From Brian Wilson's Pet Sounds to the Beatles' Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds, acid has been involved in some of the finest pop music. Originally in 1960s psychedelic pioneers the Charlatans, Dan Hicks went on to form the Hot Licks, who deliver ironic balladry with an acid twist.
It has taken him 30 years to get around to a new album - "I was a dope victim," he shrugs - but the singer's warped vision has adapted to the modern world. Minutes after taking the stage he's singing about "canned music" on the internet. "You walk in on your mouse and put it in your house," he croons, drily.
Hicks isn't a mere acid casualty but a sharply observed comedy character. An unknowing innocent could spend 30 minutes at a Hicks show before realising the bone-dry humour. The remarkably well-preserved polkadot-shirted frontman looks at the two female backing singers in identical brass blonde wigs: "They're twins," he says, explaining that the next number will be in the style of "Bo Diddley meets Phil Collins".
Ironic they may be, but there's an undeniable charm to Hicks's distorted takes on old-fashioned Americana, with his off-kilter melodies, yodels and out-of-tune banjo solos. Evening Breeze is particularly beautiful, as he complains sagely that the weather "don't seem to cool my mind", while the classic I Scare Myself allows a glimpse of his acid-rock roots.
Lyrically, Hicks's speciality is wry abstractions on mundanity. Hell I'll Go is a wonderful story about a chap who gets whisked off in a spacecraft while mowing the lawn, while Viper Comes Along is "about a viper who - uh - comes along". There's an element of Frank Zappa, and, like the former Mother of Invention, Hicks reserves his most ruthless humour for showbusiness itself. He sends up the encore ritual, and introduces the evening's "sponsor", reading off the label of his bottle. At over 90 minutes, his show could do with some pruning. Nevertheless, Hicks leaves amid uproar, explaining that he'll be available afterwards "to autograph people's arms".
· Tonight at Telford's Warehouse, Chester (01244 390090), then touring.
