*** Electric Bonsai Band

LOUNGING IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST

(Yellow Tail)

The first joke is that Seattle's Electric Bonsai Band is neither electric nor a band. It's classically trained Andrew Ratshin, whose bygone trio Uncle Bonsai delivered the hilarious "Penis Envy" that the FCC protects us from hearing on the radio. Skewering flabby self and society, Ratshin's perceptive writing targets frustrated arts critics and pretentious angry young artists/poseurs alike. His death songs are among his subtlest. In "The Airplane: Part II," he calmly views his impending end as a passenger in a plunging plane. In the finale, "Epilogue," a dying cynic wonders whether the Catholics were right in claiming a monopoly on salvation. Recalling Warren Zevon's "Excitable Boy," back-up singers mindlessly chirp "This is a happy ending" in a modern take on Romeo and Juliet ("A million lemmings can't be wrong").

Introspective without wallowing in self-indulgence, Ratshin propels his high-pitched delivery with rock-steady percussion. His words are so well chosen, you may linger with the lyric sheet.

-- Bruce Sylvester

(Electric Bonsai Band plays Club Passim this Sunday afternoon, March 16, and the Full Cup Coffeehouse -- in All Saints Episcopal Church, 79 Central Street, Stoneham, phone 279-2039 -- next Saturday, March 22.)