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Edited by Carly Carioli
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THURSDAY

ROOTS

The young Canadian alterna-country phenom Kathleen Edwards sings boozy tales of heartbreak with a rockist propulsion that recalls the rough-and-ready bombast of Whiskeytown and the boozy, smoky sensuality of Lucinda Williams. This evening at 5:30 p.m., she plays a free show outdoors in Copley Square Park, in front of Trinity Church, as part of WBOS's after-work concert series. Call (617) 931-1111.

MEMORIAL

For nearly 25 years, DJ Mai Cramer's Blues After Hours radio show on WGBH 89.7 FM was the heartbeat of the New England blues community. The void left by her death in February 2002 has yet to be filled. For the second year running, some of Cramer's musical friends will gather to celebrate her birthday at Squawk Coffeehouse in the Harvard-Epworth Methodist Church, 1555 Massachusetts Avenue in Harvard Square, from 9 p.m. till midnight. Her husband, guitarist Peter Ward, and brother-in-law, Handy-nominated bassist Michael "Mudcat" Ward, join pianist David Maxwell, singers Shirley Lewis and Grayson Hugh, and Squawk's house blues band, which is led by Lee Kidd. Call (617) 868-3661.

JAZZ

Marcus Roberts Marcus Roberts's knowledge of jazz piano extends back to Jelly Roll Morton and the pre-jazz of Scott Joplin up through Ellington, Monk, Bud Powell, and Wynton Kelly. And unlike a lot of post-bop keyboard ticklers, he uses the entire range of the instrument, employing an uncommonly sensitive touch and ear for color. He's capable of lyric depth, just as he's willing to let himself get carried away with rhythmic explosions (we can recall a stunning solo version of Ellington's "Shout 'Em Aunt Tilly" from a live performance at the Hatch Shell some years back). Roberts opens a two-night stand at Scullers tonight with bassist Roland Guerin and drummer Jason Marsalis. That's in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road at the Mass Pike; call (617) 562-4111.

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FRIDAY


FILM

Boys will be boys in this week's movies. In Bad Boys II, Michael Bay returns from Pearl Harbor infamy to direct this sequel about two raffish Miami narcs played by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Proving that bad (or at least stupid) male behavior is not limited to these shores is Johnny English, in which Rowan Atkinson plays a buffoonish secret agent in a spy spoof also starring John Malkovich and directed by Peter Howitt (Sliding Doors). The trend of bad-boy behavior continues Down Under in Alex Proyas's Garage Days, a broad farce in which a Sydney band look for a big break, or at least an easy score. Equally deluded, it seems, are the guys in Northfork, Michael and Mark Polish's new film about a bunch of stragglers who refuse to leave a small town about to be flooded for a new dam; it stars Nick Nolte, Peter Coyote, Daryl Hannah, and James Woods. Trying to put a stop to such macho foolishness as war is the Lapp woman in The Cuckoo who befriends a Finnish and Russian soldier during World War II. More female common sense is demonstrated in I Capture the Castle, an adaptation of Dodie Smith's novel about an eccentric British family in the 1930s and the levelheaded teenage heroine who keeps everyone grounded. More disillusioned is the teenage heroine of How To Deal, director Clare Kilner's adaptation of the novels by Sarah Dessen: noting the chaotic relationships around her, Mandy Moore gives up on love -- at least until she meets someone special. Things weren't all that different back in 19th-century Tokyo, where a young prostitute finds reason to believe in love when a handsome samurai comes to her brothel in The Sea Is Watching. Kei Kumai directs from an Akira Kurosawa screenplay.

ROCK

We've got bad news, worse news, and a small consolation. At press time, it appeared that the White Stripes were going to have to cancel a big chunk of their US tour -- including their scheduled gig this Sunday at the FleetBoston Pavilion -- after Jack White broke a finger in Detroit last week. Worse, the band had secretly scheduled a club gig at the Middle East that was to have taken place tonight, and that's definitely out. In their stead, the band that would have opened up both gigs -- Jack White protégés Whirlwind Heat -- are playing the Middle East downstairs tonight. That's at 480 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square; call (617) 864-EAST.

POP

Back in the '80s, Bostonian Mike Viola and Snap! helped shape the aggressive, smart-pop mold that the Figgs, the Gravel Pit, Letters to Cleo, and the Gentlemen have been pouring themselves into ever since -- equal parts Elvis Costello and Graham Parker, with a little Cheap Trick thrown in. Since relocating to Manhattan, Viola's the Candy Butchers have become cult faves thanks to their two Sony discs and his collaborations with members of Ivy and They Might Be Giants. The Candy Butchers set up shop tonight and tomorrow at the Kendall Café, 233 Cardinal Medeiros Way in Cambridge; call (617) 661-0993. Meanwhile, at the House of Blues, ageless pop/soul singer-songwriter Marshall Crenshaw returns with a new album, What's in the Bag? (Razor & Tie, out this Tuesday), which includes a cover of Prince's "Take Me with U," and a tour featuring members of the Jazz Passengers and Sex Mob as his backing band. That's at 96 Winthrop Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 491-BLUE.

BOOKS

Even on those occasions when we've been nonplussed by his books, Douglas Coupland has always struck us as the kind of guy we'd like to have a beer with. And you've got a chance to do just that tonight as the Generation X author reads from his new Hey Nostradamus! (Bloomsbury) -- about a high-school massacre in Vermont and its aftermath, which are narrated by a pregnant teenage victim, her secret husband, and later his subsequent girlfriend and his religious-fanatic father -- at 7:30 p.m. at the Attic Bar & Grill, 107 Union Street (rear) in Newton Centre. It's free; call (617) 964-6684.

BARD

Boston Common becomes a Highland heath tonight as Commonwealth Shakespeare Company offers its eighth annual free gift of Shakespeare: Macbeth, which for superstitious reasons is among theater folk always called "the Scottish play." Frequent film and television actor Jay O. Sanders plays the upwardly mobile thane conquered by a marching forest and Caesarean section in CSC artistic director Steven Maler's production, which is set in a Central American context. Also in the cast are Boston actress Jennie Israel as the goading and ambitious Lady M., American Repertory Theatre vet Benjamin Evett as Banquo, Robert Walsh as Macduff, and Bill Mootos as Ross. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day" from this day through August 10. Performances are at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common at 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and at 7 p.m. on Sunday. Bring a blanket; the Macbeths will supply the blood. For information and the (boo! hiss!) inevitable possible weather cancellations, call (617) 532-1212.

Not to be outdone, industrial theatre -- which is in residence at Harvard's Leverett House during school season and in Taunton during the summer -- beats the heat out of doors with a performance of The Winter's Tale on the steps of Memorial Church in Harvard Yard tonight at 6:30 p.m.; call (617) 495-9878.

Farther west, Shakespeare & Company artistic director Tina Packer makes her way up the Everest of the Bard, King Lear, beginning tonight in Lenox. The production takes the acclaimed company's "Bard Bard" form, with minimal scenery and 13 actors taking all the parts. The excellent Jonathan Epstein, though far from his dotage, assays the Herculean title role of a wronged dad teetering on the brink of madness and self-discovery. The production continues in Shakespeare & Company's Founders' Theatre, 70 Kemble Street in Lenox, in repertory through August 30. Tickets are $15 to $45; call (413) 637-3353.

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SATURDAY


FILM

Jeff Silva and Alla Kovgan of the ever-innovative Balagan Film Series have put together a selection of films for Somerville's ArtBeat Festival called "Present: Spaces/Places: A Program of Local and International Documentary, Experimental and Fiction Film and Video." Among the work represented is local filmmaker Brian Papciak's Met State, as well as films by Joris Ivens and Reynold Reynolds. It screens at 9 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square; call (617) 625-5700.

JAZZ

The husband-and-wife team of saxophonist/flutist Lew Tabackin and pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi have been splitting their time between Japan and the US for more than 30 years (more than 40 if you count Toshiko's late-'50s stint at Berklee). As a composer, Akiyoshi has crossed progressive big-band swing with Gil Evans/Asian impressionism. Tabackin, meanwhile, has an engaging, Rollins-esque gruffness on tenor sax and an Eastern flair with the flute that makes him the perfect foil for her tunes. They're at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum tonight in a quartet with bassist Boris Kozlov and drummer Mark Taylor. It's part of the "Concerts Under the Canopy" series at 8 p.m. That's at 280 the Fenway, and tickets are $15, or $10 for students; call (866) 468-7619.

ROCK

On the final two Come albums, Chris Brokaw stepped forward to take lead vocals on the occasional tune, and those efforts ranked alongside the band's finest. Although Brokaw's solo debut was an all-instrumental affair, his new album, Wandering As Water (on Germany's Normal Records), recorded live by Paul Kolderie earlier this year, parallels the live solo sets he's been performing while touring with (and opening for) Evan Dando lately -- a mix of instrumentals and vocal tunes played on acoustic guitar, including superb, stripped-down renditions of Come's "Shoot Me First," "Recidivist," and "German Song," plus "My Idea," a song he wrote with Lemonheads collaborator Tom Morgan that ended up on Dando's Baby I'm Bored, and covers of enlightened folkies Fred Neil and Jorma Kaukonen. The disc is available as an import, but Brokaw will have a few tonight when he plays the Paradise Lounge (the joint's new front room), 969 Commonwealth Avenue. The gravel-voiced art-song/C&W/punk singer-songwriter Milo Jones opens; call (617) 562-8814.

POETRY

The long, hard road to the National Poetry Slam competition, which will be held later this summer in Chicago, runs through the Cambridge Center for Adult Education, where in tonight's Team Poetry Slam four-person teams representing four Boston-area slam hotbeds compete head-to-head. The all-women Amazon Slam takes on the Bridgewater Slam and two Cambridge teams, the Cantab Lounge and the Lizard Lounge, beginning at 8 p.m. at 56 Brattle Street in Harvard Square. Be warned: if you go, you could be impaneled (maybe commandeered is the word) out of the audience to judge. Admission is $10; call (617) 547-6789.

COMEDY

Neil Hamburger
There are plenty of comedians who aren't funny, but few since Tony Clifton have made as much of a career of it as Neil Hamburger, whose performances are so perverse that his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show last month confounded shock-jock Howard Stern. On a string of albums including his seminal America's Funnyman, his "live" disc Left for Dead in Malaysia, and his most recent Laugh Out Lord, a religious-yuks effort (all on the indie-rock label Drag City), Hamburger has never been anything less than completely unfunny -- a state of affairs that can have a cumulatively hilarious effect. He plays an early show at 7:30 p.m. at T.T. the Bear's Place, 10 Brookline Street in Central Square; call (617) 492-BEAR.

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SUNDAY


DANCE

Boston Ballet dancer Gianni Di Marco shows off his choreographic skills tonight with a presentation of his Moses, a "contemporary work about the 3500-year-old story of the Hebrew Exodus, with comparative modern-day themes"; the music is by composer Walter Robinson. It's presented tonight at 7 at the Martha's Vineyard Performing Arts Center, on Edgartown Road in Oak's Bluff. Admission is $25; call (508) 693-5266.

ROCK

Drag queens have exerted a heavy influence on rock and roll since glam, and among the founding class of CBGB's was at least one male-to-female transsexual -- Wayne (later Jayne) County -- so it's curious you don't see more of this sort of thing: a "T-Girl Band Night" devoted to transgender outlaws of all stripes. The guests of honor are Lisa Jackson and Girl Friday, whose frontperson once fronted something called the Steve Friday Band. Ms. Jackson belts hits of the '80s from Blondie, Joan Jett, and Cyndi Lauper; no word on Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks like a Lady)." Also on the bill are locals Porn Belt, the Electrolytes, and Maggotzoid. The Milky Way is at 405 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain; call (617) 524-3740.

HIP-HOP

KRS-One Boston B-boys and B-girls finally have a reason to celebrate this summer, as City Hall throws a massive block party to celebrate the first annual Hip-Hop Peace & Unity Fest, a weekend-long shindig featuring concerts and a conference (see "Arts News"). The main event is this afternoon's free gig on City Hall Plaza at Government Center. KRS-One headlines, amid a furor over his latest disc, Kristyles, which Koch rushed into production before he was finished with it -- omitting, among other things, his planned tribute to the late Jam Master Jay. Also on the bill are old-school legend and Juice Crew alum Big Daddy Kane ("Ain't No Half-Steppin' "), Boston hip-hop godfather Ed O.G., and current underground stars Illin' P, Reks, Shuman, Pharoahe Monch, the internationally acclaimed duo of Insight and Edan, and many more. Presented by the city in conjunction with the Boston-based production collaborative Inebriated Rhythm and its Grit Records home base, the gig runs from 4:30 to 8:30, and it's free; call (617) 635-3911.

MYTHOLOGICAL

Joao Gilberto
Brazilian guitarist and singer João Gilberto is sometimes simply referred to as "The Myth." Since 1958, when he recorded the single ("Chega de Saudade," backed with "Bim-Bom") that launched what would become known worldwide as the bossa nova, Gilberto's whispered vocals, surprising chord voicings, and slow and profound sense of swing have for many people been synonymous with Brazilian music itself. Tonight the Myth and his guitar perform solo at the Wang Theatre, and it's an opportunity not to be missed -- apart from Fred Astaire, there may be no greater master of the subtle displacements of time. His most recent studio album, João Voz e Violão (Verve), which was produced by his fan Caetano Veloso and won a Best World Music Grammy in 2001, is proof enough that the master hasn't slowed down any more than was necessary to swing even deeper. The Wang is at 270 Tremont Street in the Theater District, and tickets are $25 to $55; call (800) 447-7400.

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MONDAY


FILM

Phoenix "Film Culture" maven Gerald Peary does the introductory honors for the 7:15 p.m. screening of Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), the first film in the Brattle Theatre's "Genre Film of the '50s" series. Spencer Tracy puts in an enigmatic performance as the sinister stranger who shows up at the desert town of the title asking a lot of questions about a missing Japanese-American resident. John Sturges directs this taut and tough-minded look at the ugly side of '50s conformity and racism, which also stars Robert Ryan, Walter Brennan, and Ernest Borgnine. It also screens at 3 p.m. That's at 40 Brattle Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 876-6837.

Don't let such whitebread versions of the Arabian Nights as the recent Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas discourage you from seeing the real McCoy. Michael Powell's The Thief of Bagdad (1940) captures the exhilarating magic and exuberant color of this tale of a noble thief and a usurped prince's struggle against a wicked vizier to regain a stolen princess. It screens tonight and tomorrow at 7 p.m. at the Harvard Film Archive. A usurped people strike back in Peter Weir's The Last Wave (1977) as a lawyer defending Aboriginal tribesmen in Australia glimpses the stirrings of an apocalyptic cataclysm. The newly outed Richard Chamberlain stars. It screens both nights at 9 p.m. The HFA is in the Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 495-4700.

POP

Danny Wood is not quite as well known these days as some of his fellow former members of New Kids on the Block, but he's out to rectify that with a new solo album, Second Face, on the BMG-distributed Damage label, that hits shelves tomorrow. He's been trying to drum up support with appearances at baseball games and Disney themeparks and on morning TV shows, and tonight he'll play an honest-to-goodness club date at the House of Blues, 96 Winthrop Street in Harvard Square. Call (617) 491-BLUE.

R&B

Nelly
On his latest single, the lead track from P. Diddy's soundtrack to the drag-racing flick Bad Boys II, Nelly takes a cue from classic R&B backfield motivators Andre Williams, the Five Du-Tones, and Ike & Tina. With help from Diddy and Murphy Lee, the pride of St. Louis urges you to "Shake Your Tailfeather" -- a siren-whooping cut inspired, Diddy has said, by a St. Louis dance craze called the chicken head. The track also manages to sneak in a shout-out to the vintage Japanimation series Voltron. Is this the best thing to happen to Band-Aid sales since "Hot in Herre"? Take your best stab at the chicken head tonight when Nellyville relocates to the Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street in the Theater District, where Nelly and his St. Lunatics -- including Lee, whose debut is due shortly -- hold court on their "Up Close and Personal" tour. It's a 7 p.m. show, and tickets are $38 to $58; call (800) 447-7400.

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TUESDAY


DOO-WOP

Thanks to a series of PBS specials and a pretty great Rhino box set, the stars of doo-wop are again on the cultural radar. A few years back, oldies archivist Harvey Robbins inaugurated the concept, if not an actual location, for a Doo-Wop Hall of Fame, and the induction ceremonies have drawn crowds to Symphony Hall every year since. Tonight, Cape Cod's WMOR hosts recent inductees the Cleftones ("Little Girl of Mine," "Heart and Soul") along with previous inductees the Belmonts (Dion's boys) and the Flamingos ("I Only Have Eyes for You") at the Cape Cod Melody Tent in Hyannis. Showtime is 8 p.m., and tickets are $10; call (800) 921-9667.

FILM

One of the hits of this year's Sundance Film Festival and the winner of the top prize was Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini's American Splendor, a skewed docudrama about underground-comic-book artist (and occasional Phoenix contributor -- his review of Charlie Mariano's Deep in a Dream is in Off the Record, in Music) Harvey Pekar that sounds like a cross between Crumb and Ghost World. Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis star. You can get an early look at the film at this sneak preview at 7:30 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 876-6837.

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WEDNESDAY


POP

The former ringleader of the Incredible Casuals has for the past few years been leading something he calls the Chandler Travis Philharmonic, which is billed as "the world's only alternative Dixieland band." That should give you an idea of the playful exuberance this outfit is capable of -- and the line-up includes some of the best musicians in town. Chandler and company open the MFA's "Concerts in the Courtyard" series with Brooklyn-based alterna-geeks Ladybug Transistor headlining. That's at 7 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue. Tickets are $24, or $20 for students and MFA members; call (617) 369-3300.

JAZZ

Saxophonist Cercie Miller soaks up some Boston history when she's joined by special guest Herb Pomeroy (who besides spending an illustrious career teaching at Berklee also played trumpet with Charlie Parker back in the day). Pianist Tim Ray, bassist Dave Clark, and drummer Bob Savine complete this fine band. They're at the Regattabar in the Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street in Harvard Square. Shows start at 8:30, and tickets are $12; call (617) 876-7777.

At Scullers, young saxophonist Eric Alexander -- who placed second behind Joshua Redman in the 1991 Thelonious Monk International Saxophone Competition and has released an increasingly impressive string of albums on Criss Cross, Delmark, and Milestone -- comes to Scullers with Harold Mabern on piano, John Webber on bass, and Joe Farnsworth on drums. That's in the DoubleTree Guest Suites Hotel, 400 Soldiers Field Road at the Mass Pike. Shows are at 8 and 10, tickets are $14; call (617) 562-4111.

FILM

42nd Street As films like Chicago abundantly attest, they don't make them the way they used to. For those who remember the musical as the genre that features memorable music and dance and uplifting spectacle, there's Lloyd Bacon's 42nd Street (1933), in which hardworking chorines Una Merkel, Ruby Keeler, and Ginger Rogers try to hoof and sing their way to stardom in the troubled Broadway show Pretty Lady. The Busby Berkeley production numbers include "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and the title classic, and they'll be made even more magical by the floral grounds of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, where the film is being screened at 8:30 p.m. as part of the Gardner's centennial-summer "Open Air" programs. The museum is located at 280 the Fenway; call (617) 566-1401.

ART

In the 17th century, printmakers were the photojournalists of their day, and among the finest -- in the estimation of the Museum of Fine Arts, the finest -- was Jacques Callot, who produced more than a thousand etchings depicting everything from dwarf musicians to the horrors of war. The MFA's "Callot and His World: Princes, Paupers, and Pageants" collects 150 images from Callot and his followers, in a companion exhibit to the museum's forthcoming Rembrandt blockbuster, which arrives in October. The Callot exhibit is up through January 25 in the MFA's Trustman Gallery, 465 Huntington Avenue; call (617) 267-9300.

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THURSDAY


ROCK

From Oxford, Mississippi, Tyler Keith is the former guitarist of a wild and perilously unhinged outfit called the Neckbones whose pungent, barbed-wire riffs often came closer to a Stooges-like jailbreak than to the ancient blues of their Fat Possum labelmates. Following the Neckbones' demise, Keith has returned as the frontman of the Preacher's Kids, whose output is more tuneful -- their sense of melody, like that of fellow enlightened garage punks the Reigning Sound, reaches back past the Stones to Buddy Holly -- but no less volatile. Out in support of their second album, Wild Emotions (Get Hip), they're at the Abbey Lounge, 3 Beacon Street in Somerville; call (617) 441-9631.

JAZZ

The excellent local jazz singer Shelley Neill returns to the Regattabar, this time with long-time-no-see pianist Bevan Manson (formerly of the Either/Orchestra), violinist John Blake, bassist John Lockwood, and drummer Yoron Israel. That's in the Charles Hotel, 1 Bennett Street in Harvard Square, at 8:30. Tickets are $14; call (617) 876-7777.

HILLBILLY

Th' Legendary Shack Shakers Nashville psychobillies th' Legendary Shack*Shakers are pretty hot on disc -- their Cockadoodledon't (Bloodshot) sounds like the sort of hillbilly band that might've resulted if Jerry Lee and Carl Perkins had been raised in the era of T-Model Ford, Jon Spencer, and Nashville Pussy -- but that doesn't compare to their live-band reputation, which includes reports of frontman "Colonel" J.D. Wilkes setting himself afire and menacing the audience with some of the gnarlier redneck martial arts. Tonight the Shakers hit T.T. the Bear's Place, 10 Brookline Street in Central Square. Call (617) 492-BEAR.


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