Las Vegas Weekly

Sexual Sasquatch takes over the Griffin

The secret script [at the bottom of the poster] is “prepare your loins.” We want to provide loin rock basically. - Ted Rader of the Mad Caps

Courtesy of Ted Rader

There’s a new energy taking over the Griffin every Wednesday in April — and it comes in the form of a Sexual Sasquatch.

While there’s no Webster’s definition for the pheromone-flinging form of the large furry creature, if there were, it would read something like this: The hypothetical shape Las Vegas indie rock duo The Mad Caps, comprised of singer Ted Rader and drummer Jon Realmuto, take when playing bluesy, Elvis-style mood tunes.

A Sasquatch may seem like a strange creature for a band to identify as, but Rader explains the appropriateness of the comparison well.

“He’s mysterious, he’s big and no one really knows of him — it’s kinda like The Mad Caps except we’re not big. It’s part mystery and part raw sexuality that we’re trying to display — whether your yeti is hairy or not is up to you. ... We’re just trying to deliver sexy music.”

The Mad Caps plan to take the projected month long residency as an opportunity to experiment with the art of crowd-pleasing. “It gives us a chance to get out and play some new stuff that we’re going to be recording — see how people respond, see how comfortable we are with it before we cut it. We’ve played some of it live already and we’ve already changed some of it because of the responses we’ve seen,” says Rader.

As only the third band to acquire the Griffin residency — The Study Band was the first last year, followed by The Rooks — The Mad Caps will be keeping their stay short, at least potentially. “I didn’t want to overkill my stay there,” explains Rader on his decision to sign on for the month of April. “We’ll see where it goes in a month. If it looks good, maybe we’ll continue.”

In the meantime, we’ll be taking bets on what local outfit will be the next Downtown darling to follow in The Mad Caps’ big, sexual footsteps.