Genre bender: Bobby Bare Jr.'s raucous live show fuses country, rock

The good news: Bobby Bare Jr. has released another album of quirky, country-tinged rock 'n' roll tunes.

The great news: Bare is coming to town to play those songs live.

Few people can rock a stage like Bare does. He's a whirlwind of energy who's equally at home in full head-swinging, guitar-slashing rock-star mode as he is gently strumming an acoustic guitar and singing a soft ballad.

Bare, touring behind his latest record "A Storm - A Tree - My Mother's Head" (Thirty Tigers), will play Schuba's Tavern in Chicago, a favorite club of his, for two nights next week.

"The shows have gone really well so far," Bare said during a phone interview between stops in Chapel Hill, N.C., and Arlington, Va. "I've got a great band and people have been really excited. I'm also selling a lot of CDs, which is a nice bonus."

The new record provides another showcase for Bare's hard-to-describe, genre-bending music. As he has for much of his career, Bare shifts gears regularly throughout the record from offbeat guitar rock ("The Sky is the Ground") to mellow country grooves ("Going to Chattanooga"). Crunchy guitar chords sit side by side on the album with languid pedal steel and keyboards.

Bare cowrote much of the music with his studio band, which included several members of indie-rock favorites My Morning Jacket.

"I usually brought them something very raw, just sketches," Bare said. "And then they went off and made complete songs from it. It was pretty cool, how it all turned out."

Lyrically, the record contains more of Bare's darkly humorous, sometimes surreal verses.

"Liz Taylor's Lipstick Gun" imagines a relationship between the glamorous movie star and her "son," Opie Taylor. The title track recounts a horrific real-life incident in which Bare's mother was nearly killed when a storm blew a tree onto her home. Then there's "Rock and Roll Halloween," a hilarious snapshot of a Halloween party in Atlanta: "Marilyn Monroe dances dirty with Darth Vader/James Dean holds with a Cher impersonator."

Bare also collaborated on two of the tracks with his father - old-school country-music legend Bobby Bare Sr.

Father and son cowrote one of the album's most memorable tracks, "One of Us Has Got to Go," a chilling tale of obsession featuring just an acoustic guitar and the younger Bare's expressive voice.

"For about six months my job was just to write songs with my dad," Bare said. "We came up with two or three really good songs, which I got to use. I'm very grateful for that."

Bare will be backed during his two appearances at Schuba's by Blue Giant, a group from Portland, Ore., that puts a contemporary rock spin on traditional American music like bluegrass and country. Blue Giant will also open for Bare both nights.

"Blue Giant has been really great," he said, "so I think fans will have fun at these shows. And Schuba's always seems to work for me. I'm looking forward to playing that room again."

<p class="factboxheadblack">Bobby Bare Jr.</p>

<p class="News"><b>When: </b>9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6, and Thursday, Oct. 7</p>

<p class="News"><b>Where:</b> Schuba's Tavern, 3159 N. Southport, Chicago</p>

<p class="News"><b>Tickets:</b> $14, go to <a href="http://schubas.com" target="new">schubas.com</a></p>