Roadtrips

Subcultures are usually pretty insular groups, but this weekend the New England ska community is opening its doors to the public in an unprecedented "Learn About Ska" weekend, a crash course for beginners that includes two days of live music in Cambridge and Worcester and a host of activities to turn the casual Bosstones/Goldfinger/Save Ferris listener into a seasoned pro. "Skambassadors" will be around to answer all your questions -- from "Why do they wear those weird little hats?" to "Why do they dance like that?"; they'll make listening recommendations, sort out the subgenres, even teach you how to skank. At the Cambridge shows, May 2 and 3 at the Middle East (617-864-EAST), Skattering Music will be setting up listening stations that'll allow you access to its library of some 400 CDs, as well as giving away ska reference sheets and displaying its easy-to-read history-of-ska timeline. And WFNX will be on hand to reward the best in ska fashion, as well as the winners of Moon Ska Records' Ska Trivia contest. On May 2, the Middle East has Late for Work, Take 5, the Sellouts, Mobtown Beat, Edna's Goldfish, and Kicked in the Head; the Espresso Bar (508-770-1455) in Worcester has Sexunate, Dow Jones & the Industrials, the Douglas Leader Orchestra, Brickmaster, Hitmen for Hire, and the Brass Monkeys. On May 3 the same line-ups switch clubs.

Post-rock instrumental visionaries Tortoise return with another big-production experimental jazz/dub/electronic thingamabob, and tagging along is Berliner Marcus Popp, who records as Oval, which is also the name he's given to the software he's created to deconstruct and reassemble digital sound files. He'll be on stage accompanied only by his laptop, and the screen will be projected behind him so you can see how he does it. That's at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on May 5, and at the Middle East on May 6.

Elsewhere, punk-rock romanticism gets put through its paces by Lookout's Mr. T Experience, who bring their catchy caffeinated love songs plus the Teen Idols to the Middle East on May 5 and the Met Café (401-861-2142) in Providence on May 6. Punk-rock romantics of a different, fashion-victim sort come through when Epitaph's U.S. Bombs drop on the Espresso Bar on May 1, Daddy-O's (413-733-8300) in Springfield on May 2, and the Elvis Room (603-436-9189) in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on May 3. And if you're really feeling romantic, Antonia Bennett (Tony's baby girl) is at Chan's (401-765-1900) in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, on May 1.

Last but not least, Northampton's Pearl Street club reopens this week -- for the time being, info can be had at (413) 584-0610, the same number as the Iron Horse, which now owns the building. On May 7 there's hold a grand reopening reggae bash with Toots & the Maytals and the Black Rebels.

--C.C.