The Inactivists

Thanks for the warning -- not that a heads-up was really necessary. After all, Dreaded Concept Album, which will be feted at a 5 p.m. show on Saturday, May 5, at the Larimer Lounge, isn't a rock opera in the traditional (i.e., pretentious) sense. Instead, it's a heaping helping of good-natured anarchy that's just as interested in belly laughs as booty-shaking.

Scot Livingston, Chris Budin, Matt Sumner, Victoria Lundy and Todd Burba come across like a jug band on a spree, using everything from a ukulele to a theremin to make their mayhem merry. Sometimes they generate a good idea -- e.g., the ridicule-happy "Fuck You, Singer-Songwriter" -- without bothering to write a decent song to accompany it. But when the players manage to get their music and lyrics moving in the same direction, as they do on the rousingly silly "Everybody Now," they go beyond mere novelty to, well, novelty-plus.

No reason to dread that.