BRAD ALLEN: JUNO OPENS TONIGHT >>>

My boy Paul Schrag did a lovely job previewing the Alex Duncan show at the new Juno club tonight.

It will be interesting to see who shows up, crowd wise. Duncan packs Jazzbones every time.

It’s not hard to understand the music’s appeal.  In addition to its infectious grooves, reggae lyrics typically present a fantasy life to listeners, one in which positivity and love always win out and partaking in large amounts of shrub is a good thing. The latter reason seems to be the key to why audiences of reggae and jam rock have largely merged into one baked body. This has led many reggae bands to dumb the music down and perform reggae-fied Grateful Dead covers to appeal to that lowest common dominator.

Not Alex Duncan. 

He favors upbeat rhythms over the lazy, laid-back tempos preferred by too many of its contemporaries.  This gives the songs an exceptionally strong rhythmic backbone. Though he plays straightforward reggae, the band isn’t afraid to throw in some unexpected tricks, like calypso and dancehall.   

[Juno, 9 p.m., $10, 933 Market St., Tacoma, www.myspace.com/clubjuno]