Clutch

Not every band gets a cake specially made for them during the Food Network show Ace of Cakes, but Clutch recently did. (Of course, it probably helps that frontman Neil Fallon's sister, Mary Alice, stars on the series.) Actually, not every band deserves cake at all, but the Maryland quintet certainly does. Nearly seventeen years into its career, the ever-soundshifting band remains an underground treasure, flirting with the mainstream only sporadically with a few minor radio hits (like the 1993 debut single, "A Shogun Named Marcus"). Since then, Clutch has evolved sonically from proto-metalcore through jazz-inflected punk, to the surrealist stoner-rock and blues-boogie heard on last year's From Beale Street to Oblivion (think ZZ Top meets Queens of the Stone Age). Non-stop touring along the way has helped it garner a small-but-fanatic group of followers known as "Gearheads," who are sure to be out in full force tonight.