The Ditty Bops

8 p.m. Friday, July 28. Mad Art Gallery (2727 South 12th Street).

Jul 26, 2006 at 4:00 am

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The Ditty Bops arrive in the area midway through a cross-country bike tour — a different approach to band travel that fits the group's equally singular stage shows and anachronistic songs. Songwriters Amanda Barrett (mandolin, dulcimer) and Abby DeWald (guitar, piano) range from western swing to hot jazz to vaudevillian show tunes, weaving the styles together in an innovative fashion. They harmonize as entrancingly as the Everly Brothers (whose "Bye Bye Love" they cover on their recent Moon over the Freeway), but Phil and Don never supplemented their perfectly pitched hooks with carnival-surreal instrumentation and risqué costumes.