Roadtrips

If you stripped Black Sabbath's Masters of Reality of its Satanic majesty and replaced Ozzy's Crowley fixation with an affinity for Hot Wheels, fuzzy dice, and fuzzier guitar leads, you'd have California's Fu Manchu, whose dead-on distillation of '70s boogie metal has spawned almost as many imitators as Nirvana did back in the day, as well as an equally reductionist genre tag: stoner rock. Only two purveyors of this scruffy subgenre are worth more than a cursory glance, and both are in town behind newish albums this week. Nebula, a band featuring the rhythm section that made Fu Manchu's debut album such a raucous treat, are touring behind their Sub Pop debut, To the Center, which finds them leavening their Sabbath with a little Stooges-style Raw Power. They're at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge on March 26. And Fu Manchu themselves -- in support of their new King of the Road (Mammoth) -- hit the Karma Club (617-421-9595) in Boston on March 28.

Not, as the name would suggest, a tribute to the '70s-era '50s tribute act, Sean Na Na is in fact the nom de rock of Sean Tillman, formerly of Minneapolis indie rowdies Calvin Krime. Most recently he issued a split disc on Kill Rock Stars with our own Mary Lou Lord (who in the midst of recording an album was subsequently dropped from Sony's Work Group). Sean's at the Middle East on March 28 and at the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence on March 29, both times with the Holy Childhood (featuring Danny Leo of the indie-rock Leo family). On disc, the Holy Childhood sound like an extravagantly tracked lo-fi roots-rock ensemble backed by an unruly, sleep-deprived E Street Band. The players on Up with What I'm Down With include NYC jazz mainstays (William Parker sideman Andrew Barker). Also listed in the lengthy credits is Gibb Slife, who turns up with the rest of Les Savvy Fav at the Middle East on March 29. They headline a bill with Love As Laughter and the quirky, Fall-esque Lifter Puller. An addendum to the hefty list of bubbling-under rock in town this week: twisted emo kids the Dismemberment Plan, who titled their lone major-label EP The Ice of Boston, are back in time for the spring thaw with a gig at the Middle East on March 25.

Out in Worcester, Dutch avant-garde big shots the Willem Breuker Kollektief are at Clark University (508-890-5694) on March 25. Worcester State College's Sullivan Auditorium (508-929-8073) plays host to Run-D.M.C. on March 30, on a bill that covers its bases with next-big-major-label-punk-things the Suicide Machines and ska's the Pilfers. And the mighty Korn hit the Centrum (617-931-2000) for two dates -- the first already sold out -- on March 30 and 31, both with Staind and Spike & Mike's "Sick & Twisted" animation festival. But first the show is at the Providence Civic Center (401-331-6700) on March 28.
-- Carly Carioli