House of Tudor

While the Swingin' Utters have long stood out as one of the most literate street-punk bands of any generation, their last two albums intimated a greater musical range and lyrical depth rising beneath the obligatory pissed and pocked surface. Long in coming, the side project known as Filthy Thieving Bastards is a release valve for all the poetry, philosophy, and sentiment undermining that rock-hard visage. In the FTBs, Utters vocalist Johnny Bonnel abandons his anthemic writing style and gives the Utters' ever-elegiac guitarist, Darius Koski, a run for his verse. "Your family tree high upon the hill/ Has lost its leaves when the wind was still/ A melody of retreads and broken quills/ Chivalry stacked from high to just might spill," Bonnel writes in the surprisingly sanguine "Death Is Not the End." But, of course, Koski ups the ante: "The old man gave me something/ I guess he gave me something strong/ A taste for all my vices/ And disdain for all I'd done," says he in "Bitter Old Son." Never mind that Bonnel's grizzled voice still seems half-spent on Lucky Strikes and whiskey: It's the proper sound in music in which impoverished souls are redeemed only by the dulcet strains of violin, accordion, piano, mandolin, and pedal steel. While taking ample aural cues from Brits the likes of Shane MacGowan, Billy Bragg, and Slade the Leveller, the Filthy Thieving Bastards (rounded out by Utters bassist Spike Slawson, Camper Van Beethoven guitarist Greg Lisher, and producer Randy Burk on drums) nevertheless direct their eyes home, finding strength and despair from Hunters Point to Nob Hill, reminding us that this was once wide-open, lonely land. The Filthy Thieving Bastards support Throw Rag at "Incredibly Strange Wrestling" on Sunday, Jan. 11, at the DNA Lounge. The Rock 'n' Roll Adventure Kids open with bouts including El Homo Loco, the Mexican Viking, 69 Degrees, El Pollo Diablo, Rasputiny, and Jesus Cross at 9 p.m. Allan Bolte and Blag the Ripper (of the Dwarves) announce. Tickets are $16-18; call 626-1409 or go to www.dnalounge.com.