Best New Group

Red Mercury

The buzz started two summers ago. A hotshot teen guitarist from the Brookfields could play like Hendrix. Soon afterward, Red Mercury found themselves in front of 10,000 people at Locobazooka and on WAAF's airwaves. To Marshall Smith's credit (and unlike most young gunslingers), he's avoiding the advice of those who would like to mold him into the next money-making, teen blues phenom. Instead, he's heavy on the Korn, but not afraid to perform the Hend-rix tribute that attracted the attention in the first place. Smith's inf-ected by the same musical demon that's driven greats from Robert Johnson to Kurt Cobain on "In the End," Red Mercury's first track on their can we be lost . . . CD. Live, he controls the stage dynamics but isn't afraid to share the spotlight with guitarist Jim Gevry. The rest of the band know how to have fun on stage as well -- bassist Paul Murphy's been known to leapfrog around covered in stickers, and drummer Ed Murphy pile-drives the night away. Having released their recordings in two limited-release stages, the boys from Charlton and from the Brookfields have their next project ready: return to the studio to record enough songs so they can release a full-length CD. And it's a future worth watching -- closely.

-- Brian Goslow