Roadtrips

Besides running (and producing the distinctive artwork for) the Hydrahead label -- the most distinctive imprint in town, and one of our two or three favorites in the whole damn world -- Aaron Turner also fronts a monstrous, encephalitic doom-metal band called Isis who are just about the coolest, loudest, most crushing thing we've ever heard. Their most recent material has found them scaling back their ground-zero-blast-zone volume for (slightly) more restrained and complex signatures. But Lord, bring some earplugs. Next week they head out as the openers on the Napalm Death/Soilent Green tour, which hits the Palladium (508-797-9696) in Worcester on June 1. But you can catch Isis headlining the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge this Friday with Anodyne and Cable.

The Amazing Crowns are a punkabilly band descended from the Misfits' "American Nightmare" as opposed to, say, the Cramps' "Human Fly," so it's not surprising to find 'em performing to their natural audience this Friday at the Mass Skate Park (413-534-1000) in Westfield. Eighties alterna-hard-rock masters the Cult will be back this way later in the summer; this week they hit the massive River Rave at Foxboro Stadium (617-931-2000) on Saturday, then headline their own gig at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on Tuesday. Lupo's also hosts the weekend's other big blowout event of the week: WBRU's must-see mid-'80s old-school hip-hop convention on Sunday featuring Slick Rick, Doug E Fresh, Special Ed, Whodini, UTFO, the Force MD's, Stetsasonic, and Dana Dane. "Technical issues" involving the River Rave have forced 'N Sync to scale back their Foxboro Stadium (617-931-2000) engagement from three nights to two: ticketholders for the planned opening-night concert on Wednesday have until this Monday to exchange their tickets for the remaining dates on May 31 and June 1.

The Wellfleet Beachcomber (508-349-6055) won't feel quite the same without Charles "Trey" Halliwell III, among whose countless endeavors were many "Dune Tunes" extravaganzas -- those day-long festivals (inevitably stretching well into the early morn down on the dunes themselves) that featured scads of great bands and turned the 'Comber into something like Boston rock's summer home away from home. Murdered in a horrific NYC shooting spree that's been making tabloid headlines, Halliwell was something of a notorious character in these parts. Anyone who tasted the man's home-brewed absinthe knew he lived for the moment; his gift was for enlarging those moments and drawing others into them. I knew Trey casually: the last time I saw him was a year or so ago at the Boston Music Awards, where he was hanging with his buddy Malcolm Campbell (then publisher of SPIN magazine, now the publisher of Blender) and plotting a return to Cape concert promotion. With Memorial Day weekend, music returns to the Beachcomber for the season -- tonight (May 24) with Seventeen and Major Major and on Monday with the king of the surf guitar, Dick Dale -- but it's tough to imagine the tunes sounding quite as sweet, or the bonfires, if they burn, blazing quite so brightly.
-- Carly Carioli