Heavy Dates

WORCESTER

Heavy dates

The Zen Tricksters were playing extended sets way before Phish was a blip on the national radar. While they're still a favorite on the jam circuit, their latest CD, 1999's A Love Surreal, doesn't expand music boundaries the way many of their modern counterparts do. Longtime keyboardist Rob Barraco recently left the group to devote more time to his family and to gig with Phil Lesh and Friends. On Thursday, guitarist Jeff Mattson (who also plays with Lesh on occasion) brings the Tricksters to the Tammany Club, where on Friday, Dr. Didg, who moved to the United States from the United Kingdom earlier this year, perform. Dr. Didg's CD Serotonality has been called world music for raves. The Alley has finally opened its doors. Check out the former Commercial Street Cafe on Saturday when Dumptruck perform (don't confuse them with the popular Boston act of the same name; for some reason, North Worcester County bands have a history of taking names that have already been used successfully elsewhere). If it's roots music you're after, there's plenty of options on Saturday -- start off with Leon Redbone's 8 p.m. show at Old Sturbridge Village, then return to the Worm for your pick of the Preachers at Ralph's or the Dennis Brennan Band at Gilrein's. Philadelphia eccentric singer/songwriter Adam Brodsky visits the Coffee Klatch in Framingham on Wednesday. That same evening, At Will rock the Lucky Dog Music Hall's Headbangers Ball with Imprint, Down 21, and Subgenius.

-- Brian Goslow

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

Jamaica Plain's Milky Way Lounge and Lanes, (617) 524-3740, is ground zero for an invasion of the international pop underground this weekend. Tonight (October 19), timeless Australian indie-poppers the Cannanes are in with Steward -- the two bands will release a split LP, Communicating at an Unknown Rate, on Halloween -- and fellow Aussies Even As We Speak. Then, fresh from the CMJ Music Marathon, the K Records crew arrive at the Milky Way on Friday, bringing the label's strongest recent signing, the singer/songwriter Mirah, along with the Microphones and the Softies. Local modern-dancer-turned-singer Alissa Cardone opens. On Saturday, the K portion of the bill moves to the Gloucester Artspace, (978) 283-1381, and everyone but the Softies makes it to Flywheel (413) 527-9800, in Easthampton next Thursday.

Not quite a riot grrrl but certainly a poster girl for what a little self-promotion can do, neo-folk-rock icon Ani Difranco makes one of her annual raids on one of her national strongholds. On Tuesday she's at the Providence Performing Arts Center, (401) 421-2787; then she's at the Orpheum, (617) 931-2000, in Boston, for two nights next Thursday and Friday, and at the Mullins Center at UMass-Amherst (413) 545-0505, next Saturday, October 28, before hitting the Palace Theatre, (203) 789-2120, in New Haven, for Halloween.

This week in whatever-happened-to-that-groundbreaking-UK-alterna-band: Swervedriver's Adam Franklin surfaces with his swervy new outfit Toshack Highway, who issued a homonymous disc on the local label Catapult earlier this year and finally make it stateside for a few performances. They're at T.T. the Bear's Place, (617) 492-2327, in Cambridge, this Friday and at the Green Room, (401) 351-7665, in Providence next Friday, October 27. Meanwhile, the Jesus and Mary Chain's Jim Reid returns to Boston with his new, not-too-different band Freeheat, who earlier this year at the Middle East played only their second-ever public performance. With a debut EP, Don't Worry Be Happy, due to hit the shelves November 7, they kick off another modest US tour at the Middle East, (617) 864-3278, this Friday.

After a brief dance with Geffen living the Beverly Hillbillies-style high life, it's back to getting Liquored Up & Lacquered Down for Southern Culture on the Skids, who'll release an album by that name this Halloween on TVT. The grimy white-trash psycho-surfabillies are at the Met Café, (401) 861-2142, in Providence, on Tuesday, the Middle East on Wednesday, and the Skinny, (207) 871-8983, in Portland, Maine next Thursday.

Halloween inevitably inspires dozens of otherwise rational people to form one-night-only Misfits cover bands; the members of the actual Misfits, who have carried on for several years and a couple of albums now since reuniting without the Voice himself, Glenn Danzig, have no such excuse. Still, they're a pretty damn good Misfits cover band, and since it's (almost) Halloween and they're on a bill with the other can't-miss Halloween band, Gwar, how could you not see 'em at the Palladium, (800) 477-6849, in Worcester this Saturday? Added incentives: joky facepainted nü-pozers Mudvayne, extreme-metal titans Dillinger Escape Plan, ace thrash revivalists Shadows Fall, and washed-up punks Murphy's Law. On Sunday, Gwar resume their tour at Toad's Place, (203) 624-8623, in New Haven while the Misfits hit the Webster Theatre, (860) 525-5553, in Hartford.

Moby's gig tonight (October 19) at Avalon, (617) 423-6398, in Boston is sold out, but tickets still remain for his show at the Palladium on Tuesday.

-- Carly Carioli