Junk-shop glam band Giuda

This band Giuda is for real. No, not a sardonic comedy act, although when I first heard them I thought they were jesting a couple of my favorite eras in pop music — punk and glam. But before he passed, no less than famed record producer and provocateur Kim Fowley dialed it in when he called Giuda glam rockers for the 21st Century: “The new Gary Glitter.” And who are we to disagree? From Rome, the group is now on a short tour of the U.S., hitting a few small to midsize venues for a couple of weeks in support of Speaks Evil, which brings their total number of full-length releases to nine.

Imagine a fierce little tribe of rockers in funny shoes, welding one ancient genre to the other, and you have what may sound like ancient history on paper, but in person thumps with high-octane super-power. Here’s why: glam was a borderline cross-dressed fantasy that thrived on fat power chords and theatrics. Punk hated all that and came as the antidote to such bloat, which they moshed to death. Tie the two together, and you get unresolved tension that pushes many buttons.

Giuda (pronounced like the biblical name Judah) started a decade ago in Italy when Taxi’s drummer died, leaving the singer and guitarist in need of a gig. The two (Tenda and Lorenzo — first names only is by design) had played music together since they were 12 years old; they fancied bubblegum and tougher mixes like Slade and T. Rex and the Buzzcocks. They added members over time, and improved the act at Euro-festivals and gained a cult following. Although they learned from American pop records with lyrics they could not understand, the group now writes and performs in English. Yeah, the band studied recordings of these vintage sounds in order to master the craft, but one gets a sense that Giuda actually lives there — wherever there is.

The Residuels and Santa Ana Knights also perform.