Slam, Superhero, Slam

Thursday 26
Shuffle your feet to Belly Up for a reggae-rich gig. The Steel Pulse brand has been touring its dub-club riddems round the world since 1975 behind bandleaders David Hinds (guitar/voice) and Selmo Brown (keyboards/voice). The Englishmen took home a couple Grammys (best band, best album) in 1986 for the tropical and topical Babylon the Bandit. Still holds water. San Diego’s Social Green will set the Solana Beach stage with more of a skanky vibe.... Boom Boom, Pat Travers will put out the lights at Anthology tonight. Long considered Canada’s sickest six-string slinger — Kirk Hammett says so — Travers is touring in support of his latest, Fidelis.... Tin Can Ale House fills an avant bill with Zurich grindcore-guy-turned-metal-experimentalist Dave Phillips (Fear of God), scary-as-hell Oaklanders Sixes (with members from famed local tribalists Crash Worship), local sonic-improv collective hING, and psychedelic spook-punk trio Spirit Photography.... For the less adventurous, L.A. alt-pop act the Victor Ship sails into Bar Pink. Looks as if they’ll be in port once a month at the North Park nightspot for the foreseeable future.... Beauty Bar books a pretty solid indie-rock triple bill with Transfer, Dead Feather Moon, and the Secret Seven. (The “secret” is that it’s four guys, not seven.)

Friday 27
Grammy’s Grammys? Lucinda Williams and Chrissie Hynde in the same place. I’ve had this dream. A lot. So, thousands in psychotherapy wasted, they’ll be here at Humphrey’s by the Bay. Mutliple Grammy-winner Williams behind her latest, Little Honey, and Hynde fronting her not-Pretenders project JP, Chrissie & the Fairground Boys with Welsh singer-songwriter JP Jones. Hynde and Jones on Tuesday dropped their debut, Fidelity, a rock-roll tell-all about their May-December thing. “He was learning how to stand when I was wearing my first wedding band.” In a heartbeat, dude.... Lots more to choose from if your paycheck don’t stretch that far. You got Brooklyn’s plink-rocking “happy hardcores” Oneida at Soda Bar with Jonas Reinhardt, the Lights, and Shapes of Future Frames...Super Diamond shining on the postrace stage up at Del Mar...jazz-keys innovator George Duke (Jean-Luc Ponty, Frank Zappa) will check into Anthology for two nights...indie folkies Mississippi Man, Ross Sea Party, and the Drowning Men wash up at Tin Can Ale House...and barroom troubadour Jake Smith, aka White Buffalo, roams into Casbah.

Saturday 28
4th&B hosts a blast from the past, as ’80s radio staples Dramarama, the Motels, and Gene Loves Jezebel play the downtown stage. I can’t speak to the “new wave,” but I’ve always liked what Martha Davis brought to the table with the Motels. (This is not them, by the way, it’s Martha and a new them.) Los Angelino Ms. Davis is also apparently making children’s records these days. Grown-up Motels fans with kids might turn the little ones on to this year’s Red Frog Presents: 16 Songs for Parents and Children. Sounds pretty cool, actually.... House of Blues has De La Soul. The Long Island hip-hoppers are out to tout You’re Welcome. The 25-year-strong trio has also been keeping it real by getting with that hip-pop ATM Gorrilaz. No disrespect, we got the stellar 3 Feet High and Rising here somewhere.... Up the hill, Tin Can stacks folk rocks, with Portland’s Archeology on top. The quartet’s touring the Left Coast behind Memorial, a tasty collection of NorWest woodsy harmonics. Check it out: myspace.com/archeology. Fling from Long Beach and like-minded locals Midwinters and Longstay will set the stage.... Else: Mr. Rock Dude! and Lord Howler get heavy at Soda Bar...Ché Café stages Rob Crow’s new noise-rock assignment Mission:Valley, with Riververb and Innerds...and — this is gonna be colorful — the Superhero Slamfest at Soma promises a plethura of pop-punk bands, including A Dull Science, Plane Without a Pilot, the Inheritance, etcetrah, and — and — a bunch of all-agers hopped up on Monster, flying around in superhero gear. Someone please send me a pic.

Sunday 29
Rogue Wave hits the Oceanside Pier for 94/9’s Independence Jam, which also features on the main stage Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, the Whigs, and San Dago’s Delta Spirit. The tweeners on the locals-only Casbah stage are Silent Comedy, White Apple Tree, Burning of Rome, and the Nervous Wreckords. Sounds like a day.... According to Mapquest, Oceanside to Chula Vista’s a 45-mile, 49-minute drive. You and your crew can do the math on the gas money because you’ll want to make sure you’ve enough left over for back-to-school concert tees, my little headbangers, as the big ticket at the Cricket this week features SoCal metal stalwarts Slayer and Megadeth. They both put out records last year, and Dave Mustaine won a Golden God award. Who knew.... L.A. pop-rock act Three Dog Night howls ’70s radio hits (“Mama Told Me Not to Come,” “Joy to the World”) at Humphrey’s by the Bay.

Monday 30
Local ecstatic-pop act Echo Revolution reverbs at Tin Can Ale House with indie-rock Seattleites Horde and the Harem and Portland’s And I Was Like, What? What?... And the Uptown regulars keep Uptown regular, as Lady Dottie dons her Diamonds at U-31...and the Styletones funk up Bar Pink.

Tuesday 31
MEN hit on Casbah. The NYC dance-pop production team formerly known as Le Tigre will make you move. Don’t believe me? Click this: myspace.com/men. With Jamuel Saxon and Mrs. Magician opening the show, this is fine prix fixe fare, mon frere.... Belly Up books a couple local up-and-comers in Gun Runner and Maren Parusel. Dramatic pop for boys and dramatic pop for girls, respectively.... Portland folk-pop sextet Brothers Young will be at Bar Pink behind their brand-spanking new t’do Good People. Sounds more ’n a little like Kingsbury Manx, which is super cool.... L.A. orchestral act Seven Saturdays will have a CD-release thing at Tin Can Ale House Tuesday night. Local lo-fi highbrows Tapedeck Mountain up first. Your bartender will be back in about 45 minutes.

Wednesday 1
Fat Possum folkie A.A. Bondy (Verbena) visits Casbah in support of crit hit When the Devil’s Loose. Easy listening: myspace.com/aabondy. New York solo roller JBM and our own Aaron K. Swanton open the show.... SanFran one-woman band Sea of Bees swarms Soda Bar. “Jules” Baenziger is the queen bee behind Songs for the Ravens, an electro-folk affair that chimes like a feamale-fronted Grandaddy. If that’s your tea, you’d do well to get your hands on her — it, sorry. She tours with a troupe to fill all the musical shoes. Chillwave locals Lesands and Portland indie-pop peeps Symmetry/Symmetry set the stage.... And there’s a doozie of an indie-pop double bill humpnight, as New Orleans trio Lovey Dovies alight at Tin Can Ale House with Brooklyn tourmates Little Gold — “a comfortable and incestuous cast of flower children, psychotics, abusers, and nurturers.” Amen.
— Barnaby Monk