Wearing period threads and playing vintage instruments, the Cheap Suit Serenaders serve up a giddy blend of up-tempo Hawaiian stomps, ragtime, Italian polkas, and more, as they recreate the music of the golden age of jazz. With Robert Armstrong, Allan Dodge, Rick Elmore, Tony Marcus, Terry Zwigoff, and Casey MacGill performing on ukuleles, Hawaiian steel guitars, fiddles, cellos, banjos, mandolins, accordions, and musical saws, the band brings great music and great times!

Underground comic book artist and illustrator R. Crumb founded the somewhat loosely organized outfit along with Robert and Allan in the 1970s. Over the years, the band has played venues as diverse as nudist colonies, A Prairie Home Companion, festivals in the Hague, and tiny gin joints. In keeping with their unapologetically outmoded tastes, the Suits issued a string of 78-rpm 10-inch singles on the Blue Goose label, long after the format was obsolete. The group also recorded three 33⅓-rpm albums, two of which are now available as CDs on Shanachie Records, Chasin’ Rainbows and Singing in the Bathtub.

For a time warp, mind warp, and sublime warp experience, slip into some fancy, low-cost duds and see the Cheap Suit Serenaders at the Freight.

Listen to a track from Cheap Suit Serenaders: