The High Strung

Ask them how they spent their summer vacation, and the members of the High Strung can truthfully say they spent it in the library. As the only act on the Michigan Library Tour, the trio brought loud amps and the spectacle of grown men leaping around in matching white jumpsuits to conference rooms and reference desks in front of confused and sometimes frightened kids in 34 libraries across that state. The Detroit-via-Brooklyn band used its between-song banter to extoll the virtues of atlases and held Q&A sessions after each show to answer such burning questions as "Why isn't the drummer wearing any shoes?" On this tour, in support of new album Moxie Bravo, the High Strung is back in the more familiar confines of bars and clubs with fuzzed-out power-pop that swings from the Seeds to the Strokes. If this band can make the library seem cool, just imagine what it'll do for rock and roll.