Heavy Dates

It's been some time since we've heard from everyone's favorite folk singer/psychiatrist Dr. Chris Van Kleek. Now we know why. He's got a new disc and has recruited a band to back him. On Friday night, the Blue Plate presents the debut of Chris Van Kleek and the Tom Cats. Over at Funny Bones Cafe, New Hampshire's number-one masters-of-PC-disaster, Scissorfight, headline a bill that also includes Suicide Contest and Skulltoboggan. It's an early show, so plan your substance abuse accordingly. Elsewhere, Young Neal and the Vipers return to shake the Plantation Club, and Chuck Demers goes Mud-less at Cafe Fantastique's open stage. On Saturday, the Lucky Dog features two of the area's better, pop-flavored acts with sets from Little Big Wheel and Curtain Society. Headlining is the Sheila Devine, whom you may remember as the band who canceled their gig in the wake of the fire last month while everyone else soldiered on and donated their proceeds to the firefighters fund. Well, things are getting back to normal around here, and their lead singer's voice is all better now (purely a coincidence, wink, wink), so let the show go on. Elsewhere around town, it's Goth Night at the Above Club with 12th of Never and Lunar Landscape, Fatwall Jack swing at Gilrein's, and the Palladium gets heavy with the Dillinger Escape Plan, Shadows Fall, Isis, Dissolve, and Blood Has Been Shed. On Sunday, Cafe Abba kicks into high gear with the MAFIO Musicfest. While many will play only a few will be highlighted -- namely, Dimwit (who, admittedly, can do no wrong), Critical Condition, Red Mercury, and Change by Force.

-- John O'Neill

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

So now that rap metal has blossomed into a full-blown worldwide genre -- instead of a series of localized outbreaks -- we have an excuse to talk, once again, about forefathers of the medium. In the liner notes to their new best-of compilation Killer A's, Anthrax's Scott Ian doesn't seem nearly as embarrassed about "I'm the Man" as he perhaps should be; and he's still damn proud, thankyuhverymuch, of the Anthrax version of Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise" (featuring Chuck D). Fair enough, but what we wanna know is why no one ever brings up Anthrax's first attempt at rap metal -- which was issued earlier in 1987, the same year as "I'm the Man." We're talking, of course, about Anthrax's slept-on (for good reason) collaboration with UTFO (of "Roxanne, Roxanne" fame) on the title track of UTFO's third album, Lethal (Elektra). Sniff it out one of these days if you're in the mood for a cringe and a chuckle. In the meantime, Anthrax -- to whom we stopped paying attention almost a decade ago, when the band sacked soprano-ish vocalist Joey Belladonna in favor of Eddie Vedderish Armored Saint singer John Bush -- have decided to promote the Bush-heavy A's by touring with both singers (the two even duet on the album's one new song, a truly awful version of the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion"). It's not like Belladonna was doing much better with his solo career or anything, but old-school fans are advised that this is probably your last chance to hear anything resembling the classic Anthrax line-up perform "Caught in a Mosh," "Indians," and "I Am the Law." Anthrax are at the Paradise Rock Club, (617) 423-6398, in Boston, on January 19 and the Webster Theatre, (860) 246-8001, in Hartford, Connecticut, on January 20. Stoner metal dudes Fu Manchu open both dates.

If it's weird to think that Anthrax have been around for nearly two decades, it's even weirder to realize that NRBQ have been around for three -- and to celebrate the occasion, the band have released the second album to be called NRBQ (the first was the one that launched their long, strange trip through most of the major -- and quite a few of the minor -- American vernacular musical idioms). The band's victory lap continues at the House of Blues, (617) 491-2583, in Cambridge, on January 14 and at the Living Room, (401) 521-5200, in Providence, on January 15.

New England folk-bluesman Chris Smither, who's revered for his country-styled fingerpicking in the manner of Lightnin' Hopkins, is at the Iron Horse, (413) 584-0610, in Northampton, on January 14; he also shows up later this month, on January 25, at Johnny D's, (617) 776-2004, in Somerville.

-- Carly Carioli