Heavy Dates

WORCESTER

Heavy dates

This Thursday, Rhode Island teen blues guitar phenom Ricky Valente, whose debut CD is called A Place in My Dreams, makes a rare Central Massachusetts appearance at Liquid, where he'll share the stage with Sidetracked and Simon; that same night, Clemmy's Gutta and Treehouse Union relax at the Tammany Club while the Lucky Dog presents a strong bill featuring FreakShow, Dragstrip Courage, Absence of Faith, and Tootsie. On Friday, the former Gangsta Bitch Barbie, Nullset, blasts the Alley with help from Controlled Aggression, Brave New World, and K-26, the Oak Street Jam Band groove the Tammany Club, and its power pop heaven when Huck, Thinner, and Runaway Brain return to Ralph's.

On Saturday, Dr. Bewkenheimer debuts their new line-up at the Lucky Dog Music Hall with metallic duo Motokops 2000, Sumo, and Cosmo, Cosmic Wheel pop into Partner's Pub, off-beat Wormtown folkster Stanley Matis opens for John Forster at the Center for Arts in Natick, Apartment Three, who recently lost Dan MacMillan and Geoff Neri to the "musical differences," premiere as a trio at Green Acres, and Roger Salloom, the man who once wanted to "Get Out of Worcester," begs to be let back in at the Green Rooster Coffeehouse.

On Sunday, friends of Debbie Ciccone help to offset the costs of her battle with cancer at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Leominster; Gale Force, Goldrush, the Sundowners, and Ruff Cut get the country jamboree going around 1 p.m.

-- Brian Goslow

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

>DJ Q-Bert, the headiest member of the outlandish, visionary, and now-defunct Invisibl Skratch Piklz collective, made it to Sundance this year with Wave Twisters, an animated film synchronized to his album of the same name; described as a turntablist Fantasia, it introduces the notion of "visual scratching." Its only scheduled New England screening is Saturday at the State Theatre, (207) 775-3331, in Portland, Maine, with Q along to spin as well. Stankonia fever seems to be reaching a fever pitch -- in the Village Voice's recent critics' poll, it was the #1 album and accounted for two of the top three singles -- just as OutKast embark on another major tour. Along with fellow dirty-South warrior Ludacris ("What's Your Fantasy?", "Southern Hospitality") they'll be coming to the Palladium in Worcester on Monday and the Hippodrome in Springfield on Tuesday -- call (800) 477-6849 for tickets to both dates). The "Ground Control All Stars" tour, featuring Boston's own Ed O.G. and a crew including Masterminds and Aceyalone, makes a bunch of New England stops this week: Saturday at Wesleyan University, (860) 685-2000, in Middletown, Connecticut; Sunday at Pearl Street, (413) 584-0610, in Northampton; Monday at the Higher Ground, (802) 654-8888, in Winooski, Vermont; next Thursday at the Ocean Mist, (401) 782-3740, in Mantunuck, Rhode Island; and next Friday at the Middle East, (617) 864-3278, in Cambridge.

At the more-art/less-metal end of the loud stuff, Tool's Maynard James Keenan brings his superb neo-Floydian A Perfect Circle to the Whittemore Center Arena, (603) 862-4000, in Durham, New Hampshire, on Tuesday; to the Central Maine Civic Center, (207) 783-2009, in Lewiston on Wednesday; and to Brandeis University, (617) 931-2000, in Waltham next Thursday. At the more-metal/less-art end, home-town heroes Godsmack and Staind hit the sold-out Worcester Centrum, (508) 931-2000 -- where they're reported to be filming footage for a home-video release -- on Friday and the Mullins Center, (413) 931-2000, at UMass-Amherst on Sunday.

For a band who haven't put out an album in five years -- and that last one flopped -- Weezer didn't have any problem selling out their Yahoo!-sponsored gig this Sunday at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, (617) 931-2000, for which tickets were available only through the Internet. In other garage-pop goings-on, the Woggles play the Middle East on Monday and the Skinny, (207) 871-8983, in Portland on Tuesday. And in an interesting two-fer, the Figgs play the Paradise, (617)423-6398, in Boston tonight (March 1), after which frontman Mike Gent joins his other group, the Gentlemen, on a bill with Orbit and Creature Comforts at T.T. the Bear's Place, (617) 492-2327, in Cambridge on Friday.

Emo kids The Stryder hit the Met Café, (401) 861-2142, in Providence tonight (March 1) and Hanover House, (203) 238-2749, in Meriden, Connecticut, next Friday (March 9). Boston's Cerberus Shoal celebrate the release of a very odd soundtrack-like single with gigs at the Middle East tonight (March 1) and at Flywheel, (413-527-9800, in Easthampton on Friday; Panoply Academy Legionnaires open both dates.

At long last, we'll be retiring our references to the in-song feud between Darkbuster's bassist and the Amazing Crowns' singer -- (the latter screws the former's ex in Darkbuster's "Amazing Royal Shaft"), since the Crowns' "Providence Payback" gig this Friday night at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, (401) 272-5876, in Providence finds both bands on the same bill. Also along: the Turbo AC's, Sinners and Saints, Lost City Angels, the Moneyshots, the Kings of Nuthin', and the Louisiana Hayride.

-- Carly Carioli