Roadtrips

They're baaaa-aaack. Former Throwing Muse Kristin Hersh, you may remember, has long claimed that her songs come to her like ghosts in the night, already fully written and not entirely of herself, and sometimes against her will. Then Kristin's muse took a vacation, and Hersh recorded some dark Appalachian covers and an album that sounded, well, as if her ghostwriter had indeed absconded with the songs. The good news (for us, that is -- Hersh isn't entirely psyched) is that the songs have started coming to her again. You can hear some of the haunted, spectral results on her current tour, which brings her to the Coolidge Corner Theatre (call 617-864-EAST for tickets) in Brookline tonight, July 12; to the Aldrich Museum (203-438-4519) in Ridgefield, Connecticut, on Friday; and to the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence on Sunday. The tour is in support of her latest album, Sunny Border Blue (4AD), which is, well, a little less sunny than she realized. "Some [of these songs] sound like they could have been written by the Monkees," she says, "but only if something really horrible happened to them."

Something horrible happening to the Monkees? You mean like something worse than that, 30 years later, they're still the Monkees? We can't think of anything worse than that, and you could clone Davy Jones and put 30 Monkees at 30 typewriters for, uh, lessee, going on 30 years now and still not come up with anything as depressoid as a Kristin Hersh song. Proof? As exhibit A, we present . . . the Monkees! They're at the Cape Cod Melody Tent (508-775-9100) in Hyannis on Friday the 13th, and at the MDC Hatch Shell on the Charles River Esplanade for a WODS oldies gig (617-787-7000) on Saturday. Sounds spooky, don't it?

Former Letters to Cleo cutie Kay Hanley has a high-profile week: tonight (July 12) she headlines the opening concert of the FNX/Phoenix Free Music Series on the Hatch Shell (617-450-6815); and next Thursday she opens for the re-formed and re-energized Go-Go's at the FleetBoston Pavilion (617-931-2000). Meanwhile, former Letters to Cleo drummer Stacy Jones's flavor-of-the-week pop band American Hi-Fi open for Everclear at the State Theater (207-780-8265) in Portland on Monday, and at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on Tuesday. Also at Lupo's this week: grunge toadstools the Toadies on Saturday, and a make-up date by Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell on Sunday.

We were too busy getting hyped for the new season of ABC's Making the Band to get into VH1's Bands on the Run -- which, by virtue of being a behind-the-music documentary, a reality-TV voyeurathon, and a game show, is sort of a 21st-century television trifecta. And though we can't say we understand the rules, one of the finalists -- goofy jockish Texas mod-rockers Flickerstick -- will be live in the flesh on Friday at Lupo's and on Sunday at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge.
-- Carly Carioli