber, for sure. Those who can get beyond the scruffy visuals are rewarded by the band's eclectic, all-over-the-map musical style.

"I hope we're going in all kinds of different directions at all times," said singer, guitarist, songwriter and bandleader Chandler Travis. "That's sort of been the design from the start." The CTP, which Travis, who is also a founding member of the Incredible Casuals, started up about six years ago. Whereas the Casuals are "semi-coherent," Travis, an Eastham resident, said the CTP was "an opportunity just to sprawl, see how many different things we can do."

"With this many guys," he said of the band, which includes eight musicians, most from the Boston area, "we have no hope of making any money, so we blow that off and just see what's the most fun we can have with eight musicians."

It's not easy to translate the random nonsense of the band's live shows to disc, but the CTP's last CD, "Llama Rhymes," does an admirable job. It arguably captures the band's eclecticism better than its first CD, "Let's Have A Pancake," which concentrated more on straight-ahead pop tunes and less on the sheer depth of musical variations the band is capable of.

The CTP will introduce the new CD Saturday, Feb. 15, at the Jailhouse Tavern in Orleans.

The 15 tracks on "Llama Rhymes" cut a wide swath through pop music, from the straightforward melodic jaunt of "Village of the Darned" to the stomping guitar grunge of "Mothra." In between, there's a rather caustic tribute to overbearing fathers, done in the band's trademark "alternative Dixieland" manner, the sweet lilting "Llama Rhymes with Mama," the ballad "Don't Come Near Me," and the silly cacophony of "Fluffy," about the scintillating subject of feline hygiene.

Along the way there are some great horn riffs, a few cool guitar solos, nifty backing vocals by Boston singers Ramona Silver and Bleu, and even a guest turn by comedian George Carlin.

"We've been friends for about 30 years now," Travis said of Carlin, whom Travis and then-partner Steve Shook used to open for on tour. Carlin does a "bizarro" monologue during the instrumental break in "Fluffy" during which he spouts a string of nonsense words. Because of Carlin's busy schedule, the recording was done over the telephone (he's credited as playing "phone" on the track). "I had a good time picturing him alone in his room doing that," Travis said. "He dug the idea of getting to be his own version a free jazz guy, which is what that is in a way."

The CD was actually finished a year or so ago. Because the band had a budget of zero, it took time to complete the mastering and do final touch-ups.

"I wish I could tell you that it was well thought-out, but it wasn't," Travis said. "We just booked some studio time. We had way too many songs, and went in with absolutely no plan." The band recorded as many songs as they could during their allotted time. There are about a half dozen songs that didn't make the final cut, as well as "odd little segments" Travis talks about putting out as a "bizarro" version of the album with the left-over material and other tidbits (you can tell he likes the term "bizarro," probably because it is sometimes applied to him and his bands).

The sorta title track was written by Travis for his mother's 80th birthday, which, to continue the bizarro trend, was celebrated in the south of France, because his mother wanted to be there for her 80th birthday. Since the celebration took place in France, it includes a line about the artist Matisse. "And the family was having a pony drawing contest, so there's a line about that. It was meant to be abstract and real at the same time," Travis explained, kind of.

The CD contains several instrumental tracks that represent various aspects of the "Llama" song. "When we were doing the mix, we dropped out the rhythm section of "Llama" and found that it was fun. That's part of the whole process with this band, figuring out you've got to have people not play. When you have eight guys, with three in the rhythm section, it's really important we not all be playing the same parts."

Travis hasn't played much recently due to an injured finger. The opportunity allowed him to act out the fantasy of being a lead singer. "It was a little excruciating, but I learned a lot. I found out there were songs I was completely not needed on. But you can't kill this band. One night, our bass player never showed up, and we were still good. If three of us get killed, there are still five great musicians," said Travis, who modestly calls himself the worst musician in the band.

Opening for the CTP Saturday at the Jailhouse will be Maybe Baby, featuring Jennifer Kimball of The Story and Ry Cavanaugh of the Vinal Avenue String Band. The folk-pop duo, who will be joined by drummer Billy Beard, have just released a CD, "What Matters."

Saturday's show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door.

He hates horns in rock 'n' roll, and thinks keyboards are "poofy." So in typical Chandler Travis fashion, he started a band with both. The Chandler Travis Philharmonic - replete with trumpet, alto and tenor sax, trombone, keyboards, mandolin, as well as the typical guitar, bass, drums and vocals (and comedian George Carlin on that oft-used instrument, the phone) -recently released its second formal album, "Llama Rhymes," one of the best, and most indescribable Cape Cod record releases in years, if not ever.

The nine-piece Philharmonic will play a record release party (along with the Boston-based band Maybe Baby, see story page 31) at 8 p.m. on Saturday at the Jailhouse Tavern, 28 West Road, Orleans. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the door.

Travis, who wrote nearly all of the CD's 15 songs, displays a pop sensibility often overlooked because he's, well, funny. But it's this combination that created an incredibly original band.

"It started from a joke really," he says. A mandolin-playing friend of Travis's runs a weekly show at the Lizard Lounge in Boston in which a guest star is invited and a back-up band assembled. Travis was asked to play and then asked what he'd like backing him up. "I don't know why I said [horns]. I always hated horn bands, too - and the thing I really hated was when the Rolling Stones and [other] old guys would add horns. It really doesn't add much to these rock 'n' roll bands. But why get stuck there," he says. And once the impromptu band began playing, he says, "Suddenly it was like, "Oh my god, this makes so many songs possible that weren't." I've always been in guitar bands all my life."

"Llama Rhymes" opens with "Village of the Darned," a straightforward, seriously infectious pop tune that has you singing and grooving along with it. Travis's signature combination of silliness and musicianship are perfectly melded in "Llama Rhymes with Mama." ("If you still don't care/ I'll comb my hair/ I'll buy a llama/ Cause nothing other rhymes with mother/ Like mama rhymes with llama.") Above all, the CD as a whole works. 

"Llama Rhymes" is an album Paul Westerberg could have written had he gone mad. "That's as good a way of saying it as any other," Travis responds. He admits that it is a difficult band to categorize. "It's tough on audiences and reviewers because they don't know what to do with it," he says, adding that it's just rock 'n' roll. "That's where I put it. - It's great artistically, but [the] sort [that] is a tough row to hoe financially. It makes it real clear what's important to me. I kind of kissed off making real money a long time ago."

Drummer Rikki Bates, who plays with Travis in The Incredible Casuals and in the new cover band The Unexceptionals, agrees there's no money in the Philharmonic but doesn't care. "I love this band, it's just a total blast to play in. Everyone we play with - it's just a blast to play with so many great musicians," he says. "The more musicians you have in a band, the less you should be playing, so it's a little bit tricky at first. You have to learn to hang back and let everybody have the spotlight."

The Philharmonic doesn't rehearse so there's continual improvisation. "We do a lot of stuff that's off the cuff, I never know what song is coming up next," says the cross-dressing Bates. "I think a lot of the people notice the comedy because you hit the audience in the head with that, but I think a lot of people don't notice the music. ... Really, the reason I always wanted to play with him is because the music is so strong." And lots of musicians feel that way. Bates says that the horn players in the Philharmonic are guys that make a good living playing music - they get paid a lot in every other working scenario but forgo the cash to play with Travis.

Even though Travis is traveling to Boston a lot to play with the Philharmonic - and there aren't a huge number of venues to play on Cape in the winter - Eastham is where he has comfortably called home for a couple of decades. "But it's gorgeous and it's cute, and I've got a lot of friends here, and there are a lot of great musicians," he says, adding at first he'd get real antsy and tired of seeing the same people every day. "That wore off. - Even my taste for going away isn't what it used to be. But, yeah, I pretty much am where I want to be. I like it out here." But the trip to Boston is still good. Travis writes songs in his head on the ride."The only thing that bothers me is having to play too long without any new pieces of material. So I'm always putting things in way too early, and also because the Philharmonic doesn't rehearse," says Travis. "I always want there to be some improvising along with some really tight s--t." And, he promises, that's what you'll get Saturday night. Along with some silliness, of course.

Cape Cod-based Chandler Travis is a rock 'n' roll Britannica. He gleefully catalogs one vintage style after another on this never-a-dull-moment outing by his horn-propelled, eight-piece-plus-guests Philharmonic.

After nimbly picking the pockets of such rock luminaries as Ray Davies (``My Old Man'') and Nick Lowe (``Sha La La''), among others, Travis and company move on to ransack the treasuries of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Sun Ra in a zonked-out style Travis has dubbed ``alternative Dixieland.''

Much has been made of Travis' nutty sense of humor - but Travis is obviously - and audibly - dead serious about his music. Wednesday at the Lizard Lounge, Cambridge.

KEVIN R. CONVEY

If Chandler Travis has a problem with his music's being categorized as "zany" or "wacky" - adjectives he especially detests - that's his own fault. His long-time band the Incredible Casuals have blended comic wordplay - even in the service of serious numbers - and deft rock musicianship for years; listeners can't be faulted if it's the comedy that sticks with them. This time around, however, the music takes the lead; credit Travis's decision to stop working his vocal phrasing for laughs, but also the abilities of his big band, which formed a half-decade ago around a residency at Cambridge's Lizard Lounge.

With a horn-and-reed section, timpani, mandolin, and accordion augmenting a basic rock rhythm section, this disc has an ambitious scope. Sometimes the line-up sounds like a New Orleans street-parade band; sometimes there's a textural sweep that swells with the urgency of Travis's singing. And there are pure instrumentals, like the disc's short intro and outro numbers, and " . . . Or Alabama Either," which plays like contemplative jazz pianist Bill Evans jamming with a horn section after a long, bourbon-fueled night. But even on this largely sober album, which addresses his troubled relationships with his father ("My Old Man"), the agony of perpetual heartache (the prickly XTC-like "Village of the Darned"), and other issues, Travis can't resist numbers like "Fluffy," a careering rocker where he asks "how do you keep yourself so regular" and croons about personal hygiene.

BY TED DROZDOWSKI

NRBQ fans should not miss it- his DIY spirit is as strong as R. Stevie Moore's. Chandler Travis is known as a legendary singer-songwriter of Cape Cod, and through his work with the Incredible Casuals with Johnny Spampinato (NRBQ). This is a new album of his "Omni-Pop" Arkestra. At first glance you may be surprised at their weird, cool, and strange world, but soon you'll be fascinated by the charm of the songwriting (which may remind you of Elvis Costello); then you will have big fun with the co-existence of free noise and melancolic jazz-pop, and with the humor of a cult glam-rock show.

This is just a great omni-pop record.

You can argue all you want that Chandler has an unimpressive vocal range, or that his multiple-personality disorder Dixieland sometimes verges on miasmic and bizarre, or that his serial release of 24 CDs was self-indulgent, or that his studio work seems padded with three-quarters-realized ideas, in which classical simplicity and sheer songwriting talent are often buried beneath mounds of instrumental tomfoolery. Or that the band sounds an awful lot like The Kinks circa Muswell Hillbillies ("My Old Man"), or XTC circa Oranges and Lemons (the instrumentally brilliant and lyrically witty "Village of the Darned").

But take "Weasel Don't Be Mean," an intriguing mix of Andy Partridge and Don Cherry. Take "...Or Alabama Either," which belongs on a high-quality jazz anthology. Or "Not Unhappy," an instant classic on par with "Listen, People" by the Young Rascals. Say what you will about TCTP, they are frighteningly versatile, and many of their arrangements are almost symphonically meticulous and complex (when they are not indulging in free jazz monstrosities like "Mothra," or the insanely cracked "Fluffy"). They may maul a multitrack studio like it's a cheap toy, but at least they manhandle it inventively, if, sometimes, perhaps a tad too ingeniously. (Francis DiMenno)

As good a time as most NRBQ records, friends (and not only because Joey Spampinato appears on a track). 

A good time is what's promised here, but note that Llama Rhymes isn't some mere novelty record. Sure, things can get a little wacky but Travis can indeed write a melody that can get you either singing along or inspire you to get up on the dance floor (living room floor, bedroom floor, whatever). "Village Of The Darned" is testimony to this, from it's memorable hooks to it's hooky chorus. "Sha La La (Lover's Heart)" perfectly melds pop and ska, while "You Hurt Me" is a hypnotic piece of pop with some really inspired guitar effects. "Did You Ever Know" deserves special mention as well - heck, this one could've been a Costello outtake circa Imperial Bedroom.

The gang rock out harder on "Weasel Don't Be Mean", and also make fine use of a great horn section. Actually, the horns on Lllama Rhymes deserve much attention - alternating from a loose dixieland feel ("My Old Man") to adding controlled chaos to songs like "Fluffy". As you can tell by the song tiles, there's a lot of fun to be had here as well.

A most pleasant surprise. Prepare to be hooked.

(* * * out of 5) 

Claudio Sossi 

I love seeing the Chandler Travis Philharmonic live. They have a wide-awake presence, even if they wear pajamas on stage. Individually, they are some of the area's finest musicians, but together they add up to something so much better. Bandleader Chandler Travis gets credit for finding such great musicians who love to play, for writing incredibly fun songs and for doi ng the choreography of who/when/what. But ultimately, CTP is a team effort. Chandler, who also leads The Casuals, "oohs and ahs" about his luck with bandmates. "People like Keiichi, Keith and Rikki are all absolute geniuses as far as I'm concerned. Dinty is my absolute soul mate, and Mark Chenevert has been absolutely invaluable leading the horn section; and John is so quick - they all are, really - that we're able to do stuff amazingly well completely off the cuff, or at least off the charts, which I never used to write in The Casuals. All this is a miracle to me." 

There have been CTP shows when I've had to force myself to go out, times I've been down in the dumps. But by mid-show I'm dancing, singing along and tapping my feet. The best thing I find about CTP is, quite simply, they make me happy. CTP's music is self-described as "Alternative Dixieland." It reminds me of an old-fangled big band. Imagine a 1930s big band playing rock & roll, dixie, blues and everything in-between, being led by the crooner of all local crooners, Chandler himself. The ever-changing three-piece horn section blows strong and in perfect coordination with each other and, in addition, are on-the-spot backup singers. Drummer Rikki Bates drums with passion, always wearing an enormous smile while she plays. 

Unpeeling the wrapper of CTP's Llama Rhymes, I was anticipating a lot. CTP has put out some mind-blowing CDs, and I didn't expect the band to let me down. LR went into my old Sony. First, I heard a single horn, and, I must admit, it kind of annoyed me. But it took a mere second and a half for the band to join in and fill my ears with happy sounds. My personal favorites are "My Old Man" and the newest version of "Fluffy," with special guest stars Suzi Lee, Ramona Silver and (long-time pal of Chandler) George Carlin all chiming in. There is plenty of variety within the 15-song CD, from kooky to sentimental to down right bizarre, and a sort of psychedelic nostalgia feel. It's all very much its own wacky cartoon world. But we're invited in. 

What's the craziest story you have about touring with CTP?
Dinty Childs: The night we played at Tipitina's in New Orleans with Ernie-K-Doe and Aaron Neville. There was a typhoon raging outside, the place was packed and going nuts, waving towels, the whole bit. Water started coming under the door. We loaded out in the heaviest rain I've ever seen, drove through about a foot and a half of water, hit a manhole blown open by the flood and cracked the front wheel bearing on the van. I recall the night evolved into a lot of beer drinking (it's the law in New Orleans). God, I love New Orleans.

What are both your favorite and least favorite things about Chandler?
Bob Pilkington: Best: his charts. Worst: his charts. His charts are cryptic. It takes a few times playing before you figure them out. But if you don't like what he wrote, you can play whatever you want. That's the magic of the band; Chandler's cool about that.

If you could have three wishes for the band, what would they be?
Ken Field: 1) Health and happiness for all the band members, friends and fans; 2) Lots of people get to hear the new CD; and 3) We all just get along.

Chandler Travis made his reputation, first as a comic, then as the leader of The Incredible Casuals, a band beloved in its native New England. Travis' latest venture is his most twisted and rewarding - and that is really saying something. The Philharmonic is a gathering of musical friends, harmless wackos, singing valets, expatriate classical and jazz musicians, a couple of Casuals, some members of NRBQ and, on the band's new disc, Llama Rhymes, old friend George Carlin. 

Llama Rhymes is a strange, wonderful, totally distinct ode to musical mastery and nonsense that recalls many things and resembles none of them. Imagine Andy Partridge of XTC and Beat poet Gregory Corso, each addled by mind-altering substances, wandering between Saturn and New Orleans to sit in with the Sun Ra Arkestra - and maybe a Dixieland band or a drunken polka band.

And that just scratches the surface.

Don't be afraid. This music is BIG fun. It's nonfattening. And it's good for head and soul. A couple of songs - "Village of the Darned" and "Weasel Don't Be Mean" - are so melodically developed and catchy that radio could conceivably play the songs, if not for the zany horn arrangements and lyrics that are obtuse, at least by the normal standards that this music so wonderfully skewers. 

The standout tracks are the stuff of legend - "My Old Man," a wonderfully wacky (dig the acoustic-guitar playing during the inebriated Dixieland break) take on fatherly advice. Then there is "Fluffy," a fabulous spastic sing-along ode to the personal hygienic habits of the family cat that, in the Philharmonic tradition, colors way outside the musical lines to create chaotic art that is at once simple, abstract and wondrous to behold. 

Llama Rhymes is a musical misadventure, pop music that is incredible, made to leave the listener incredulous, and created under the influence of humor, and, God forbid, intelligence. 

It's getting increasingly hard to hear any new music on the radio that isn't cynically-packaged, constructed and corporate, yet there's a whole lot of exciting stuff being recorded out there that covers a wide range of idioms : Rock, Bluegrass, Blues, Roots, Jazz, Dance etc. Apart from deejays like Charlie Gillett, Ross Allen and Sean Rowley there's hardly anyone playing anything contemporary and 'left-field,' or interesting and old (but enough about me ha ha) so, without trying to be a "Mojo" obsessive and crawling up my own fundament,  I'll let you know what I'm currently listening to and you can suggest records that hold interest for you be they current, brilliant, trashy or downright hilarious. You know what I like! Let's Get ProActive, Motherflippers!......

w/c 20.1.03 

(2) "LLAMA RHYMES" by The Chandler Travis Philharmonic (Sonic Trout) 
A free burn-off from KS and eclectic - what a copout that word is! - rag bag of XTC, Salvation Army band, cool ballads and cameos from George Carlin and suchlike.

THE CHANDLER TRAVIS PHILHARMONIC

"Let's Have a Pancake!"

Sonic Trout

It seems that Chandler Travis, best remembered, if remembered at all, for his cheery stints with Travis Shook and the Incredible Casuals, has finally stumbled upon his true calling: big bandleader. Granted, his eight-piece Philharmonic isn't big in size so much as it is big in sound and spirit, realms in which size really does matters.

On "Let's Have a Pancake," Travis plays frontman to a joyous band of horn-powered noisemakers who merrily skirt along the fringes of pop and jazz and occasionally indulge in enough New Orleans polyphony to warrant the title "world's only alternative Dixieland band." It's not surprising that NRBQ vets Terry Adams and Al Anderson contribute to the party, but even when left to its own pop vices, the Philharmonic delivers a blaring and rambunctious good time, thanks in part to multi-instrumentalist Dinty Child, drummer Rikki Bates and trumpeter Keiichi Hashimoto.

Orchestrating every mood, though, is Travis, with his engagingly old-fashioned and tuneful croon, his amusing tales of misadventures ("That's What She Said"), his alternately wry and sentimental lyrics ("Stay Like That") and his knack for making lighthearted music seem impossible to dismiss or resist. "Pancake" ultimately leaves you wishing for extra helpings and the chance to hear the Philharmonic in concert.

-- Mike Joyce

Appearing Friday at IOTA with Last Train Home. - To hear a free Sound Bite from the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, call Post-Haste at 202/334-9000 and press 8112. (Prince William residents, call 690-4110.)

With his grandly named Chandler Travis Philharmonic , Incredible Casuals' mainstay Travis unveils the long-sought (by me anyway) link that connects NRBQ, They Might Be Giants, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Some have labeled the sax-, trumpet-, and trombone-drenched pop found on Let's Have A Pancake! "alternative Dixieland," but I just call it good, clean, horny fun. Adding to the NRBQ ambiance are guest appearances from Terry Adams on "What'll It Be," which sounds like Randy Newman auditioning for the Q, and Al Anderson on the tasty "Got to Let Go Sometime." And, okay, adding fuel to the alternative Dixieland fire is a romp through "Hello Dolly" that's sneaks in between a couple cuts. Best of all is the goofy sing-along "Chandler Travis, King of the World." When you have your own Philharmonic, there's very little room for modesty.

The Chandler Travis Philharmonic - Let's Have a Pancake! 

By: Ben Ohmart (Assistant Editor) 
2000-10-24 

Artist: (www.sonictrout.com/bands/chandler/) 
Title: Let's Have a Pancake! 
Genre: Rock? 

Don't ask me what the title of the cd means - I don't know! All I know is that after 50 minutes of Chandler, I'm not sure where to place him. He goes all over the musical map, sharing a lot in common with Frank Zappa because of the humor, breadth and big band-rock format he brings to modern audiences. Whereas FZ was king of guitar and funk of the 70s, this Philharmonic glides in with an alternative voice at the front, and pulls from the 60s and the 90s with equal socket-wrenching force. Like the Beatles band stepping in front of an orchestra (or more rightly, The Who's Tommy), Chandler's buddies sound mainly like an alt-rock band that happens to step in front of accordion, mandolin, enough horns to stop an elephant, and the occasional frolicking harmonies. 

Yeah, 'Crab Napkin' might be the modern equivalent to Frankie or one of your crooners in the 40s standing before the mic with brass blowing up his ass from behind. It's all pop, it's all to entertain, but I think I'll take the CTP's update, since they take more chances and really screw around with the formula of songs. Hell, they even do an unlisted cover of 'Hello, Dolly'. 

But my favorites have to be the quirky 'Stay Like That' and 'Baby Come Get Your Cat'. Songs that really define a situation; and situations that haven't been gone over and over and over in the tired realm of love. I applaud you people!! 

The Chandler Travis Philharmonic 
Let's Have a Pancake! 
Sonic Trout, 1999

She said, "He's crazy, I can't take a second more of this, dammit." 
                                                                                    -- "That's What She Said," Chandler Travis 

It's a sweltering May afternoon, the kind of day when it feels like even the trees must be sweating. Against all better judgment, you're outdoors - under a tent, in fact, tucked down along the edge of the Sacramento River on opening day of the annual jazz jubilee. A Dixieland jazz band is assembling on the modest stage in front of you just now, clean-cut, pin-striped gentlemen in styrofoam hats, just about ready to go on trumpet, sax, clarinet, trombone, bass and drums. 

You're just beginning to forget the scraggly, wild-eyed fellow you saw lurking down by the railroad tracks where you parked your car, when suddenly, he appears out of nowhere, leaps up onto stage with a battered electric guitar slung around his scrawny neck, and bellows, "Hit it!" 

From there the proceedings quickly take on all the trappings of a musical three-ring circus. The rhythm section plunges forward and the singer croons with all the insouciant sarcasm of an American Ray Davies, while the horn section careens forward with such complete and precise musical abandon that you begin to think their leader may be possessed by the ghost of Frank Zappa. 

This sonically-induced daydream is brought to you by the Travis Chandler Philharmonic, a band that, as one critic put it, "puts the 'harm' back in philharmonic."

"Alternative Dixieland" is about the closest anyone has come to capturing the flavor of the Philharmonic's output. It's a bastardized micro-genre that kidnaps the busy but gentle horn arrangements Patty Hearst-like from this most traditional jazz form and brainwashes them relentlessly to the purposes of Travis's hyperactive, quirky, character-driven rock songs. Take, for example, the simply brilliant "Crab Napkin" (!), which opens like a lost Rolling Stones track, all tight r&b chording and raunchy vocals, before adding a loopy, drunken Dixieland horn arrangement at the chorus. From there it just keeps picking up steam, the band's rock and Dixieland components virtually battling one another to a draw, with Travis egging them on the entire delirious way. Tunes like the acerbic, bounding "Stay Like That" and the sassy, raucous "Nature Boy" explore the same outer reaches of musical vaudeville.

Nestled in between these forays are a couple of oddly compelling lounge ballads ("What'll It Be" and "Say When") that serve effectively as intermissions but not much else, bleeding away some of the manic energy that sustains the rest of the disc. It just isn't the same without the horn section, Travvy.

Of course it's hard to quibble with someone with the chutzpah to record a tune like the savagely satirical "Chandler Travis, King Of The World." "I wonder where Chandler is tonight," sings Chandler to an audibly rowdy nightclub crowd, "Probably in his private jet in France / Or maybe backstage right now / Having sex with one of these waitresses / Chandler Travis, Chandler Travis / So humble and good." Indeed?

Taken as a whole, Let's Have a Pancake! (the first among this album's many, many non sequiters) is by turns witty, crude, wacky and sentimental, and never anything less than highly entertaining - if you approach it with the proper mindset. If your tastes don't range much beyond wholesome sitcoms, "important" movies, Volvo station wagons and Celine Dion ballads, you'd be better off picking up that new Michael Bolton tribute album. If, however, you have the capacity to enjoy bizarre and frequently inspired musical lunacy, this album will likely become a regular in your CD changer.

Go ahead, have a pancake. Frank would approve.

Rating: B+ 

Reestablishing their role as one of New England's most diversely talented and underrated harmonic entities, CTP delivers yet again with a coherently varied collection of musical madness. From the self-censored opener (and uncensored closer) "That's What She Said" and the lazily fanfared reunion of "This Is Home" to the encouraging vaudevillian bounce of "Bob What's-Is-Name" and the late-night lounge of "What'll It Be," Chandler and the boys (including Reverse's Jackson Cannon and Mike Piehl) offer a wonderfully wacky set of songs. An uncredited interlude boozily combines "Hello Dolly" and "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Stay Like That" sounds like it has been ripped from the TMBG catalog (complete with Linnell-y vocals). "Nature Boy" is a percussive samba from the same environment as Talking Heads' "Nothing but Flowers" and "Got to Let It Go Sometime" is a gentle harmonic ballad reminiscent of Moxy Fruvous. Though the drums on "Crab Napkin" never quite get in line with the rest of the Costello-d crustacean crunch, the music is easy to appreciate, even by the boys in the band, who show their love for their frivolous leader with the penultimate paeon "Chandler Travis, King of the World." It's silly. It's goofy. It's tight. It's Chandler Travis. - Matthew Robinson

In a quirky sort of way, Chandler Travis adds a unique vibe to rock music that is hasn't seen in years. Mixing a multitude of instruments and musical styles, this CD takes the listener on a theatrical journey and frees the mind of monotonous thoughts. I found this music to be very refreshing in a world of mope rock boredom. This group even goes as far to give you a little taste of some killer Dixieland groove that is sure to be a welcomed pleasure. The lyrical styles are anything but expected. Once you have this band pegged on a certain groove, they do a complete turn around and surprise your pleasure glands once again. This is definitely a fun CD and something that I would recommend to those who get bored easily. 
- Michael Allison

It takes just a few seconds of the first track "That's What She Said" to realize this is not like anything you've probably ever heard. Yup, The Chandler Travis Philharmonic is out there, but thankfully, they're only harmful to themselves and a joy to everyone else. On their 11 track menagerie of sound and fury, this Massachusetts alterna-dixieland-big band ensemble sounds like Harry Connick meet the Police with a punk rock attitude ("What'll It Be"). Their usage of every instrument under the sun gives them such a well rounded, balanced and FUN sound that it's hard not to imagine yourself in a smoky club sipping margaritas tapping your toes to these folks as they wail into the night ("Nature Boy"). Kinda funky, ska-esque, jazzy and overall some of the best damn party music you could possibly throw on to get your party pumping ("Crab Napkin"). Do yourself a favor and grab some of this flavor.

Chandler Travis, Ivan In Paris, Sonic Trout.

Chandler Travis, the leader of The Incredible Casuals, is an unusual and entertaining man of uncommon intelligence. So it makes sense that his take on pop music, evidenced by his new solo album, Ivan In Paris, should be similarly smart, entertaining and, well, odd. 

Travis is gleefully unconcerned with such trivialities as trend and profit as he wades into deep musical waters to find continuity in pop peculiarity; on this album, he visits doo-wop, be-bop, madhouse folk and Beatlesque pop without so much as a conceptual twitch or glitch. 

Wry and witty lyrics examine such topics as love and aging (''(You & Me) Pushin' Up Daisies''); tonsorial quandaries (''Haircut''); love exalted (the majestic ''Love is Too Much'') and love rejected (''You Jerk''). 

The song structures are never predictable, the melodies are as involved as they are unforgettable, and the arrangements are mapless safaris into the pop unknown. It all adds up to a work of pop art that is beautiful, bewildering and bewitching.

Odd triple bill offers a full range of roots

By David Hiltbrand

For the Inquirer

First up was Johnson's Crossroad, a trio from Asheville, N.C. Fittingly, the bearded and burly guitarist and singer Paul Johnson looked like a mountain man. He sang the band's keening ballads about whiskey and love and lonely itinerants in his distinctively deep and gruff voice. The group's authentic brand of Americana glided on the gossamer wings of Keith Minguez's agile mandolin.

The night came unhinged in unforgettable fashion when the Chandler Travis Philharmonic took the stage. Dressed in all manner of thrift-shop finery, covered in bathrobes and sporting a museum display of hats, from a leopard-skin fez to a bridal headdress, the nonet looked like a gaggle that had escaped from an asylum. And maybe they had, judging by their warped and wonderful set.

What the Sun Ra Arkestra was to jazz, this Cape Cod ensemble is to pop, taking the music to places so foreign it should be carrying a passport.

The songs roped in doo-wop, Dixieland, ska, Celtic, bubblegum and klezmer elements, all left under a heat lamp for far too long. Yet all these exotic accents rode atop a springy pop suspension. It sounded like Frank Zappa on laughing gas.

Front man Chandler Travis, who looks like a cross between former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee and character actor Jack Elam, announced, "This is the Philharmonic's first appearance in Philly. It's good to be back."

Travis treads a fine line between chaos and genius. But he's smart enough to take a tear-off-the-roof horn section with him on his journey.

And let's not overlook the drummer, Ricky Bates, a tall, rangy man who takes the stage in a long blonde wig, a bra and a wraparound skirt. He's a great drummer.

But the Philharmonic clearly wasn't going for style points. On stage, they're like a science-fair project, taking all these familiar musical tropes and recombining them in crazy-quilt, Frankenstein fashion.

It was often hard to tell when Travis was being sardonic and when he was being sentimental (although that cheesy flamenco ballad delivered in histrionic faux-Spanish probably belonged in the former category). But even when he was just making noise, it sounded like beautiful music.

Sanity returned to the Fire at midnight as the Great Unknown began their set of alterna-country. These truck-stop cowboys from West Philly bring more snap and vehemence to their songs than this genre (think Wilco, for purposes of orientation) usually offers.

In fact, on stompers such as "Over and Over" and "Day's Stampede" the five-piece led by singer Todd Henkin combined a mad momentum with the raucous assurance of Marah. Many of their compositions - and they debuted some excellent new ones on Thursday night - come wrapped in the barbed wire of Brad Jacobsen's lap steel guitar.

By the time they swung into that old Bo Diddley beat for "Man in the Benz," the small but fervent crowd at the Fire didn't want the Great Unknown to leave the stage.

The combination of acts was no harmonic convergence, but if you can find a more diverse and entertaining night of music in the city for $7, bring the relatives.

CHANDLER TRAVIS RELEASE PARTY

The Chandler Travis Philharmonic celebrated the release of its new album, "Llama Rhymes," Wednesday at the Lizard Lounge before an audience of more than 100 people. Travis, one of rock's true originals, is a classic American regional songwriter whose eccentric vision is rooted in the self-determinism and awe of nature, characteristic of people who live in the small New England village of Eastham, Mass. Popular vocalist Bleu showed up to sing backing vocals on "Village of the Darned" and "Get Right Back to Where We Started From." 

"I've got a great idea for our next record release party," Travis said. "We have a book of about 200 songs, so for the next party we'll play the longest set ever played -- 14 or 15 hours long. I'd like to do it at the Lizard Lounge again, I just have to figure out if they can stay open for that length of time."

Travis currently is putting together another "Incredible Casuals" album.

"We're trying really hard to do something you can't describe," he noted. "Maybe that doesn't work in our best interest commercially, but the thing that's important about it is getting to do it in the first place."

Road veterans Brave Combo, who hadn't been in town since the early days of QE2, packed the space in front of the Washington Park Lakehouse stage with happy revelers on Monday night. Considering that one of their musical goals is the advancement of world peace by means of the polka, they must have been especially pleased with this response. 

The Denton, Tex., band reeled through an array of styles designed to induce dancing: There were genre-benders such as the salsa number that interpolated "Pipeline" into the arrangement, and there was a hiphop "Hokey Pokey" and a truly bizarre reggae-polka version of "The Poor People of Paris." They also played it straight, with traditional polkas ("Wooden Heart"), swing classics ("In the Mood") and a muzak waltz ("Skater's Waltz," which evokes the roller rink and the dentist's office in equal measure). They even brought on a guest: Local music-scene vet Joe Pasco contributed some dexterous spoon work to Brave Combo's self-described theme song, "Do Something Different."

Considering that the evening turned into a joyful dance party, it's interesting to note that it started in a quite different tone. Brave Combo opened their set with a mean, funky version of "La Bamba" and a serious, traditional Polish polka ("Violins Play for Me") about a soldier in the trenches dreaming, as the bullets fly, of the band in his local pub. The music jumped, but the crowd didn't catch on immediately that they were supposed to dance and have fun. The guys had to instruct the audience, explicitly, to "come on down" and boogie.

There were no such misunderstandings with the Chandler Travis Philharmonic. With the front man wearing pajamas, the drummer in drag and the trumpet player sporting bunny ears, any audience would be capable of discerning a decidedly frolicsome attitude.

Chandler Travis (ex-Incredible Casuals) is a successful eccentric. Any old clown could combine a taste for green pajamas and gold lame with a gift for amusing patter into fine entertainment; it takes good taste, however, to rummage through the 20th century's musical dustbin and arrange the treasures retrieved into an engaging, idiosyncractically coherent presentation. This was a very neat trick, as he and the band delivered credible '30s swing, ingenious Zappaesque pop parodies, mock Latin crooning and classic elevator sounds with a democratic fervor. (I could have done without the '70s-style rock numbers, though.) 

The Philharmonic enthusiastically accompanied Chandler on these mental and musical excursions. Living up to their mock-grandiose name, the Phil are a seven-piece monster of a band, and they produced a big, raucous sound. As with Brave Combo, who featured a killer reeds-and-brass duo (Jeffrey Barns and Danny O'Brien, respectively), the Philharmonic had an outstanding horn section (trumpeter Keiichi Hashimoto, in particular, contributed some hot solos). The cacophony was seriously energizing. 

Reprinted with the permission of Metroland

"Let me introduce the dulcet tones of Rikki"

1998

Chandler Travis Band, RAZORCLAMS AND WATERCRESS

One outgrowth of devoting my music site specifically to albums is that I am forced, when dealing with exclusively live bands, to either ignore them, or to review albums that do not, technically, exist. The best way to get use out of this review is to visit the Kirkland Cafe on Tuesday nights and watch this band. For Boston (Mass, USA) residents, take the Red Line to Porter Square, then ask for directions, you're real close. If you don't live in/around Boston, move.

Chandler is the vocalist/guitarist leading an ensemble of 2 saxes, trombone, trumpet, usually near-inaudible synth, standup bass, and drums. The overall sound falls loosely between one of the energetic kinds of jazz and They Might Be Giants' JOHN HENRY. One reason this band excites me is the drummer, Rikki, whom if I was a famous music journalist I would condescendingly suggest is "the best unrecorded transvestite drummer in America", but as an amateur and fan I simply allude to that underhandedly in sneaky quotes while saying that honestly, s/he's one of the best drummers I've ever heard, no narrowing adjectives required. He can keep up a busy, complicated, _loud_ beat, or play subtle little variations with the cymbals, but most importantly, as best demonstrated on "Get Away From Me" ("let me introduce the dulcet tones of Rikki"), he remembers that the whole point of being a drummer is that you get to hit things! Without bothering the cops! Bang! Whamwhamwham! Over and over and over, fast, crash crash! Subtlety is useful, and important, and _optional_ (as the song ended with her drumkit in pieces, Travis admitted "this song is usually a bit longer").

The band also has a saxophonist who has a comedically expressive face exactly like that of my friend Larry David, whose $30K+/year teaching job the sax player could probably steal without any of the kids complaining, since Larry has the unfortunate belief that the proper job of a history teacher to teach history, not to be funny (which he's gifted at), as if there was somehow a contradiction; whereas this saxophonist feels even something as important as song lyrics should be mouthed along to in absurdist Chevy-Chase-mocking-the-dimwit-newscaster style. Which won't be true on disc, so you didn't need to know that. But it was a nice segue because it mentioned "lyrics".

Yes, this band is one of those annoying ones that reminds me how even if I ever get my own songs into presentable form, I'll still never be a true writer. Yeah, I could write a lyric like "Vampires. Vampires. Scary, scary" (from the rightly horror-shaded "Vampire", with clarinet and toy instruments). Yeah, I could write lyrics synpathizing about the difficulties of finding fresh blood in grocery stores or the finer restaurants--- in fact I _have_ written lyrics about that, and if you got an English prof to rate his and mine on a 1-to-10 scale of poeticness, you'd be fully justified in rubbing that prof's forehead repeatedly with an electric saw as punishment for abetting the Entertainment Weekly-ization of America. But I lack the genius for a couplet like "All the best vampire movies were from Universal. MGM couldn't make vampire flicks worth shit", yet there it is from onstage (I am NOT being sarcastic: I think that turning the mundanest of life's random details into something as transcendent as a good song, is a rare and wondrous alchemy). Even better is "Bongo's Summer Playhouse", where the titular phrase comes in an exaggerated kiddie-show chorus paired with a sophisticated progressive-rock drumming pattern, and is returned to periodically after verses and spoken asides about the guy they knew from some Carolina vacation who had a 9-year-old rabbit "and that's old for a rabbit", whom they "didn't particularly like, even though he built", tense pause, cue jingle and drums, "Bongo's summer playhouse!". Comparably structured but quite different-sounding is "You're A Monkey", with a pulsing dark wordless horns'n'keys groove veering into a fast trading-around of avant-garde licks a la the raucously spirited coda of They Might Be Giants's "Spy", over which Chandler reads accusatory lyrics like the hammiest dude at a poetry slam. "House Of Wax", on the other hand, makes its quick point in 30 seconds of Vincent Price-y organ and soft cymbals. And their Vegas-loungey hometown tribute "Somerville" ("at night you can watch the traffic lights change from red to green. And then watch them switch back, from green, to red")--- by summoning the ghost of the Hampton Grease Band's "Halifax", where the statistics on the miles of boulevards and avenues feel like they're being screamed at you as the entire Halifax Chamber Of Commerce clutches your collar--- reminds you of what a basically laid-back good time this, in comparison, is.

They live on tips, so I donated $6 (too low, but I'm poor). You can too, if you attend. But I doubt they'll mind if you, as a substitute plan, send them money for their CD. They might make one eventually, and it'll include nice color photos of the garish multihued pajamas they wear, and you'll have helped them buy those pajamas, and I think that's so sweet of you. 

© 1997 bokonin@hotmail.com

No, Chandler Travis is not a wealthy man, but he is blessed with the riches of a cadre of friends and fans who believe in the power of fun-filled music taken to the weirdest degree.

And he has a valet named Fred - but more on that later.

'Uhhhh, well, that doesn't keep the power on, but that's true enough. I manage to keep going, although with a pronounced limp and perhaps a bit of a stagger from time to time,' Travis said, as he prepared to leave the splendor and sanctity, if not sanity, of home and hearth in Cape Cod. He was embarking on what he described as another 'guaranteed money-losing tour' with the Chandler Travis Philharmonic - a bona fide bizarre musical menagerie that is neither a philharmonic, by common definition, nor originally Travis' idea, not that he is passing the buck.

'I accept full responsibility whenever it is applicable,' Travis said. 'I manage to stay crazy. I have found that crazy is one's best defense in these cases, although for me, crazy is really not much of a journey. I am a living, breathing example of the adage that some people never learn.'

Travis is one of the music business' longest-running and most tenacious and talented optimists - keeping in mind that he refers to his musical endeavors as 'business' in only the loosest and most intentionally misleading of definitions, in that on the odd blue moon, he may actually make a few shekels for his efforts.

'It has happened,' he admitted. 'We have six to eight people to pay, so, let's say we have managed to survive on a retinue of intent, in that we intend to make money, but are content to make pure music and have a good time doing so. We usually managed to do that. We just do it our way.'

Travis has been flirting with fame and reshaping perceptions and possibilities since the 1960s, when he and partner Steve Shook toured the comedy circuit as Travis & -- Shook, recording an album - 'we are highly collectable, I'm told,' said Travis - and touring with comedian George Carlin, who remains a friend and supporter of Travis.

Travis composed the be-bop-like theme song to the ill-fated The George Carlin Show in the '90s, and Carlin returned the favor by phoning in some entertaining gibberish for the Philharmonic's latest disc, Llama Rhymes, released on Travis' Sonic Trout label.

'We are not up there with Sony or Warner, but we are plenty fishy,' Travis said of his label, home to, among other splendors, discs by his previous band, The Incredible Casuals (which featured guitarist Johnny Spampinato, now of NRBQ), and two studio albums by the Chandler Travis Philharmonic (Let's Have A Pancake! and Llama Rhymes).

Then there is Radio Balls - a run of 22 albums released in 2000, most of which are attributed to the Philharmonic, that were the result of Travis' intent to release 26 discs, one every two weeks.

He predictably hit the wall, but, hey, 22 discs in a year is nothing to sneeze at.

'Sneezing is not the usual reaction,' Travis said. 'But to each his own.'

The Philharmonic, though aesthetically a distant mutation of the wacky musical universe created by NRBQ, is proudly its own beast.

The band members wouldn't know a musical boundary if they stumbled over it in a drunken stupor. At any given moment, the band can veer from klezmer music and Dixieland, to mind-warp pop and Beat poetry, to anarchic sea chanteys to the sort of avant/savant jazz madness associated with the likes of the late Charles Mingus, Sun Ra and Frank Zappa - all bound together with that magical something that is Chandler Travis.

'Again, I accept full responsibility whenever it is applicable, though I suppose since my name is in the name of the band, I will be the one getting served or sued, so what the heck,' said Travis, who has been immortalized in the modest sing-along anthem 'Chandler Travis, King of the World' ('Old, but not too old, bald, but not all bald, oh what a dreamboat, oh what a dreamboat, they all love him, waitresses and stewardesses, especially waitresses').

'Everybody needs a theme song, eh? Can I help it if they love me?' Travis said, not altogether convincingly, given that he wrote the song. 'Well,' he said, when confronted, 'Somebody had to do it. A fellow can't wait around forever for these things. The sentiment, the nuance of the song, still holds true.'

The Philharmonic is an intriguing conglomeration of instruments and personalities. The horn section, decked out in assorted fishnets and fezzes, are highly trained musicians, suitably warped and known as the June Trailer Dancers.

Rikki Bates, formerly Vince Valium, is on drums, a truly gifted and dangerous drummer. Plus, it must be noted that the tall and lanky Bates, who now sports breasts, can wear a wraparound skirt like nobody's business.

Keith Spring, late of NRBQ, plays keyboards.

Dinty Child plays accordion, mandocello and mandolin.

It is actually the enormously talented Child, said Travis, who is responsible for the formation of Philharmonic. (That Travis, always quick to point the finger.)

'It was all a big mistake,' Travis said. 'Dinty was doing a series of shows at a place called the Lizard Lounge. He had a little band and would feature a different guest star each week. He called me and asked me to do it, and wondered if I needed anything. I told him some horns and keyboards would be nice.

'And that's what he did. Suddenly, all these songs that had never worked before began to work. We've spent all our time since trying to get the guitars out of the songs and learning what not to play.'

Travis plays guitar and sings. He does so, quite convincingly, in his pajamas, a sense of decency and decorum provided by an ever-shifting array of robes provided him by Fred Boak, his trusted valet.

Boak can be found at Travis' side, an embroidered 'Chandler Travis' towel draped across his arm, immaculate in bowler and bow tie, riding herd on a rack full of robes and smoking jackets.

He also occasionally comes out front, stoic and cool, to sing a couple of tunes.

He also oversees the Philharmonic's Web site (www.sonictrout.com/bands/chandler), where he is in charge of selecting the weekly downloadable 'Song of the Weak.'

'Fred is absolutely indispensable,' Travis said. 'He wields a mean towel. Fred was this superfan who was at all our shows, and he eventually worked his way into our act after we played in New Orleans with Ernie K-Doe just a week before he died. K-Doe had a valet, although he looked more like a pimp. Fred just seemed eager to perform the same function for me. Imagine my pleasure when I lived longer than a week.'

The Philharmonic, which performs in various incarnations, has a large time when and wherever it plays. The music, though odd, is equally brilliant in its ability to tackle subjects serious and lighthearted and place them within frameworks that are pop on the inside, abstract on the outside and deliriously entertaining all the time.

'I can't say how rewarding this band is for me,' Travis said. 'It's a pity the way that horns have been used in rock 'n' roll in the last 30 years. The rock horn arrangement has, for many bands, been the next-to-last gasp of dying creativity. The last step are chick singers.'

Chandler Travis is his own man. 'We follow no trend, no blueprint. Our use of horns in modern pop is the crown of thorns in a bed of roses, and I'm proud of that.

'We are not the standard, we are the exception.'

He laughed. 'In other words, I don't have a clue.'

- Ed Bumgardner can be reached at 727-7365 or at ebumgardner@wsjournal.com

- As diverse as the guys in NRBQ get, it's easy to peg them as a rock'n'roll band. Travis, though, defies that with his Philharmonic. 

African-rooted chants and beats, quirky They Might Be Giants-style accordion pop, Q-brand slophouse fun, swamp guitar and standard pop balladry all have a home on this Island of Misfit Toys, as their 1999 album "Let's Have a Pancake!" bears out. So do a slurred Dixieland medley of "Hello, Dolly" and "Me and Bobby McGee," as well as tongue-in-cheek humor ("Chandler Travis, King of the World"). But attempts to label them as "alt-Dixieland" or "omnipop" (a term coined by Adams) have failed.

And the group's soon-to-be-released next album, Travis said, will include "Mothra," which he described as "heavy metal and glam - a little like Bowie, but more dissonant, very loud. It's as far afield as we've gone."

"The whole point is testing the boundaries - or erasing the boundaries," Travis said last week. But it has its drawbacks.

The most difficult thing about this band is I don't think there's a genre you can put us in that makes sense," he explained. "We put all our time into doing a sound that's indescribable. When you tell a club or a record label what you do, what do you tell them?"

Travis, 51, is also a computer-stained wretch (he writes a column for the weekly The Cape Codder and occasional album reviews for the Boston Herald), and, like O'Connell, spent some of his formative years in Connecticut (Darien and Wilton, in between birth in New York and a move to New Jersey). 

Travis, a Cape resident the past quarter-century, still plays Sundays in the summertime at the Beachcomber in Wellfleet with The Incredible Casuals, the band he started in 1978.

But along came the Philharmonic in 1996, a band that brings to mind the biblical adage "Say what you mean; mean what you say" - because were it not for a stray moment of sarcasm, there's no way this band would have existed.

"Dinty Child (a multi-instrumentalist he knew) was doing a guest night at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, and I came up," Travis recalled. "At the time, I was solo-gigging and he had a rhythm section. He asked, 'Would you like other music?' I said, sarcastically, 'Give me a horn section.' That's something I wouldn't have done in a million years. That's one of the last gasps of a dying band. People putting horns on white rock'n'roll was never a good thing. 

"But Ken Field was a great sax player. He added Keiichi Hashimoto. These horn players led me down some paths. I liked it more than I ever expected."

Casuals drummer Rikki Bates and multi-instrumentalist Keith Spring (the tenor saxophonist from NRBQ's old Whole Wheat Horns) fleshed out what became a functional group. Field and Hashimoto anchor the horn section, The June Trailer Dancers. 

"I was already writing pretty different stuff anyway, things that were too funny or strange or different from the Casuals," Travis said. "We were trying to be a fairly coherent band. That's what that's all about, especially live. We gave ourselves a little more rope."And now, he has not only the artistic license, but the vehicle, too. "I don't think there's anything we would particularly try not to do, especially on stage," he said.

And Travis said he has but one goal: "I want to go on tour with a tour bus. Then I could quit."

 Chandler Travis once described himself as the George Brent of rock 'n' roll. Remember George Brent? Probably not. He was a bland leading man who gained what little renown he still holds by playing opposite Betty Davis in "Dark Victory." 

 Maybe you've forgotten "Dark Victory." 

 "No one knew who George Brent was, so that's pretty much prototypical me - to make some joke that nobody can get," says Travis, who opens for George Carlin at the Melody Tent Tuesday and plays with the Chandler Travis Philharmonic at Harry's later that night. 

 "It was just a funny image to me. People thought it was George Brett: 'Oh, the baseball player.' "

 Here's another comparison: Chandler Travis is the Pee-wee Herman of rock 'n' roll. No, Travis doesn't have any bizarre scandals attached to his name. It's more that he shares Pee-wee's childish spirit, while making art that only grown-ups can truly understand.

 Since his days in high school bands (the Good Fairies and the St. James Infirmary), through his years in the duo Travis-Shook, during his nearly two-decade stint with the Incredible Casuals and now in his latest project, the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, one thing has remained true about Travis: He wants to have at least as good a time as his audience. 

        In honor of himself

 For instance, there's his theme song, "Chandler Travis, King of the World," which appears on the Philharmonic's soon-to-be-released CD, "Her Spanish Suitcase." It features the insanely catchy kind of hook that sets a song to replaying in your head after a single listen - the kind of song you'd use for theme music to a children's TV show. 

 The lyrics have the same sort of bizarre humor that kids enjoy, but childish adults love even more:

 "Chandler Travis, Chandler Travis - so humble and good.
 "Chandler Travis, Chandler Travis - whatever rhymes with humble and good!
 "They all love him; waitresses and stewardesses - especially waitresses, 
 "But they can't touch him - he is unknowable!"

 No wonder the crowd always joins in. Travis has his audience eating out of his hand, eager to pay tribute - even if it's a tribute he wrote himself. 

"I try to write songs that stick with you, that don't evaporate after the first few listens," Travis says. 

 Travis' main fame comes as singer/bassist/guitarist for the Incredible Casuals, a Cape-based quartet that plays Sunday evening shows at the Wellfleet Beachcomber during the summer. Guitarist Johnny Spampinato spends most of the rest of the year playing with NRBQ, and the Casuals go on hiatus. 

 "Even though the Casuals only get to play three months, it's just the cutest little situation," says Travis, 49, of Eastham. "You look out in the audience and it's like maybe 70 percent people you actually know, all these people that we've been seeing for 15 years. That's pretty funny. Especially when most of them are really too old to be doing this. Just like we are."

 After 18 or 19 years with the Casuals (Travis says no one is really sure when the band started), Travis found a new creative outlet with the Philharmonic, a band that goes beyond - way beyond - the Casuals' guitar-bass-drums sound to include a range of stringed instruments, horns, and an accordion. 

 "The Philharmonic is much more theatrical," he says. "I've found that for some reason it's a lot easier to get eight people to do something crazy than four people. There's a safety in numbers thing that seems to be working for the Philharmonic."

      Compared to everyone

 The Philharmonic came together "completely by mistake," says Travis. His friend multi-instrumentalist Dinty Child (who'll join Travis at the Melody Tent) was setting up a series of shows at the Lizard Lounge in Boston and asked Travis if he'd like to have some supporting players. 

 "I couldn't think of anything, so I said 'Get a couple horn players,' " Travis recalls. "One of them was Keiichi Hashimoto. He was just great, a young Berklee guy, trumpet player. Some people just have the spirit. Dinty does and Keiichi does.

 "I always hated the way the Rolling Stones used horns - and I love the Stones. But I just think so often guys do that when they run out of ideas - 'OK, bring out the trio of girl singers and the horn section.' It's always just a real pale echo of Stax stuff.

 "I never would have done that on purpose in a million years, but once you get into horn music, there are so many great things to do with it. Horns are so wild. How come people never do anything that relates to the Dixieland thing, which to me is one of the wildest things?" 

 For the uninitiated, the Casuals sound like the Kinks after the Davies brothers have been in the sun too long. The Philharmonic gets even further out into the land of rock looniness; The new album sounds like a recording of a Joe Jackson/They Might Be Giants rehearsal session, or maybe what you'd get if Spike Jones, instead of George Martin, had been the producer for the Beatles and he'd had a recording budget of about $500. 

 If those comparisons sound a bit off-the-wall, consider that over the years, Travis and his bands have been compared to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bruce Springsteen, Tiny Tim, Prince, Bo Diddley, Percy Dovetonsils, Popeye, Ogden Nash and Henry Rollins. It's enough to give a guy an identity crisis. 

 "I've always considered myself a champion of the jarring segue, possibly much to my financial detriment," says Travis. "I just really like surprises, and artists that keep changing.

 "I don't want to be chasing the golden ring all the time," he says of the Casuals' mix of critical adulation and commercial indifference. "If it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world."
___________________________________________________ 

Copyright © 1999 Cape Cod Times. All rights reserved.

A person has to have goals, and Chandler Travis -- Cape Cod-based solo artist, singer-guitarist in the Incredible Casuals, and frontman/ namesake of the big band that is the Chandler Travis Philharmonic -- mentions these two for 1999: to drink less beer and to smoke less pot. But, he adds, when he does do these things he plans ``to do them more intensely.'' 

The bearded, scraggly-haired Travis is, by nature, a funny, self-deprecating chap. He brings a sense of humor to his performance -- in which he might appear barefoot and in pajamas and strut down the length of the bar -- and he brings it to the table at the Globe cafeteria during a recent early evening chat. 

Near the end of the interview, during which more than a few laughs have been had, Travis, 48, turns semi-serious and says, ``If you could write a whole article without using the words `zany' or `wacky' I would be ever so grateful.'' 

Sorry, can't do. But we can, at least, leave wacky-zany where he's left it. The problem is, as Travis sees it, is that over the years his humor has been overplayed and his music has been shorted. Yes, he admits, ``there is a certain thread of silliness, but there's a lot of serious work, too.''  Silliness? Well, consider a self-mocking song the CTP does called ``Chandler Travis, King of the World,'' in which Travis himself wonders where Travis might be right now and conjectures, ``Probably in his private jet in France / Or maybe backstage right now having sex with one of the waitresses.'' 

Desiring to interject a semblance of balance into his career, Travis has just released a solo album, ``Ivan in Paris,'' a contemplative folk-pop disc that recalls the introspective side of Elvis Costello. There's an old-timey feel, a cozy ambience, an unhurried pace. It's not without wit and it's not without its skewed moments, but for Travis it's a relative straight-shooter of a disc. 

``The idea came from my sister,'' says Travis. ``She said, `Why don't you make a record that's a little more, you know, mature? That doesn't put people who are over 40 off somehow? Make an album for your own [expletive] age group for a change.' '' 

Travis says, ``I have always written stuff like that, but in the Casuals I get a chance to pretend I'm 18 as much as I want to. The Casuals are kind of an age-retarded band. I don't mean that in a bad way. 

``I wanted to make a ballad record,'' Travis says. ``And the record I had in mind was `Interiors' by Rosanne Cash. I love that album. I wanted to get something that had that kind of moodiness, that was reflective. My goal was to have something that you could play all the way through late at night and not have to jump up an