RELATED EVENTS

• New Year's Eve with the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, Many Marie and the Cool Hand Lukes

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• Locals Only

Red Light Driver will be among the bands who play at Big Car Gallery for New Year's Eve. (photo by Jammy Straub)

Reverend Peyton and his Big Damn Band will perform at Spin Nightclub on New Year's Eve. (Michelle Pemberton for The Star)

Latex Novelties will perform at Locals Only on New Year's Eve.

New Year's Eve entertainment at Blu Martini includes a meal, music from DJ Cool Hand Lex and a live psychic making predictions for 2008. (submitted photo)

Comedian Aries Spears (submitted photo)

Blu Martini nightclub owner Bill Pritt wants to ring in 2008 with a dose of truth.

He says New Year's Eve events don't always live up to the hype, citing years when he was a customer at various venues and not a bar owner.

"I remember feeling let down after New Year's," Pritt says. "I paid this huge cover, and the drinks were so expensive."

As one might expect, Pritt touts the upcoming Dec. 31 party at Blu Martini as a customer-friendly event and the opposite of a money grab. At the very least, Blu Martini sets itself apart by booking a psychic for New Year's Eve attendees to consult.

Here are five suggestions for bang-for-your-buck entertainment on the final night of '07. You can spend the evening with a high-profile comic or you can spend it in swanky surroundings. There are also options for family fun, punk-rock nostalgia and a rural blues revival.

Aries Spears

7:30 and 10 p.m. Dec. 31, Morty's Comedy Joint, 3625 E. 96th St. $40 for early show, $50 for late show. (317) 848-5500 or www.mortyscomedyjoint.com.

Television viewers likely know Aries Spears for his work on the sketch comedy shows "Mad TV" on Fox and "The Underground" on Showtime.

But there's a stand-up side to Spears, says Morty's Comedy Club co-owner Eric Shorts.

"I really think, by and large, that most people don't know how good a stand-up comedian he is because he's been doing all this sketch comedy work," Shorts says.

Dec. 31 will be the second New Year's Eve for Morty's, which opened in 2006 in the former location of a Funny Bone comedy club. Spears will work hard during his visit to Indianapolis, as he has eight Morty's performances scheduled between Dec. 27 and Dec. 31.

"He must have an appreciation for the positives of working a comedy club," Shorts says. "It's a more intimate atmosphere, and you get to work things out with the crowd. There's a give and take."

After mastering impressions of Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor, Spears' repertoire has expanded to include an impressive routine of freestyle rapping that cycles through tributes to LL Cool J to Snoop Dogg to DMX to Jay-Z.

Multiple variations of the hip-hop bit can be found on Web site YouTube.com.

"I've watched that thing easily 20 times," Shorts says.

Blu Year's Eve

5 p.m. Dec. 31, Blu Martini, 4705 E. 96th St. $10. (317) 566-8650 or www.blumartiniindy.com.

Amid drinks, dining and dancing, members of the Dec. 31 crowd at Blu Martini are invited to glean some insight regarding their 2008. For the second consecutive year at the nightclub, a psychic from the Indianapolis-based Pyramid Enlightenment Corp. will share personalized predictions with patrons.

"People really like it," Blu Martini owner Bill Pritt says. "They come out early. It gets people talking, and it adds to their evening."

One of several local bars that can be described as upscale lounges, Blu Martini celebrated its fourth anniversary in September. Pritt credits loyalty from regular customers for Blu Martini's longevity.

If you're new to the nightclub, "Blu Year's Eve" will feature a menu of steak, seafood and sushi.

Noted DJ Cool Hand Lex will handle the music, and photographers will distribute complimentary images of revelers on the spot.

Bohemian New Year's Eve

8 p.m. Dec. 31, Big Car Gallery, 1043 Virginia Ave., Suite 215. $10, age-based discounts for children. (317) 450-6630 or www.bigcar.org.

This combination concert, coloring contest, countdown and fundraiser is open to all ages.

Big Car Gallery, found in the Murphy Arts Building in Fountain Square, will present its Bohemian New Year's Eve program for the third consecutive year.

The live music lineup includes:

-Pop-rock band Red Light Driver, winners of the recent Indy.com "Music Video Throwdown" competition. -Anderson-based rural rock act Paper Son, promoting its new EP titled "Long Road." -Lo-fi indie rock trio Beat Debris. -Techno specialist and New York City resident Jon Autry, promoting current album "Cutting Exercises."

Big Car Gallery event manager Shauta Marsh says the Bohemian event -- which raises funds for the all-volunteer arts organization -- provides a destination for teenagers on a night when most events cater to the 21-and-older crowd and a few events dote on youngsters who can't stay up until midnight. In a best-case scenario, Bohemian New Year's Eve is something teens and their parents enjoy together.

Latex Novelties

8 p.m. Dec. 31, Locals Only, 2449 E. 56th St. $15. (317) 255-4013 or www.localsonlyindy.com.

This event gives attendees the chance to party like it's 1979.

The Gizmos, Indiana's first punk rock band, will reconvene at Locals Only and be joined on the bill by the Latex Novelties, who stake claim to being the first punk-rock band in Indianapolis.

Formed in 1978, the Latex Novelties are known for taking the stage in wardrobe ranging from pink to black to fishnet stockings to coveralls worn in tribute to the droogs in "A Clockwork Orange."

The band returned to live performances in August, with former Slurs vocalist Justin Allen filling the role of founding member Peter Pills, who died in the late 1980s.

"He's a good frontman, he's not afraid to be outrageous," drummer Davey Cretin says of Allen. "He fits like a glove."

In addition to Allen and Cretin, the current Latex lineup consists of guitarists G Noxious and Andy Rexia, and bass player Gregory Dean.

Cretin, who joined the band in 1982, said the band was formed in reaction to lengthy guitar solos and drum solos heard in mainstream music.

The Novelties looked to the East Coast, where the Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads were using an agitated, minimalist approach to shake things up.

"We just felt like we were being spoon-fed what corporations wanted us to hear and be," Cretin says. Earlier this year, Italian label Rave Up sold an entire run of 5,000 Latex Novelties reissues on vinyl in two months.

"It's blowing my mind," Cretin says of renewed interest in the band.

The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band

9 p.m. Dec. 31, Spin Nightclub, 6308 Guilford Ave. $15. (317) 257-0000 or www.brownpapertickets.com.

While preparing for a Dec. 31 homecoming show at Broad Ripple's Spin Nightclub, the members of the Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band received an early holiday present.

Celtic punk band Flogging Molly invited the rural blues trio from Indianapolis to serve as supporting act on 35 dates of a 2008 tour.

"They would say that they play roots music," the Rev. Josh Peyton says of Flogging Molly. "No one's playing it on the radio, but they still sell a lot of concert tickets and a lot of records."

The artistic formula resonates with Peyton, his wife Breezy and his brother Jayme, who have toured the United States relentlessly since mid-2006.

The Spin date, which features special guests Jason Webley plus Mandy Marie & the Cool Hand Lukes, will offer various prizes through raffles to raise funds for Second Helpings -- an organization that reclaims food from hotels and restaurants and then distributes meals to hunger-relief programs.

"It's been a good year for us," Peyton said by phone from a tour stop in North Carolina.

"If people think it's been a good year for them, too, hopefully they'll help us out with raising some money."

The band's high-octane acoustic music recently inspired audience members in Wisconsin to disrobe during a performance, echoing a similar incident in North Carolina in 2005.

"All I did was say, 'We played a college once and people got naked.' Then they got naked. If anything happens more than once, it's tradition," Peyton said with a laugh.