Roadtrips

It's a good week to catch up on all your favorite Boston alterna-rock has-beens -- familiar faces fading fast from view, or comebacks waiting to happen? You make the call . . . Dinosaur Jr, whose last gig here was a less-than-capacity affair at the Roxy Ballroom, scale back their ambitions with gigs at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute on November 7 (508-831-5509), Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on November 8, and the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge on November 9. After getting out of her deal with Atlantic, Juliana Hatfield has a really good EP coming out soon on Bar/None as a couple of labels duke it out for the rights to her next album. In the meantime, she's at the Paradise on November 14, and the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence on the 15th.

Two local institutions rumored to be playing short sets at the Middle East's free tenth-anniversary party on November 10 are also gigging in Providence this week. Buffalo Tom are at the Met Café on November 7 (they also have a return visit to the Middle East booked on November 19). Advances of Mary Lou Lord's debut for Work/Sony (due out in January) are already causing a stir. She'll preview the disc with a gig at the Century Lounge (401-274-8584) in Providence on November 9; her next official visit in Boston is at the Middle East on November 26 with the fine New England roots-rockabilly outfit the Ragin' Teens.

Everclear's November 13 show at the Paradise is sold out; but tickets are still available for their gig the following night at Lupo's, and you'll get a bonus opening set by Letters to Cleo to boot. And if you missed the tumultuous hyperthrash guitar-keyboard-drums trio Today Is the Day, the Nashville trio are back on a tour with Eyehategod that lands November 6 at Pearl Street (413-584-7771) in Northampton, November 7 at the Middle East (Scissorfight and Big John Studd open), and November 8 at Zoots (207-773-8187) in Portland, Maine.

-- CC