Heavy Dates

Seeing how the Big Vote is now headed into week two, what would a weekend be without a Worcester Phoenix Best Music Poll party? Oh sure, you'd still have a few cocktails, rub elbows with your pals, and dance to the band, but who's gonna bring the little extras like the Smashing Pumpkins stickers and the Fiona Apple mouse pad? That's right -- your old pals at the Phoenix! Why? Because we like you. This Friday, Drama are the featured act and Liquid is the place to get yourself a free T-shirt from your favorite local publication. Elsewhere, it's weirdo songwriter night around town as Mike Duffy pulls duty at the Above Club, James O'Brien settles in at the Java Hut, and Dr. Chris Van Kleeck leads the Tom Cats into action at the Blue Plate. And, in the not-so-weird-vein of music writing, Mud goes Chuck-less for an early-evening show at Cafe Fantastique. Saturday's not-to-be-missed show happens at Cool Beans with Philadelphia's ugliest son and anti-folk, Adam Brodsky (you can also catch him live in studio on WCUW's Friday edition of CrossTracks). Armed with a not-too-awful voice (in a Bob Dylan-meets-Gordon-Gano kinda way), marginal guitar skills, and a tremendous new album called Folk Remedy (Permanent), Brodsky had us falling over ourselves here at HQ. Mashing together blues, folk, punk, and country with a little social commentary and a lot of screwed-up relationships, Brodsky comes across like a genetic meld of Woody Guthrie and Mojo Nixon. It's an odd balance between old-folk musicianship and bark-at-the-moon maniacal. Do yourself a favor and check this kid out. The Lucky Dog (which is next door to Cool Beans, so you can go on over after Brodsky's set) has a big night with one of our favorite new bands, Prizefighter. You'll also want to catch Boston's Long Distance Runner. Their five-song demo disc is still in rotation on the CD player. The Jones Brothers celebrate the release of their new disc, Biography, at Gilrein's, the Free Radicals go mental at the Above Club, and Young Neal and the Vipers return to shake some tail feathers over at the Plantation Club. The beauty of Ray Mason (besides his ability to write outstanding pop tunes) is he'll play anywhere, at any time, for anybody, with or without his band. All you have to do is fax him directions, and have a can of Coke ready. This Sunday finds him back on the solo circuit at Booklover's Gourmet in Webster from 2 to 4 p.m.

-- John O'Neill

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

If you stripped Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality of its Satanic majesty and replaced Ozzy's Crowley fixation with an affinity for Hot Wheels, fuzzy dice, and fuzzier guitar leads, you'd have California's Fu Manchu, whose dead-on distillation of '70s boogie metal has spawned almost as many imitators as Nirvana did back in the day, as well as an equally reductionist genre tag: stoner rock. Only two purveyors of this scruffy subgenre are worth more than a cursory glance, and both are in town behind newish albums this week. Nebula, a band featuring the rhythm section that made Fu Manchu's debut album such a raucous treat, are touring behind their Sub Pop debut, To the Center, which finds them leavening their Sabbath with a little Stooges-style Raw Power. They're at the Middle East, (617) 864-3278, in Cambridge, on March 26. And Fu Manchu themselves -- in support of their new King of the Road (Mammoth) -- hit the Karma Club, (617) 421-9595, in Boston, on March 28.

Not, as the name would suggest, a tribute to the '70s-era '50s tribute act, Sean Na Na is in fact the nom de rock of Sean Tillman, formerly of Minneapolis indie rowdies Calvin Krime. Most recently he issued a split disc on Kill Rock Stars with our own Mary Lou Lord (who in the midst of recording an album was subsequently dropped from Sony's Work Group). Sean's at the Middle East on March 28 and at the Met Café, (401) 861-2142, in Providence, on March 29, both times with the Holy Childhood (featuring Danny Leo of the indie-rock Leo family). On disc, the Holy Childhood sound like an extravagantly tracked lo-fi roots-rock ensemble backed by an unruly, sleep-deprived E Street Band. The players on Up with What I'm Down With include NYC jazz mainstays -- William Parker sideman Andrew Barker -- as well as some folks with Boston ties, including Narragansett's Jodi Buonanno (Secret Stars, the Runway). Also listed in the lengthy credits is Gibb Slife, who turns up with the rest of Les Savvy Fav at the Middle East on March 29. They headline a bill with Love As Laughter and the quirky, Fall-esque Lifter Puller. An addendum to the hefty list of bubbling-under rock in town this week: twisted emo kids the Dismemberment Plan, who titled their lone major-label EP The Ice of Boston, are back in time for the spring thaw with a gig at the Middle East on March 25.

-- Carly Carioli