Roadtrips

It's getting close to a decade since Superchunk started making a tuneful racket in Chapel Hill. And except for a few keyboard embellishments on Indoor Living, their last disc, they haven't changed their brand of brisk, smart, bittersweet punk pop all that much. Which is a good thing. They're at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge on Tuesday April 14, and at the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence on April 15, both with the instrumental outfit Shark Quest, who have a new CD out on Superchunk's Merge label. This is also our official suggestion to everyone who can't afford to scalp his or her way into the Radiohead show at the Worcester Centrum on the 15th.

Just when ska is getting really, really popular, Fishbone are now traveling the country billing themselves as a funk band. It's not that they aren't funky -- they're way funky -- but wethinks their marketing guy oughta be pimping their ska cred while there's some dough up for grabs. Also on their bill: the venerable former James Brown sideman Maceo Parker, and the Five Fingers of Funk. The show's at the Roxy (617-338-7699) in Boston on April 14 and Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on April 15.

R&B hitmakers Blessid Union of Souls -- whose latest recording, just in case you care, is a cover of Bread's "Everything I Own" -- skirt the city with shows on April 16 at the Beach Club at Salisbury Beach and then an all-ages affair the following night at the Beverly Field House in Beverly (call 978-922-9988 for info on both shows). Reggae elder statesman Burning Spear is at the Music Hall (603-436-9900) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on April 9, and Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel on April 10. And if you just can't wait till her April 18 gig at Johnny D's (776-2004) in Somerville, Ronnie Spector is at the Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton a week early on April 11.

--C.C.