Heavy Dates

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

Before we sent our sporty Summer Olympians over to Australia, our world-champ indie punks, Sleater Kinney (Olympians of a different sort), went Down Under to back the estimable reformed Aussie indie-pop outfit the Go-Betweens. Corin Tucker and company are back, though, and on the attack after returning to form in their own right on last year's All Hands on the Bad One (Kill Rock Stars). This Friday, September 22, the world's finest bassless trio are joined by a guitarless duo called Coco and Detroit's trash-blues guitar-drums pair White Stripes at the Roxy, (617) 338-7699, in Boston. Then Sleater Kinney head to Northampton for a one-off festival date that'll have college kids skipping class. On Sunday at the Three County Fairgrounds, (800) 477-6869, they're joined by home-town hosts Sonic Youth, Ben Harper, jam fiends Galactic, Juliana Hatfield (who kicks off her own fall tour at the Roxy on Wednesday), Martin Sexton, Toots and the Maytals, the Roots' Rahzel, and Groove Collective.

Ben Harper is also slated for the sold-out Mixfest radio-festival date at Suffolk Downs race track, (617) 931-2000, in East Boston, on Saturday, in a line-up that includes the re-formed Go-Go's, Vertical Horizon, Guster, bespectacled alterna-folkie Lisa Loeb (she's also at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, [401] 272-5876, in Providence, on Sunday), Fastball, the Corrs, Roxette, Barenaked Ladies, Tracy Chapman, the Goo Goo Dolls, and Macy Gray. And radio-show hype of a heavier sort is on display Sunday at the FleetBoston Pavilion, (617) 931-2000, on Boston's waterfront, in a back-to-school low-dough show featuring emo heartthrobs the Get Up Kids, teen grindmetal babes Kittie, ready-for-Dawson's-Creek popsters Nickelback, and Insane Clown Posse clones the Kottonmouth Kings. (The Kings warm up the night before with a headlining gig at Lupo's.)

Pub punks the Dropkick Murphys kick off a tour with some actual Irishmen -- Runnin' Riot, who have a disc out on Dropkick bassist Ken Casey's Flat Records label -- with a surprise gig tonight (Thursday) at Bill's Bar, (617) 421-9678, in Boston, and an above-board date at the Lowell Irish Festival, (978) 458-2120, on Saturday, where you can also catch the final appearance by Lowell's outstanding mod-punk band the Shods. Not appearing at the Lowell Irish Festival: Scottish folkies the Battlefield Band, who will be safely stowed at the Iron Horse, (413) 584-0610, in Northampton, tonight and the Somerville Theatre, (617) 876-4275, in Somerville, on Friday.

Both 16 Horsepower and the Black Heart Procession subscribe to the American Gothic school of roots music -- not quite country, exactly, but the kind of thing you'd imagine undertakers listening to after-hours in old Westerns. They ought to be on tour together, but they ain't. Instead, 16 Horsepower are out supporting their new Secret South (Razor & Tie) at Lilli's, (617) 591-1661, in Somerville, on Friday, along with an Alternative Tentacles alterna-country outfit called Slim Cessna's Auto Club. And the Black Heart Procession are supporting their bleak, funereal third album, III (Touch & Go), with a gig at T.T. the Bear's Place, (492) 2327, in Cambridge, on Sunday.

-- Carly Carioli