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June 9 - 16, 2000

[Heavy Dates]

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Heavy Dates

Heavy Dates

Where have all the good labels gone? Like the National Weather Service running out of quality titles for hurricanes and tsunamis (the 2000 season has just kicked off: pay attention, and you'll see what we mean), music has gone dry on what to call its current crop of underground noise. Thus, we have the questionably named International Extreme Music Festival at the Palladium this Friday. Dismember, Krisium, Kataklysm and Shadows Fall play the really big show, but since when did metal become "extreme"? Guess that'll teach us for not attending the "David Geffen Music Seminar for Modern Group Marketing and Pigeonholing." For a minor fee of 12 clams, you can catch jazz maven Maynard Ferguson and Big Bop Nouveau who are featured this week at the Jazz at Sunset Concert Series at the EcoTarium. Elsewhere on Friday, Gilrein's welcomes Ron Levy's Wild Kingdom, and our main folk man Dan Hart returns for his monthly visit to the Java Hut. Saturday means garage-punk action of the highest caliber, compliments of Wormtown's super-secret legends the Time Beings. Like the Flamin' Groovies, the Real Kids, the Barracudas, and the Lyres before them, they'll be anointed and elevated someday to their rightful cult status as one of the world's best-ever rock-and-roll combos. And, yes, that includes "real" bands like Skynyrd and the Moody Blues (and "cred" bands like the Ramones and Stooges). They're just that good. Unfortunately, they'll also totally override the meek sound system of the Above Club, where they're playing this Saturday. Elsewhere, get down to Ralph's to dig the Flames, these bad boys of cock-rock are worth a gander; and their disc is a friggin' hoot. They open for the Boston Brats. On the folk front, there are two potential good shows to choose from: at Grafton Crossing, it's the Neilds; while Coretta Sellars celebrates the release of her third disc at the Bull Run. From the "where are they now" bin, former Orleans singer John Hall returns to the Sit 'N Bull Pub next Thursday. Calling all flabby, balding, former stoners, here's your chance to relive your heyday with a man responsible for making '70s rock the sorry hangover to the '60s. Everyone else, hit your knees and thank God the Sex Pistols were uncouth enough to mumble some dirty words on the tele in 1976. Otherwise, who can guess what kind of mess we'd be in today.

-- John O'Neill

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

So did he or didn't he? In the course of winning the Rumble this past month, Boston drunk-punks Darkbuster played "The Amazing Royal Shaft," a catchy number that was introduced as a true story about how the bass player had brought his girlfriend to see the Amazing (then Royal) Crowns during their Rumble-winning stint a couple years back, only to have her run off with the Crowns' singer. The chorus is unambiguous: "Not as funny as it sounds/My girl fucked the singer in the Royal Crowns." In the course of talking with said singer, Jason Kendall (see our Arts cover story), we had to ask. "I did not fuck her," laughed Kendall. "She's a friend of mine and we laugh about it all the time. First of all, I think the song's hilarious, and I'll say it here first: I want them to do that song on a split single with us. But I remember that was a crazy night, I didn't know they were still together. His last words to me were, `Dude, it's over between us, it's cool, hang out with her.' But I did not fuck her. After the Darkbuster song she called me and said, `You know what they're saying.' And I said, `Yeah.' And she goes, `Well, you wanna get together?' And I'm like, `No! I don't want any more grief.' " The Amazing Crowns play a "private" gig at Bill's Bar, (617) 421-9678, in Boston, on June 14, for which tickets are available free with the purchase of the Crowns' new disc, Royal (Time Bomb), at any Newbury Comics. They'll then hit the Skinny, in Portland, (207) 871-8983, for two shows on June 15 and 16 (the latter an all-ages day gig). But we're getting ahead of ourselves. First, the Crowns hook up with Jimmy Gestapo and Murphy's Law at the Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, (401) 272-5876, in Providence, on June 9 -- and before that, on June 8, Murphy's Law are at Bill's with Toxic Narcotic and others. Darkbuster play Bill's with the Big Bad Bollocks and Tommy & the Terrors on June 9, before heading out on their own to the Green Room, (401) 351-7665, in Providence, on June 10. Meanwhile, the subjects of another Darkbuster fave -- a tune called "I Hate the Unseen" -- show up at the Beach Club and Café, (978) 465-8283, in Salisbury on June 11. Also on the bill: the Casualties, Virus, and Adolf & the Piss Artists.

The outdoor concert sheds heat up this week: the FleetBoston Pavilion, (617) 931-2000, has Indigo Girls for a two-night stand (coinciding with Gay Pride week) on June 10 and 11. KISS, Ted Nugent, and a Sebastian Bach-less Skid Row rock all night and every day, or at least for two nights at the Tweeter Center, (617) 931-2000, on June 12 and 13. Testosterone yields to the Cure (well, sorta -- who'da thunk Robert Smith would end up being cited as inspirational by Korn and the Deftones?) at the Tweeter on June 14, and then the rock returns with multi-culti soft-rap/rock kids 311 and Incubus at the same venue on June 15.

-- Carly Carioli


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