Roadtrips

Fact: tickets to see Bill "Fatherhood" Cosby at Foxwoods Casino this Saturday will run you $50 to $75. Logic: even if you don't actually have anywhere near $50, you can take what little you've got and gamble your way right on up. Accommodation: have no fear, "wampum points" are accepted toward the price of admission. Prayer: may the Force be with you, Chief. Suggestion: laugh, but not too hard. And if you get a flat tire on the way up, do not leave your car . . .

It's another radio-station festival convergence this weekend, with Boston's Mix98 bringing Sarah McLachlan, Lisa Loeb, Paula Cole, Barenaked Ladies, the Monkees, and others to a freebie at City Hall Plaza (800-MIXFEST) on Saturday and Sunday beginning at 11 a.m. On Monday, Providence's 99.7X's Fall Fest at the Strand (401-401-272-0444) snags the Barenaked Ladies, then adds an awful metallic faux alterna-pop band called Size 14 (sample song titles: "Sleeping in the Wet Spot," "I Touched Her Ass"), Jimmy's Chicken Shack, and Tanya Donelly -- who's got her own gig in Boston at Avalon (262-2424) on Friday the 10th.

The multi-culti guitar-drums scrunge duo Local H find themselves compact headliners (following supporting dates for the likes of Stone Temple Pilots and Silverchair, and a hit single called "Eddie Vedder") on a tour that brings them to the Paradise (617-562-8800) tonight (Thursday) and Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) on October 12. Elsewhere, rhythm and blues veteran Delbert McClinton stops by Lupo's on the 10th, then plays a gig under the auspices of the Loud Music Fest at the Roxy (617-338-7699) in Boston on the 14th.

And while we're speaking of Lupo's, that's where you'll have to go this week if you want to see Insane Clown Posse, the Barnum-&-Bailey-meets-Kiss-meets-License-to-Ill white rap duo du jour who are there, appropriately enough, on the 13th; and Smash mouth, an otherwise mediocre goofball-punk quartet who with "Walkin' on the Sun" (which hit number one on the modern-rock charts last week) have managed to do what thousands of faithfully obscure garage bands over the past 15 years have been utterly unable to do -- namely, make garage rock really, truly popular again. Smashmouth play Lupo's on the 15th