It's going to be an interesting week for members of the London-based Urban Voodoo Machine. They'll spend Sunday and Monday at the 9:30 club, performing their first American shows as the opening act for the Pogues. Both nights have been sold out for weeks. Then, tonight, they'll head across town to the much, much cozier confines of the Red and the Black, which holds one-tenth the audience. On our most recent podcast, I compared the theatrical nine-member band to "Nick Cave in a dark mood fronting a drunken Dexy's Midnight Runners," and I'm standing by that assertion: Using horns, violin, accordion, banjo and multiple percussionists, the band veers into mariachi-influenced blues, whiskey-soaked country rags and punkabilly-style rave-ups. If you catch them opening for Shane and co., you'll want to see the Urban Voodoo Machine again in a more intimate venue. If you didn't get tickets for the Pogues, this might be the next best thing.

-- Fritz Hahn (March 2008)