Five lights hang over the stage at Schuba’s, harsh red and blue beams streaming out of ancient metal cages like little psychedelic eclipses — even cursory eye contact can be blinding. They are comically situated, forming rigid, purposeful angles. Against an empty stage, it looks like a child’s drawing, these primary colors dangling like tempra orbs over vacated musical instruments.

Despite their foreboding, the lights are harmless. Only when Dr. Dog steps underneath them do the beams become edgelights, barely visible on the musicians, who are instead heavily lit by some incandescence you can’t find. Dr. Dog (or maybe Drs. Dog; they’re more Jethro Tull than Trapper John) is not unaware of the light, forgoing Ray-Bans for the only sunglasses that work all the time — those plastic, neon-flavored shades your dentist offers before your most painful close-ups.

That name, too — “Dr. Dog” — so perfectly encapsulates some abstract depiction of strange playfulness. I could think only of Underdog, before, during, and after their performance, and perhaps Shoeshine Boy’s alterego would be a suitable mascot for the Philadelphia band — maybe slyly mocking hand-drawn animation from the 1970s could illustrate Dr. Dog’s fun-loving vibe. Tonight’s lesson: Just like the title of a poem, band names are important.

Their songs all seem to begin with some familiar base sound that visibly energizes the three stand-up members of the Dog, who all manage to emote, bounce, and strain in some sort of harmony, like some neofolk hydra. The song fills up, dispersing whatever poison gets a talky audience to pay attention to the opening act and nod accordingly. Then the song peaks with some variety of electric guitar leading the charge, the band downstroking and laughing playfully. A knock against jam bands is the way they dress; the allure is the amount of fun they have. This is no jam band, even if they dress in plaid and one guy looks like Bob Dylan (it was hard to see, but I believe his were heart-shaped glasses), but they have a blast letting each song jangle together into some groovy, organic mess. I want to namedrop America but like any other band it doesn’t seem fair to the Dr.; their versatility and looseness seem to indicate they’d have us enjoy this music rather than lose ourselves trying to define it. Fair enough.

The Dog was playing Schuba’s on the second night of Tomorrow Never Knows, a five-night series of local favorites and hot national acts. The big boys tonight were Indianapolis’ Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, a name as interesting as Dr. Dog but completely misleading — lead singer Richard Edwards is not a girl, and his music is not as twee or quirky as the name may suggest.

The So-and-Sos filled Schuba’s small stage eight-wide, with all variety of instruments and pleasant-looking people playing them. Like only the greatest bands, they specialize in meaningful pronouns. “You” and “she,” in particular, are thrown around to devastating effect. You’d openly quote them if the citation wasn’t so lengthy. The standout on their lone album, The Dust of Retreat, is “Skeleton Key,” on which Edwards laments, “I did a horrible thing to that girl,” over a mesmerizing flora of violins, keyboard scales, and spaghetti western guitar.

Tonight saw a sped-up “Skeleton Key,” which added pounding drums and a singalong audience, which I suppose is symptomatic of such wonderfully strange songs. MatNSaS played all kinds of anthemic indie pop, including “Quiet as a Mouse” (sounding suspiciously like Coldplay, complete with massive chorus and soft/loud dynamic) and obvious fan favorite “On a Freezing Chicago Street;” I’m beginning to think these depressing love songs to the City of Big Shoulders will soon become standards on par with “My Kind of Town.” A highly incomplete infomercial would include “Chicago,” “Via Chicago,” “Chicago Seemed Tired Last Night,” “Dear Chicago,” “Chicago at Night,” and “Blue Chicago Moon.” An uncalled-for digression, but Margot’s paean is a seamless addition to any entry-level indie-Chicago mix.

When Edwards played his acoustic solo, a certain intimacy enveloped Schuba’s, and it’s not a hushed, cry-on-his-or-her-shoulder reverence, but that of a certain small-town charm, like the high school band who’s finally made it big. That’s not to say Margot and Co. aren’t capable — they certainly are — but when surrounded by stir-crazy fans, cheap beer, way-friendly bouncers, and five lights trying to illuminate an eight-piece band, it was like losing the trees for the forest, if anyone even does that anymore.

Dr. Dog Official Site
Park The Van Records
Margot and the Nuclear So & So’s