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	TRACY BONHAM AND EELS STRINGS AND THINGS

A decade ago, Boston’s Tracy Bonham and the LA-based eccentric Mark Oliver Everett, better known by his Eels moniker "E," were objects of major-label bidding wars that landed the former on Island and Eels on the then nascent DreamWorks label. Bonham, the benefactor of a desperate post–Jagged Little Pill search for the next Alanis, came within an inch of a major breakthrough with The Burdens of Being Upright (Island) and its radio single "Mother," a track with enough feminine angst to garner a Grammy nomination. Everett was the eclectic savant who might just provide "Loser"-loving programmers with their next Beck. Neither panned out. But both artists, who played on opposite sides of the Charles a week ago Wednesday (Bonham at the Paradise Lounge, Eels at Somerville Theatre), struggled to provide notoriously fickle A&R liaisons with hit singles. Island gave up on Bonham after one more album, 2000’s Down Here. DreamWorks held onto Everett until 2003, as the shape and the sound of Eels underwent continuous transformation.

Now living in Brooklyn, Bonham was back in Boston to play a free show for the 100 or so fans who had purchased her new indie release Blink the Brightest (Zoë/Rounder) at Newbury Comics. I caught only the first half of the set with her new backing band, but it was clear that Bonham is both enjoying and taking advantage of her freedom from major-label serfdom. The quirks that had been ironed out of her modern-rockist Island CDs — including her occasionally avant violin playing — have resurfaced. "Mother" was more in keeping with the original demo of the song than with the album version, and her drummer proved there’s a lot more to playing a tambourine than just banging along to the beat.

Everett has never been afraid of quirks. But his new two-disc Eels set Blinking Lights and Other Revelations (Vagrant) is one of his most straightforward singer-songwriterly efforts. Touring with a four-piece female string section in party dresses, a mohawked stand-up bassist, and a multi-instrumentalist who played everything from theremin to a garbage can and suitcase drum set, a dapper, bearded Everett moved among various keyboards and guitars, lit an ironic cigar, and bared his broken soul — "I don’t like being around people/Makes me nervous and weird," he deadpanned in "Things the Grandchildren Should Know." He may have a thing or two to tell them about the music business as well.