Roadtrips

On the cover of his new Riding with the King, B.B. King rides easy in the back seat of a convertible driven by his buddy Eric Clapton, who also makes a few appearances on the disc. No argument from this corner: the Beale Street Blues Boy deserves a little coasting after all those years in the driver's seat. King arrives in style at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium (617-931-2000) on Wednesday; the Palace Theatre (203-325-4466) in Stamford, Connecticut, next Thursday (January 11); Foxwoods Casino (800-200-2882) in Mashantucket, Connecticut, next Friday and Saturday (January 12 and 13); and the Calvin Theatre (413-586-8686) in Northampton a week from Sunday (January 14).

The Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton hosts a couple of multi-night stands this week. Brother of James, and of late a professor at Berklee College of Music (where he's surely breeding the next swarming generation of whitebread singer-songwriters), Livingston Taylor drops in Friday and Saturday. Jazz great Pat Metheny will be there with a trio Monday through Wednesday.

Like Livingston, Madball singer Freddy Cricien was in his early days best known for his older brother, Agnostic Front's Roger Miret. In the ensuing decade, Cricien's band has become nearly as popular as bubba's outfit; Madball are currently out in support of their new Hold It Down (Epitaph). They play the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence on Sunday with Reach the Sky, Kill Your Idols, and E-Town Concrete.

The beginning of January finds most of the real bands taking a brief vacation -- which means it's time for our semi-annual tribute to suburban punk bands we've never heard of. Thanks to the wonderful proliferation of Web pages, we even managed to get a look at a few of 'em. Tonight (January 4), the Flywheel Arts Center (413-527-9800) in Easthampton hosts a benefit for that perennial recipient of punk-band benefit money, Food Not Bombs, featuring Dead Skunx, Dartboard, the Suffering Bastards, and Only Minutes Left. Tomorrow (January 5), the same room will have Hookers/Nashville Pussy-style sleaze-punkers the Strippers with Vampire Lezbos, the long-suffering regionally acclaimed punk band whose claims to fame include having turned down the original bass player for Tool when he auditioned back in '85. And on Sunday, Flywheel hosts Western Mass's answer to Screeching Weasel, snot-punk upstarts Grand Prixxx, with Dead Legend, Cappuccino Jellybeans, No Intention, Crossed Out, and the Accidents.
-- Carly Carioli