Incoming: Deadbolt at the Gaslight Tavern, May 23

At the Dead to Me show on Monday night, someone informed me that the scariest band in the world, Deadbolt, would be playing the Gaslight Tavern in April. They were a month off, but the fact still remains: Deadbolt returns to Lawrence on Sunday, May 23.

It’s been at nearly seven years since the group last played in the area. According the flier archive I have located behind the couch in my basement, Deadbolt last came through on June 3, 2003, when they played the Replay. As I recall, I lay down to take a nap after work that afternoon, and awoke sometime at about a quarter ’til midnight. I hauled ass to the Replay, and managed to make it, having only missed two songs. Sadly, one of those two was the closest thing the band probably has to a hit, “Truck Drivin’ S.O.B.”

On the bright side, the band is everything live that you hope they’ll be when you listen to records like Tiki Man or Voodoo Trucker: mysterious, creepy, and not a little menacing. They lit themselves using nothing more than hardware store clip lights set on the ground, giving the whole scene a freaky, snuff film kind of vibe. The fact that we get this and the Zero Boys show a month apart is like Christmas, my birthday, and some new super-holiday as yet univented all rolled into one.