The giraffe has become a classic example of evolution. The earliest evolutionary theorists described that their long necks were the result of constant reaching to eat leaves off of trees.

These two Giraffes certainly aren’t going to sprout eight foot necks any time soon, but they are pretty good at adapting to their environment- and they definitely are evolving.

“There’s definitely a structure (to our shows), but we’ve always understood than when we need to improvise, we just go with it,” said Joe Andreoli, guitarist for Giraffes? Giraffes!

The experimental instrumental duo Giraffes? Giraffes! brings what can only be described as calculated lunacy to the Blackwater Café at 7 p.m, Jan. 31, playing with local outfit Galactic Monkey Spiral. The Blackwater is located at 912 N. Yosemite St., and cover is $5.

This is the first official tour for pals Andreoli and drummer Ken Topham, as they test the waters in a few new markets outside the friendly confines of their hometown of Santa Cruz and the Bay Area.

“It’s all pretty interesting and exciting no matter what, it could be a real s----y and small place and there could be nobody there, but that’s the beauty of it is you don’t really know,” Andreoli said while driving the van to Chico, and then on to shows in Oregon and Washington.

“The way we perform, we play pretty much the same if it’s just two people or 200,” he added. “We set up facing each other, kind of watching each other’s reactions; we feel it playing off each other.”

For the record, Andreoli and Topham can both play guitar and drums, but you’re not going to catch them switching stations during the show.

“I don’t like paying to see people dick around,” Topham chimed in from the bucket seat of the van.

It’s not often to see a band this intensely focused on the technical elements of a song, yet so wildly inventive at the same time.

The first ingredient to the duo success is structure, evidence of which can be found on their newest CD “More Skin With Milk-Mouth,” which features amusingly titled songs like “When the Catholic Girls go Camping, the Nicotine Vampires Rule Supreme.”

Their first album for indie label Loves in Heat Records is a heavily funkified step up from their previous release, “Superbass!!!”

“There’s stuff that we didn’t do on the first album that we took into consideration,” Andreoli said. “We kind of rushed (‘Superbass’) off, I didn’t do much as far as looping and textures, we really wanted to make sure we had something that sounded thick and interesting; we wanted to make them a little denser and go into it more.”

With the framework of a few pre-realized, vocal-free songs, it gives the duo the freedom to turn loose their live performances and bounce off of each other with reckless abandon, as Topham attacks his drum kit like a man possessed and Andreoli taps and strums with more loops than Toucan Sam.

“It must get really boring to play the same s--t over and over again,” Andreoli said. “There’s comfort in the songs we’ve been playing for awhile, but we’re so comfortable that we can add a little flare and a little pizzazz, for each show to have its original feeling.”

email: adavis@209Vibe.com