Heavy Dates

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

Morphine were to have played the second annual Cape Cod Music Festival on July 31 alongside their friends in Medeski Martin & Wood; instead, the show has become another tribute to Morphine's late singer, songwriter, and bassist, Mark Sandman. All proceeds from the festival will be donated to the music education fund that's been established in Sandman's name. And his surviving bandmates, Dana Colley and Billy Conway, will perform with a cast of friends as Moveable Bubble, the name they took to play last week's Sandman tribute concert in Cambridge. The music fest runs from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Barnstable County Fairgrounds, (617) 350-0364, in Falmouth.

It's been almost a decade since John Lennon's first son, Julian Lennon, last toured behind a new album -- a decade that has seen so many rock progeny follow in their parents' footsteps (including Julian's hipper, younger half-brother, Sean) that it's no longer such a big deal. Which seems to have taken some of the pressure off Julian, because now he's just one of a couple dozen second-generation rockers doing like daddy did. On July 31st he'll support his laid-back and listenable new Photographic Smile (Fuel 2000) with a free show sponsored by radio station WXRV ("The River") on Boston City Hall Plaza, (978) 374-4733. Also on the bill is alterna-country-rocker Kim Richey, who has a fine new album coming out on Mercury next week, as well as locals Entrain and the Push Stars. Meanwhile Sean should be in the area this week as well, playing bass with his girlfriend Yuka Honda's band Cibo Matto. It'll be sort of a Beastie Girls night at Avalon, (617) 423-NEXT, in Boston, on August 4, featuring the lovely ladies of Luscious Jackson in the headlining position, and Sean supporting Honda and her rapping partner Miho Hatori opening the show. Then Cibo Matto step out for their own headlining gig at the Met Café, (401) 861-2142, in Providence, on August 5. They are not, however, on the leg of Lilith Fair that hits the Tweeter Center, (617) 931-2000, on August 3. We finally managed to track down the list for Lilith Fair's last dance, and here it is: Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, the Pretenders, Mya, and MeShell Ndegeocello on the main stage; Aimee Mann, Dance Hall Crashers, Kendall Payne, Nina Gordon, Bertine, and Laurie McKenna on the undercard. Another Lilith castoff, the Mediaeval Baebes -- a dozen gals whose chamber-pop is inspired by Bela Lugosi's vampire henchwomen in Dracula, the early-music repertoire, and period-correct bad spelling -- are at the House of Blues, (617) 491-2583, in Cambridge, on August 3.

If you missed Frank Black and the Catholics' recent gig, you can catch 'em at the Met Café on July 30. Next door that same evening at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, (401) 272-5876, interstellar post-surf cyborgs Man . . . Or Astroman? beam down for a gig with one-man band the Lonesome Organist. And Lupo's also hosts reconstituted hardcore legends Bad Brains -- now doing business as Soul Brains -- on August 4.

-- Carly Carioli