Last week was a rough one here in Worcester as far as live music goes, so much so that we here at the Weekly Nod took our columns name literally and pretty much slept through the week, missing our column deadline, and woke up just a few hours ago in time to get in something of a preview for this weekend here in the city that oversleeps. Rebounding from a week that was really no great shakes here in Worcester musically the clubs this weekend have all sorts of great ear candy coming your way.

Tammany Hall has a great show on Friday with Uncle Billy’s Smokehouse who return to Worcester fresh off their appearance at Voodoo Fest in New Orleans. They are joined by The Howl who made some noise of their own this week being nominated for a Boston Music Award for best blues act.

On Saturday The Lucky Dog welcomes 2007 WBCN Rock N Roll Rumble winners Township to their stage for what should be a great show of new sounds mixed with old classic rock. Township is one of the true great “rock” bands out there right now and if you are a fan of live rock music you should be at the Dog on Saturday. It’s a treat to have them in Worcester.

Across town at Ralph’s Saturday is another chapter in the ongoing Invictus music festival which has been presenting great shows here in Worcester at venues such as Ralph’s and Tammany Hall as well as up the Pike in Boston at places like Church. Tonight it’s The cd release party for The Wandas who are joined by HO-AG and Necktie Party. Noise experimenters HO-AG in particular are of note due to the major inroads they have been making nationally over the past couple years.

Of course the coming week marks the start of the holiday season where from now until the 1st of January the weekend and weekdays start to blur a little bit. You can kick off the holidays right on Wednesday night at the Lucky Dog with the tried and true bill of Huck and the Curtain Society who will help you show up at Grandma’s the next day for turkey just a little bug eyed and with a stamp still on your hand.

So let’s not sleep on this weekend Worcester. It’s going to be a good one.

It has always been tough to be a fan of live indie rock and reside in Worcester, Massachusetts. If you want to satisfy your thirst and don’t want to constantly be driving out to Boston, Northampton and Providence you must really pay attention to what is going on in the city as indie isn’t something you can gorge yourself on like like you can in Beantown. There isn’t a whole lot for homegrown talent and while New England itself is an indie hotbed many bands tend to stay away due to personal experiences of dismal crowds, mismatched bills, and an overall stigma that has been attached to our area known to most outsiders as “the 508.” You pretty much have to take what you can get, support what needs to be supported, and hope that every once in a while you get to see something great or hear some songs that may become part of the soundtrack of your life.

Due to this of course the scene can get a little stale and by the time you get sick of the old bands it might be years until something new comes along that gets you excited enough to leave the house, pay that cover charge, and stand up front and bob your head to the the well crafted songs that a lot of these folks work so hard on. There are more than two good shows in the city this week, but in this weeks Nod, we are only going to talk about two of them featuring two bands who are releasing brand new albums this weekend. In the two shows we have a good selection of the old and the new when it comes to indie rock in our fair city.

On Friday night at the Lucky Dog, Hey Now Morris Fader release their sophmore CD “Ride The Fader.” HNMF are a keyboard/drums duo with definite similarities to Ben Folds but to shrug them of as a Ben Folds clone is to do them a disservice. First of all, there only two of them making a whole lot of awesome racket. Morris Fader are without a doubt one of the absolute bright spots of the past couple years on the local stages. They are joined Friday by Boston’s the Luxury who followed up their spot opening for Coldplay at the TD Bank North Garden with a West Coast tour in September and come back to Worcester for the first time since their exciting summer. You can’t even mention indie rock in Worcester without talking about The Curtain Society. They have been doing it for longer than just about anyone, and have remained a vital band not just in Worcester but regionally and nationally as well. TCS is one of the few of our own that can claim fans not just here but abroad as well, and we are fortunate to be able to see them down at the bar every couple months. Sometimes you have to think about how lucky you really are. Rounding out the bill are Boston’s Preacher Roe and opening the show will be an acoustic set from Michael Thibodeau of the Bee’s Knees and Scott Riciutti of Huck.

Scott and Michael’s set Friday will be a nice warm up for Scott because on Saturday his band Huck release their 6th full length eponymously titled album. Six albums. On a local unsigned level, in a city the size of Worcester, this an amazing accomplishment. That is a whole lot of material. The fact that Scott Riciutti seems to be able to write pop hooks in his sleep I am sure helps a lot. The fact that Huck have done what most musicians would love to be able to do, combine immense talent, musicianship, and songwriting chops with a sincere love of playing music is why they will remain the band that they are for years to come. To add to that, a Huck show is an almost guaranteed good time. Lots of smiles, lots of dancing, their songs have truly become part of the sound track to many peoples lives in this city, as have the Curtain Socety’s.

Bands Like Hey Now Morris Fader, The Luxury and Preacher Roe are just starting down that road and I hope that ten years from now there are a whole bunch of people out there who cherish their songs as much as people cherish the work of the Huck and The Curtain Society. If you are a fan of indie rock in Worcester, it’s weekends like this that make it all worth it. Two nights of great music, fun times, and smiles all around you. Do not sleep on these shows Worcester.

You would think with all the business The Palladium does that over the years someone in the North Main St. neighborhood would have figured out how to create some spin off. After one year of living in downtown Worcester one of things that has become obvious to me is that when there is a show at the Palladium those kids are in our city early and sometimes spend the whole day here, aimlessly wandering our downtown looking for something to do and some place to go. I remember the, long since closed, Espresso Bar on James St. and the recently departed Java Hut in Webster Sq. and I wonder what some sort of spawn of those two legendary Worcester establishments would add to North Main Street. That’s quite a few kids with not much to do 3 to 4 nights a week. Ah, to only have investors! Well… until then I will have to get by on truck driver supervision and Real Worcester.com slave wages. Here’s a few great shows worth checking out this week:

The Roots have become one of the few rap groups out there to develop a long lasting and consistently vital career in the music business, and all by shunning the normally expected poses of mainstream rap like sampled and prerecorded music. From the beginning The Roots have always been a full live band. Releasing their first album in 1993, 15 years later they are still putting out fresh and innovative music as displayed by this year’s outstanding Rising Down. The Roots roll into town to support their new album at the Palladium on Thursday. Joining them are Gym Class Heroes and Estelle.

There are few bigger traditions in Worcester than the Deadites Halloween show at the Lucky Dog Music Hall. The Deadites have always been more of an extrasensory experience than a rock show and this year should be no different. There is only one place to be in Worcester this Friday and that is getting down with the dead, the rad, and the funky at the Lucky Dog. Also on the bill are Colorblind and Nytmare, who you won’t want to miss.

If it had been Bob Dylan, and not Paul Simon, whose songs had been overwhelmingly influenced by African music the result might have sounded very much like African folk musician Tony Bird.
From All Music, “Tony Bird was effecting a mixture of modern Western musical styles with traditional African ones ten years before Paul Simon was ever heard on mbaqanga.” Tony released two albums on Columbia in the 70′s that went largely unnoticed, but the sounds he was creating on those records can be heard on much of Paul Simon’s work in the 80′s and all the way up to current acts such as Vampire Weekend. Tony Bird plays the Green Rooster Coffee House on Saturday.

At a meeting of fellow Real Worcester writers last night we were having a discussion about the city and I was saying how I felt that a situation that is unique to Worcester is the fact that as it is so multicultural that in many areas there doesn’t seem to be any, one dominant culture in the city. Due to this a lot of what gets churned out in the Woo for public consumption tends to be watered down, lowest common denominator type product. I think folks don’t want to make what they are selling too specific for fear that there won’t be enough people out there buying what they are selling to make their undertaking viable enough. I have realized that in fact I am contributing to this watered down atmosphere here in Worcester talking about shows and events that I myself would have no interest in attending. I am doing a disservice to you fine folk by talking about stuff I could care less about when I could be spending more time talking about shows and bands I am genuinely excited about. As a commenter on last week’s column said, this is assuming I have taste. Well, I think I have pretty good taste in music; after all I love music so my taste has done me well over the course of my life. I leave it up to you the reader to decide whether you agree with my taste or not. Maybe you will and maybe you won’t. Either way the comment window is always open.

Friday we get something a little different added to the tribute band mix at The Lucky Dog with Dwight Fry and the Gutter Cats debuting their brand spanking new tribute to Alice Cooper. The Gutter Cats are made up of a fair amount of veteran Boston musicians who have been working hard over the past few months to get their Alice Cooper just right, and if you are familiar with Alice’s stage show you know you are in for something special. Joining Dwight Fry and the Gutter Cats this evening is excellent Black Sabbath influenced stoner metal outfit Black Pyramid as well as Silent Mind.

In the 70’s Boston folk rock duo Aztec Two Step released four major label records for Elektra and RCA to critical acclaim and shared stages with such luminaries as Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Talking Heads. Although their popularity waned in the 80’s, they never stopped touring all over the world, and Saturday they make a stop here in Worcester at the Green Rooster Coffeehouse.

Boston indie rockers Aloud have had a busy 2008 since the March release of their new album “Fan The Fury.” The year has seen them embark on several cross country tours, complete a documentary of said touring called Hard Up In The 2000s, and next month they will be debuting a new multimedia stage show called I Just Want To Witness. Saturday sees the hardest working indie band in Massachusetts taking over the Sahara Cafe on Highland St for a low-key acoustic performance.

If you have played or attended a show at Ralph’s Diner in recent history odds are Steve Merrow was the soundman responsible for the night’s rock’n’roll excess. Saturday, Steve celebrates his 10th with four of the city’s best bands, Huck, The Bee’s Knees, Thinner and The Numbskulls. Ralph’s listing just says its Steve’s 10th, I am thinking his tenth year at Ralph’s? Has he really been there that long? TIME FLIES! I get the very distinct impression that there is more to this show than what meets the eye and there may be many more bands then the four I have listed. Call Ralph’s for more details.

I was about to end this article with mention of a show on Sunday at the Hotel Vernon that I almost completely overlooked. This show deserves it’s own article. More to come later on in the week.

One thing occurred to me looking at what is going on in Worcester for music this week. That thing is…I don’t know a damn thing about the blues. Aside from delta blues, which I absolutely love, it all sounds the same to me. All this blues going on this week and I am at a loss for how to describe it except to say, well, hey, here’s some blues. I need to start listening to a greater variety, although nothing has really ever done anything for me except for delta blues. Please send recomendations. Please don’t send me anything that is just some dude playing bloooooooooz guitar over the same chord progression over and over again though. Thanks.

Thursday: The Dive Bar has drummer Duncan Arsenault’s weekly free for all. This week he will basically be joined by his bandmates in The Howl, Troy Gonyea and Brooks Milgate. The Hanover Theater will be swingin with The Artie Shaw Orchestra. 80′s tribute Flock of Assholes wear their sunglasses at night at The Lucky Dog and are joined by XXX The Owl, along with a couple touring acts in Boston’s The Vital Might who are embarking on a Northeast tour, and Baltimore metal act Seventh Seal who is in the middle of their own. Chet Williamson and his bloooz harmonica are at Nick’s. The Palladium has what I hesitate to call an emo bill but all of these bands have definitely been influenced by the emo school of music. Reliant K, Ludo, This Providence and House of Heroes make a stop in Worcester on their “Uncle Fest Tour” at the big room on the corner of Main and MLK. It’s Metal Thursday again at Ralph’s with Joe Stump, Your Pain is Endearing, Frozen, and Acaro. Sturbridge Indie Folk act Tall Heights is the feature at the Worcester Art Museum’s monthly Third Thursday series. Usually in these here parts if you are a jam band you can count bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish as some of your bigger influences. This is not the case with Boston’s The Indobox, who, while still a jam band, defintitely offer up something a little different. They are joined by piano based North Shore jam banders The Brew tonight at Tammany Hall. Vincent’s has the blues with Travis Colby.

Travis Colby

Friday:The Jimmy Mack Band plays the blues at Gilrein’s. Guitars will be played loud and they will be played fast Friday at The Lucky Dog with Stone Crusher, Beware The Ides, and Ice In Her Veins. Also on this show is Boston’s Axemunkee who are a very strange inclusion on this bill but of note because of the outstanding playing of guitarist and band leader Cathy Capozzi. If you want to get out and see something different tonight I am highly recomending this. It’s just too bad Axemunkee couldn’t have been on a more complimentary bill. The Palladium has The Blackest of the Black tour with Danzig with Dimmu Borgir, Moonspell, Winds of Plague and Skeletonwitch. Ralph’s goes on a panty raid with Murphy’s Law and what I can only assume are super secret surprise opening bands as I couldn’t buy the info on them. Tammany Hall has Holmes releasing a CD on Friday. Your guess is as good as mine.

Catherine of Axemunkee

Saturday: Debbie Davies Band plays more blues at Gilrein’s. Her blues seems to be a little upbeat. Hotel Vernon has the Sons of Hiram. Again, your guess is as good as mine. The Lucky Dog has a litte for something for everyone, but just a little, with the Dave Rivers Group, local piano poppers Hey Now Morris Fader, frat boy hippies Stem and rock duo A Thousand Ships. Nick’s seems like it’s going to be a pretty hip place to be Saturday when Jesse Dee CD releases his new CD “Bittersweet Batch.” The Palladium has two shows, downstairs The Twilight of the Thunder God Tour (I am not making this up kids) brings the metal with Amon Amarth, Ensiferum, Belphegor and The Absence and upstairs in the smaller room is a local pop punk show with Lansdowne, Penrose, Gone By Daylight, Teamwork, The Fury Coast, and Jared Salvatore. Ralph’s hosts another something for everyone type bill with the musical tapestries of Transient (featuring Shodows Fall/Overcast vocalist Brian Fair on guitar) hard rock from Birch Hill Dam, girl vocal Boston indie rockers Barnicle, and Worcester upstarts Eastern Eyes. Spiritual Haze has maybe the most interesting show of the night with post rock instrumentalists The White Mountains, Boston electronic tinged indie rockers Where The Land Meets The Sea, ambient artist Estrela and what seems to be a brand spankin new Worcester act in Ghost Ocean. Tammany Hall has Before The Fall and the Thickness. I could find hardly anything on Before The Fall online but what little I could suggests these folks play the metal. The Thickness will play some pretty damn good punk rock that also seems to have a little metal influence as well. Vincent’s gets all rockabilly with Johnny Carlevale and the Rolling Pins.

The rest of the week: Last week it was the Palladium, this week the Dog are the kings of the early week night time world. If you like what you here on Thursday at the Dive why not go to the Lucky Dog on Tuesday and check out The Howl in all of their plugged in big rock stage glory? The Lucky Dog has 5 bands on Wednesday and no over charge. For no cover there is some good value and variety here with some 90′s style girl vocal alternapop from Jen Tobey’s Alter Ego, White Stripe influenced Canadiens The Pack A.D, Main prog metal from The Project Seven, touring San Diego alt rock from After The Crash and pop punkers Houlihan.

As I do these listings every week I can’t help but feel I must be missing some stuff going on in the city. I know the Hotel Vernon has shows going on in the Ship Room on a regular basis though I have yet to really have any type of confirmation on any of them. There is always the super secret society of house shows that happen all over the place in this city on an almost nightly basis too.

Also, I was a little upset to find out after the fact that Boston indie rockers and all around rockin good band Cassavettes played by all reports a killer show last Friday at WPI. It just goes to show folks that you can sit at home complaining there isn’t any good music going on or you can go out and do some exploring and some asking around and find something great, because it is there, you just have to look for it. And hey bands, promoters and club owners, if you don’t see your show listed here chances are I didn’t hear about it. Let a brotha know! Here’s what we have going on for the upcoming weekend and beyond:

Thursday: As is the case each and every Thursday, Flock of Assholes occupies the main slot at The Lucky Dog. What does change from week to week however are the opening bands. This week the openers consist of local up and comers New Pilot plus touring acts The Kung Fu Girls from New York, and Indiana’s Philpot. If you are looking to catch something new get there early for New Pilot who are one of the better new bands in Central Mass right now. It also doesn’t hurt to give the touring bands some sure to be appreciated Worcester hospitality. Besides, The Kung Fu Girls are kind of cute. Speaking of great bands, Hey Now Morris Fader’s Brooks Milgate is over at Nick’s and is sure to be playing some songs off of HNMF’s soon to be released album. You don’t (or at least I don’t) see local underground hip-hop shows too often in Worcester so tonight Tammany Hall presents a rare opportunity to catch E The Real, C.O.D. Serious and Problem Addicts. Last but certainly not least, holy crap, Aretha Franklin is at the Hanover!

Friday: The Red Riders are at Gilreins, The Lucky Dog pays the bills with Sublime tribute Top Shelf and Operation Ivy tribute Sound System. Openers The Bright Hours seem like they could be an interesting option. The Palladium kicks off it’s annual Rock and Shock horror convention Friday with Children of Bodom, Black Dahlia Murder, Between the Buried and Me, Obituary, August Burns Red, Unleashed, Carnifex, and Architects. Niki Luparelli and Dan Burke will be your soundtrack to tears in your beers at Nick’s, Guns of Navarone join The River City Rebels in celebrating the release of their new CD at Ralph’s, and Sam James and The Gary Backstrom Band play Tammany Hall.

Saturday: Jazz giant Dave Brubeck is at the Hanover Theater, more bills get paid at The Lucky Dog tonight with Aerosmith tribute Big Ten Inch and Rush tribute Lotus Land. Moral Dilemma opens the show. Andy Cummings is at Nick’s, Day 2 of Rock and Shock has Gwar, Mushroomhead, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, Emmure, Toxic Holocaust, and Beneath The Massacre at The Palladium. Psychobilly Cadillac are joined by Nate Gibson and the Gashouse Gang at Ralph’s, and 508 Family Business is at Tammany Hall.

Sunday: Danny Dark and the Black Souls make their debut occupying the weekly Sunday night slot at The Lucky Dog. Yes folks, that is four straight nights of cover/tribute acts at the Dog. Downtown gets invaded by Juggaloes Sunday when Insane Clown Posse, Blaze, ABK, Boondox, and Axe Murder Boys close out Rock and Shock at The Palladium, Black metal super heroes Nocturnum celebrate their new CD at Ralph’s and Jon Short is always worth a Sunday trip to Vincent’s.

The rest of the week is pretty much ruled by The Palladium with Method Man and Red Man on Monday, Theory Of A Dead Man, Black Stone Cherry, and The Parlor Mob on Tuesday and Iced Earth, Into Eternity, and Saviours on Wednesday.

Slim pickens around the rest of the city tonight with Jason James over at Nick’s and Jon Short at Vincent’s. If you want to be your own Danny Dark there is always karaoke at 3 G’s but remember to please bring a small can of mace. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Fran Dagostino

The Belfont Hotel in Millbury has the Remuck Bros Band, Galway Bay has Triple Shot featuring Mark Renburke (Celtic, Acoustic, Pop), Gilreins still has the blues and by gosh The Fran Dagastino Band are going to be playing it, the Green Rooster Coffeehouse has folk artist and Maine native Cormac McCarthy, there is sure to be mugs of Guinness being raised and sing a longs being sung at The Greyhound when Songs for Ceilidh starts playing, The Lucky Dog gets paranoid or snow blind, or has fairies who wear boots or has symptoms of the universe or what have you with Black Sabbath tribute Supernaut. Skulltoboggan opens the show. The joint is sure to be jumpin at Nick’s with Lisa Marie and All Shook Up. The Palladium puts the metal on the shelf for the night and welcomes in a stellar bill of indie rock with Canadians Tegan and Sara along with fellow canucks City and Colour and San Antonio’s Girl In A Coma, Ralph’s welcomes in October much in the same way the Lucky Dog did the night before with Gein and the Graverobbers, The Numbskulls, Rabies, and The Automotons, Sahara gets worldly with the Ed Melkian Ensemble, and Oak Street lives to WXLO the hell out of us one more time at Tammany Hall. Humblebee and the McCann’s open up.

Fiddler’s Green and Squire Whites have karaoke as well as Willicker’s out in Shrewsbury.

So it’s Friday. Put down the Wii controller and get out of the house and see some music.

Gein and the Graverobbers

The Blue Plate in Holden gets all sorts of NOLA with the The Zydetones, Galway Bay has Bill McCarthy who may have one of the funniest flyers I have ever seen, Gilreins has long time bar band stalwarts Clutch Grabwell, Fiddler’s Green gets their Irish on with Fergus, Fusion tries out some live music with the Matt Shwachman Band. The Sonic Explorers have been playing some of the best jazz the city has to offer for quite sometime. The Joy of Music Program has them tonight at their recital hall on Gorham St. The Lucky Dog starts October right with Sasquatch and the Sickabillys; Gein and the Graverobbers; Sawmill; and Ten Foot Polecats, and Nick’s has Dan Burke of the Orange Ocean doing his weekly solo thing. If you spent any time going to shows in the 90’s odds are you have seen Tree at one time or another. Tree’s singer, Dave River, is now rocking the hell out in Super Power. They are at Ralph’s tonight with Wreckoning. If you are a child of the 90’s Worcester scene but weren’t into the heavy stuff then suggest going over to Tammany Hall where Mocha Java will be reuniting to lay down the jam band grooves that made them late 90’s Worcester legends. Skullfunked will be opening the show.

Sonic Explorers

Here’s what we have going on tonight in our fair city of Woo:
The Pueblo Nuevo Band do up some salsa at Bocado, The Center has Chris Reddy, Thursday means once again Duncan Arsenault will be laying down the rhythm for a rotating cast of some of the areas best players at the Dive Bar, Terry Brennan does his Irish thing at the Irish Times, Flock of Assholes and their weekly 80’s party spectacular hit The Lucky Dog and are joined by Ramones tribute the Ramoniacs and Grand Evolution, and out in Westborough there is a traditional Irish music session at Mulligan’s Tavern On The Green. Oh look there is some metal at the Palladium tonight! Amorphis will be singing ominously about evil and dragons at the corner of Main and MLK. If that is still not enough medicine for your metal fever then maybe Ralph’s can help out with Withered Sun and The Summoned along with New Yorkers Tentacles and Tyranize. The little corner of the world known as Vincent’s has the blues tonight with Night Train. As always, you don’t have to just sit in the audience, the Post Office Pub in Grafton has karaoke and the Blue Plate in Holden has an open mic.