Roadtrips

Here's Southern hospitality for you: these are the kinda guys who figure if folks won't let Rosa Parks sit where she wants, they'll take the whole party to the back of the bus and make it their own. Big Boi and Dre, the back-porch-dwellin', Southern-fried hip-hop duo known as OutKast, have lots of company over for their potluck third album, Aquemini (LaFace), with George Clinton bringing the funk and Raekwon ready to carve up a feast with his lyrical swords (on "Skew It on the Bar-B") -- not to mention contributions from Dre's sig-other, Erykah Badu, and Goodie Mob. It's a feast fit for kings, and they'll bring a bit of it -- plus a side of Black Eyed Peas -- to the Palladium (508-797-9696) in Worcester on December 8.

More primitive sounds of the South from the wrong side of the tracks are on hand courtesy of the Flat Duo Jets. The psychotic trashabilly roots-freakout twosome may have cleaned up for their major-label debut, the absurdly amusing Lucky Eye (Outpost), but don't expect 'em to play it respectable when they open up for Texas-bred metalbilly maven Reverend Horton Heat on December 9 at the Roxy (617-338-7699) in Boston; December 10 at Pearl Street (413-584-0610) in Northampton; and December 11 at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence. Touring as the middle meat of this cracker sandwich are our own Amazing Crowns.

On those occasions when we have not seen him, Buddy Guy has been extolled as the greatest electric-blues guitarist alive outside of B.B. King and, oh, maybe Ronnie Earl. But we've seen him do just a couple of indifferent festival shows. Maybe his gigs this time around -- by virtue of their indoor-ness -- will find him inspired. He's at Lupo's on December 4 and the Roxy on December 6.

There was really no place left for the Offspring to go after their foray into pop metal with Ixnay on the Hombre, so their new one, Americana (both Columbia), comes clean and revels in the bliss of the unapologetically derivative. Which is to say that for an album on which they rip off themselves -- on "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy," otherwise known as the sequel to "Come Out and Play" -- and then proceed to rip off the hook from Smashmouth's "Walking on the Sun" without even changing the lyrics (their version's called "Staring at the Sun"), it's kinda okay in a fluffy sorta way. See 'em, if you dare, at the Palladium on December 7.

Providence's native lounge swingers Combustible Edison have made a point of bringing their fabulousness north every Christmas, which they'll do on December 4 at the Paradise (617-423-NEXT) in Boston before returning home to spread good cheer and good will at the Met Café (401-861-2142) on December 5. And national jazz treasure Wynton Marsalis comes to the Calvin Theatre (413-586-8686) in Northampton at the helm of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra on December 4. If you can't make it, check out HBO's documentary on heavy-hitting boxing icon Sugar Ray Robinson, which has a score composed by Marsalis. It airs December 8.

-- CC