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As good as an album like "Generous Gambler" -- the 2007 release by Memphis indie pop outfit Antenna Shoes -- is, it can't quite capture the spirit of seeing the band perform live.

On stage, the ensemble is a loose configuration of individual musical planets, all revolving around a bright and shining song. The song serves as the centrifugal force of this particular solar system, but like the heavenly planets themselves, the individual musicians are pulsing spheres of life. Their roles in this particular musical microcosm is like that of their stellar counterparts -- to live and breathe and explode and evolve on their own, while never spinning out of orbit around the center.

Such a description of Antenna Shoes might sound astronomically melodramatic, especially on a Tuesday afternoon when a sleep-deprived Antenna Shoes front man, Tim Regan, has just left Manhattan, en route to a show that night in Washington, D.C. But it's as good a description as any for what the band does, he said.

"Wow ... yeah," he told The Daily Times. "That's ... that's all I can say about it, is just to agree. Everybody's definitely involved in the composition to some extent, and it's definitely a little bit different every time. It keeps things pretty fresh and new, and we always keep trying to do some new things.

"I think it's just a matter of taking some song ideas and how you play with those ideas off of different people. All of these people have been playing together for so long that you know who to turn to when you come up with something and you want to push the limit on a certain idea to make some weird, strange music."

Regan and the circle of musicians who make up his various projects -- neo-psychedelic rock band Snowglobe; indie pop outfit Oh No! Oh My! (also on the bill for tonight's Antenna Shoes show at Barley's Taproom) -- have been playing together since roughly 2001, Regan said. Antenna Shoes began in 2005, when Snowglobe was on hiatus and Regan found himself in East Tennessee. He loaned his instrumental skills to the indie band Sparklehorse, playing keys on that group's album "Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain," and began a project that's been described as "semi-electronic chamber pop."

The sounds of "Generous Gambler" are majestic in their ebb and flow; playing all of the instruments, Regan drew inspiration from vintage instruments, classic rock song-sculpting and dream-like imagery to craft a work of art that's both ethereal and engaging, the musical equivalent of a heroin/cocaine speedball -- a shot of adrenaline that leaves you tapping your feet and drumming your fingers, immediately followed by a reverie that lulls the listener into a state of transcendence.

Other projects, however, prevented him from launching Antenna Shoes right out of the gate; a European tour backing up Holly Williams (granddaughter of the legendary Hank Williams) and a national tour with Oh No! Oh My! came first. Eventually, however, he opted to put together a full-band version of Antenna Shoes and take to the road to support the release.

Pushing the group's music, however, can be a complicated thing -- especially given the talent and the added creativity that working with such experienced musicians brought to the equation.

"It sounds really general, but when people ask what we sound like, I just say it sounds like rock 'n' roll," Regan said. "We're just trying to get the songs done the right way. Rock 'n' roll is definitely part of it, and it's probably more like the Cheap Trick style of that classic rock vibe than, say, AC/DC or something like that."

No matter; Regan's talent as both a bandleader and a sideman make him an in-demand musician, both by his peers and by the fans who crave the warm and fuzzy feeling that the Antenna Shoes brand of rock 'n' roll brings them. And given the fact that a good percentage of "Generous Gambler" was recorded in East Tennessee, it's only natural to look at tonight's Barley's show as something of a homecoming for Antenna Shoes.

"I've played with numerous bands and done recording projects in Memphis and in Knoxville, and the collaborations I've had have been with some awesome and amazing people," he said. "Both places are really great places to make music, and they have more in common than anybody wants to admit. I consider myself really lucky to know a lot of people around there and to be invited back there."