Heavy Dates

Heavy Dates

We dig the noise of White Knuckle Sobriety, really we do. Equal parts muscle, nuance, bluster, and foolishness; we also have a sneaking suspicion that sobriety doesn't play into the picture very much at all. They play a set at Commercial Street this Friday night, along with mindFIELD and Jack. The Lucky Dog features BMP winners Split, who turn in an opening set, and Jujitsu, another one of our faves, who close out the evening. Canine and Super Zero are sandwiched in-between. The Plantation Club offers Providence blues/rock heavy-weights Young Neal and the Vipers. Neal's latest disc doesn't do the band proper justice, this is a must-see-live act. On Saturday, the King of Suave Jazz, Stan McDonald, leads his Blue Horizon Jazz Band in a fundraising effort to benefit the Foothills Theatre. The fragments of the once-mighty Cream Team resurface at the Above Club in the forms of Jive and Harrison Ford (who feature CUW jock John McKeag, a man with twice as much ability as the band's namesake). Above Club honcho Paul Walker will also honk a few numbers with Rhythm Party, who open the night. Bellevue Cadillac used to be called a blues act till a couple years ago. Even though they're the same great band they always were, they also have a new coolness factor, compliments of swing. It's also fitting that the revival left them in its wake, as they were better then the majority of those who shot to the top. And they'll still be playing the same stuff after they go back to being a "blues" band again. They play the Firehouse Cafe. Now that Southside Johnny has gone into career hibernation, and no one can account for the whereabouts of either Foghat or John Kay's "Steppenwolf," John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band are now major contenders for the honor of King of American Slut Bands. Got an Oyster Festival? They'll be there. Need a band for Spree Day? They'll be there. Whose headlining the city-sponsored block party? How about that biker rally? Actually, anyplace that has a row of porto potties and a fried-dough booth potentially has JC and the Beaver Boys. And tonight, if you have twelve bucks, they'll be there at the Plantation Club. Relive those tender years on the dark side. Durand Wilkerson and the Soul X-Press deliver their soul-funk-blues mission to Gilrein's, and H8 Machine return from New Yawk to pummel the Lucky Dog with songs from their new disc ... destination...2KH8...

-- John O'Neill

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

By now even the embalmed-looking anchors on the local news know they're supposed to smile brightly every time the words "Latin" and "music" appear together in the same sentence on their teleprompters. A south-of-the-border craze that's been simmering even in the rock underground (where every indie kid worth his mettle now drops Tom Zé's name) has finally erupted, even if Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca" is more like "La Isla Bonita" than "La Bamba." Back, oh, last year, when the phrase rock en español started to percolate toward the tongues of rock critics, one of the acts it got test-driven on was Bloque, a Colombian outfit signed to David Byrne's Luaka Bop label who were given to anti-pop declarations ("Our music fills the immense black hole that was created by the media revolution in the '60s, when Colombian people forgot to create their own modern music while they were busy trying to learn how to dance to the sound of the fucking Beach Boys") as well as to spirited romps through salsa, jazz, and rock. Their versatility will get a workout this week. They hit the Iron Horse, (413) 584-0610, in Northampton, this Thursday, June 3, with local mambo-punks Babaloo opening. On Friday the 4th they're at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, (401) 272-5876, in Providence, opening for Los Lobos. And they're headlining one of the rock stages at the free, outdoor Central Square World's Fair, (617) 868-FAIR, in Cambridge, on June 6.

Squirrel Nut Zippers singer Katherine Whalen is touring with her Jazz Squad in what's shaping up to be a Zippers tour in almost everything but name. A couple of Zippers are along for the ride, though Whalen's promising more faithfully jazzy standards from the '20s and '30s. Given her pretty remarkable vocal resemblance to Billie Holiday, it ought to make for a treat even for those wacko nay-sayers who find the Zippers, y'know, not conservative enough. Catch Whalen and Squad along with one of New Orleans's finest exports, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, at the Middle East, (864) 3278, in Cambridge, on June 5, and at the Iron Horse on June 7.

Quickly: deadpan comic Steven Wright makes his only local appearance at the Calvin Theatre, (413) 586-8686, in Northampton, on June 5; ditto for former Maniac Natalie Merchant at the Tweeter Center, (617) 931-2000, in Mansfield, on June 4. And Jamaican legend Gregory "The Cool Ruler" Isaacs returns to the House of Blues' "Reggae Greats" series in Cambridge, (617) 491-2583, for two shows on June 9 and 10 before heading on to Pearl Street, (413) 584-0610, in Northampton, on the 11th.

-- Carly Carioli