Heavy Dates

Heavy Dates

Vibrotica. Dumb name, good band. They headline Friday night's up-and-comers bill at the Lucky Dog alongside Allagash 4, Cartridge Family, and Nimmer. Speaking of dumb, Strange Brew play the Tammany Club, Ellyn Fleming and the Inmates are at Jack's Saloon, and Jack and Present Company hit Bennigan's (yes, Bennigan's) in Fitchburg. One a happier note, Saturday has all the potential for a decent night out on the Worm, starting with a rare Vincent's set from Best Music Poll folk champeens Twang. There's no doubt that their disc Second Slam will be getting serious attention in next year's Best Album category, and it's nice to see them back at the only place that would have them when nobody else gave a crap. Plus they play for donations, so even if you don't see what we're so jacked up about, you can plink 'em with spare change on the excuse that you were aiming for the hat. Elsewhere on Saturday, guitar ace Jason James has stripped down his sound and headed back to his blues roots. A little less rockin', the new Jason James Band play a couple of sets at Gilrein's. Over at the Plantation Club, it's the horn-driven attack of Boston's funkateers Rippopotamus, while the Above Club goes Goth with the ambient gazer-pop of Twelfth of Never. And, if you're in the mood for a little music-history lesson, you couldn't do much better than the 8 p.m. show from Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong at the Center for Arts in Natick. Sunday night you can get down with the King -- Elvis that is. Dead Elvis and the Colonel and the Knight Crawlers record live at the Lucky Dog for the resurrected King's upcoming disc Live After Death. Over at the Palladium, it's the post-hardcore one-two punch of Boy Sets Fire and Ann Beretta. It isn't often we get down with tribute acts, but we'll make an exception for modern-day Who-doer's Substitute. They're raw, barely restrained, and potent -- all things the band they're nicking haven't been for more than 30 years. What's more, they do the Who better than last year's much-ballyhooed visit from John Entwistle's band of bulbous gas bags. Substitute play the Lucky Dog next Thursday.

-- John O'Neill

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

Boston ska bands by and large resisted the urge to cash in their chips during the brief ska-core epidemic that swept the country a couple summers ago. As a result, you won't see any of 'em on MTV. But on the upside, they still actually sound like ska bands. And damn fine ones, too. For the better part of a decade -- since '94, to be exact -- the Mash It Up compilation series has documented Boston's thriving ska scene, and there's a new one out now, Mash It Up 2000, with old faces (recent Best Music Poll winners the Allstonians, Bim Skala Bim) and new (Big D & the Kids Table, Jaya the Cat). Several release parties take place this week, the biggest of which goes down on May 26 at the Middle East, (617) 864-3278, in Cambridge, with Bim Skala Bim, the Allstonians, Beat Soup, Steady Earnest, Shoeless Joe, Jaya the Cat, Jumpsuit Jerry, and Green Island. On May 27 that group splits up: the Allstonians, Big D & the Kids Table, Steady Earnest, the Take 5, and Jumpsuit Jerry head to Café Eclipse, (603) 226-2556, in Concord, New Hampshire, while Bim Skala Bim, Shoeless Joe, and Green Island play that same night at the Stone Coast Brewery, (207) 773-2337, in Portland, Maine. Then Bim, the Allstonians, Steady Earnest, and Jaya the Cat reteam and storm Cape Cod's Wellfleet Beachcomber, (508) 349-6055, on May 28.

Lookout's Groovie Ghoulies do the monster-mash pop-punk thing along with Muffs sound-alikes Buck at the Met Café, (401) 861-2142, in Providence, on May 31, and at the Middle East on June 1. In grunge: Local H play Pearl Street, (413) 584-0610, in Northampton, on May 25; and Stone Temple Pilots join Every Friggin' Modern-Rock Band In The Universe -- the short list includes the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Godsmack, the Bloodhound Gang, Cypress Hill, and Static-X -- at a sold-out Foxboro Stadium, (617) 931-2000, on May 27. In swing: Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, (401) 272-5876, in Providence, hosts the Cherry Poppin' Daddies on May 26 and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy on June 2, but neither outfit has the oomph or the stamina of funkmaster George Clinton, who hits Lupo's on May 30.

Boston stoner-metal kings Roadsaw are preparing to release their latest, Rawk N' Roll, but in the meantime they're back in Europe as guests of Nebula. Those of you who are headed across the Pond can catch 'em at El Sol in Madrid on May 27; at Mephisto in Barcelona on May 28; and at Bloom in Milan on May 31.

-- Carly Carioli