The first thing Paul Major says when Endless Boogie shuffle onstage is, “This is the last song of the night.” Droll joke, it seems. But 35 minutes later, as the band come to a juddering halt and ponder whether to attempt an encore, it turns out to have been true. One song, infinite possibilities. It is, maybe, a case of the New York band heroically living up to the promise of their name. But actually, Endless Boogie don’t boogie so much through the evolving jam that makes up the bulk of this awesome Club Uncut show. Instead of the choogle we usually associate with them, tonight’s session is rooted in a kind of solid state thrum; a bouncing Dingerbeat, locked-on bass and rhythm guitar that cumulatively create something closer in spirit to the likes of Suicide and Spacemen 3 than the Quo-ish bands with whom Endless Boogie are often bracketed. Over the top of this, Major’s fervid, needling soloing is a revelation, as the pacing ducks and dives, and fragments of recognisable tracks emerge out of the jam: for example a lyrical snatch of “A Life Worth Leaving”, the behemoth that closes their forthcoming second album, “Full House Head” (which I previewed here last week). The psychedelic relentlessness of it all identifies Endless Boogie as very much fellow travellers with Wooden Shjips, more men of a certain age who have found a trancey new delivery system for classic rock tropes. But if that suggests a detached, cerebral approach, the reality is much more physical and ecstatic. When it finally ends, Major and his bandmates appear conceptually befuddled by the idea of an encore. “Usually,” he says, “we can only do one in a row.” But soon enough, they’re off again, with a ferocious psych blues that invokes Hendrix, ZZ Top and Loop, and wraps up after a disappointingly pithy ten minutes. Endless Boogie are apparently playing downstairs at the Garage tonight, supporting Mission Of Burma, and on Monday at the Macbeth, as well as Pavement’s ATP this weekend. Once again, I can’t recommend one of the world’s great unheralded rock bands enough. Recommendation, too, for Hush Arbors, tonight’s opener. Keith Wood plays a good part of his set solo and acoustic this time round, joined after a while by a female harmony singer. I’ve written about Wood’s music a few times (this link, to a piece about last year’s “Yankee Reality”, leads on to some other things), and it’s apparent that his unshowy craftsmanship is going from strength to strength; especially pointed up by the minimal, Neil Young vibes of this set. Special love for “Fast Asleep”, but it’s all good.

I haven’t done one of these round-ups for a while and, with a week of probable live reviews looking likely here, it seemed logical to mop up a couple of things this morning. First up, Elisa Randazzo’s “Bruises And Butterflies”, an extremely pretty piece of folk-rock out of LA on Drag City. I guess the most obvious contemporary comparison to Randazzo and Aaron Robinson’s songs would be Espers, or perhaps Marissa Nadler. But Randazzo and Robinson go even further in assiduously recreating a certain rich, mellow early ‘70s aesthetic, drawing equally from Californian and British traditions. One minute, then, you’re aligning Randazzo’s dreamy work with Linda Perhacs, or something more conventionally Canyons-ish, the next she seems to be channelling Mellow Candle or Trees. Perhaps, in fact, the British line just wins out, thanks to vocal and songwriting contributions from the once-elusive Bridget St John. A quick Wiki reveals intriguing lineage, in that Randazzo’s parents are Victoria Pike and Teddy Randazzo, songwriters whose work included (in Pike’s case) The Third Bardot’s killer garage-psych, “I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time”. Nice record, regardless: check out “Circles” and “Colors” especially. As, I think, is Gayngs’ “Relayted”, though I’ve been dithering a bit over this one, not least because the opener, “The Gaudy Side Of Town”, has something of George Michael about it. A collective centred around Ryan Olson from Minneapolis, Gayngs seem to be pitching themselves rather archly around an indie-rock transliteration of R&B and 10cc’s more aerated moments: a silvery cover of Godley & Creme’s “Cry” makes the latter most explicit. There’s a suspicion that Gayngs aren’t quite as hip and clever as they think they are, but there’s still plenty to enjoy here: a sustained gaseous, occasionally dubbed-out atmosphere; the unmistakeable Justin Vernon floating in and out of the mix, evidently still finding ways to distract himself from the next Bon Iver; some unlikely affinities with equivalent ‘90s projects, probably featuring Shawn Smith (Pigeonhed, maybe?); and some neat songs, of which the relatively punchy “Faded High”, with its “We Are The Robots” synths, feels like the standout at the moment.

A comment from Cliff on yesterday’s playlist arrived earlier: “Also, Endless Boogie, more of the same?” It’s difficult to imagine, I suppose, how a band called Endless Boogie could suddenly embark on a radical change of direction. “Full House Head” starts running more or less where its awesome predecessor, “Focus Level”, left off: streamlined rhythms, epic jams, some justifiably strong doses of Canned Heat, Beefheart (with particular attention paid, perhaps inevitably, to “I’m Gonna Booglarise You Baby”), a lot of early ‘70s stuff that I should be more familiar with (someone mentioned Stackwaddy last time), a lot of early ‘70s stuff that almost no-one - save Endless Boogie frontman Paul Major, a reputedly olympian rare record collector –will probably be familiar with. If anything, though, “Full House Head” stretches the bug-eyed motoring ethos of Endless Boogie even further, elevating the lost art of choogling to almost transcendental levels: moments of the 11-minute “Slow Creep”, for example (a song title as reductively blatant as their band name), vaguely suggest “Dog Of Two Head” recalibrated as a meditational tool. The song which precedes “Slow Creep”, conversely, “Tarmac City”, pushes up the pace to a more frenzied level than usual, and betrays what may well be a useful familiarity with the Stones circa “Exile”, albeit a Stones wrangled into a different, Beefheartish shape. It’s here, and on the heroically dumb “Mighty Fine Pie”, that a weird comparison with a band I must admit I’ve never liked, Oasis, recurs from “Focus Level”. It’s pretty implausible, and it doesn’t help explain why I like Endless Boogie so much. But maybe that doggedly relentless streamlining of classic rock, that Oasis came up with on things like “Shakermaker”, has found an unlikely underground analogue here. Don’t let this put you off, of course. It’s a strange, fleeting allusion, and one healthily bulldozed by the two straight-up classics that bookend this heartily enjoyable album. “Full House Head” opens with “Empty Eye”, a wiry nine-and-a-half minute choogle in the dust trails of ZZ Top that culminates in a needling face-off between Major and a guesting Matt Sweeney. “A Life Worth Leaving”, meanwhile, is a monolithic jam that gradually picks up psychedelic momentum over a mighty 22 and a half minutes, occasionally entering the sort of cosmic zones that I always hoped the stoner/desert rock set of the late ‘90s might shoot for more often. Needless to say, it sounds like it would absolutely kill live, which makes next Wednesday’s Endless Boogie show for us at Club Uncut an even more exciting prospect. If you’re still not convinced, check this monster out on Youtube.