Roadtrips

No one gets as much mileage -- emotional or otherwise -- out of redneck sentimentality as Preston W. Long, the former frontman of the often acerbic Southern/indie-rock hybrid Mule. Give the man a bottle of whiskey and an acoustic guitar and he'll make your heart ache with neo-Hankisms about his dog and his momma; set him up in front of his touring band, P.W. Long's Reelfoot, and you'll get hard-stomping roots-flavored honky-tonk with unironic nods to Zeppelin and Skynyrd. The latter incarnation stops at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge on March 9 and at the Call (401-751-2255) in Providence the following night. Touch & Go labelmates Don Caballero headline both shows.

A contemporary of Son House and Charlie Patton -- the first generation of Delta bluesmen -- Mississippi John Hurt appealed to many of the blues-revival era folkies of the '60s for his melodic tranquility and finger-picked intricacy. Contemporary songster (and novelist) Bill Morrissey takes up Hurt's repertoire on his recently issued Songs of Mississippi John Hurt, which gets a proper record release when Morrissey plays, appropriately enough, the Museum of Our National Heritage (781-861-6559) in Lexington on March 6. Morrissey will have a warm-up gig at the Bull Run (978-425-4311) in Shirley on 5th.

Evan Seinfeld from Brooklyn's populist hardcore-metal dudes Biohazard did hard time on HBO's prison-drama Oz last year, but his band have been lying relatively low. They resurface on a tour with Spineshank and Brazilian thrashers Sepultura that hits Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on March 8 and the Palladium (508-797-9696) in Worcester on March 10. From there, all three bands head to the mammoth two-day 100-band porn-star-MC'd March Metal Meltdown in Asbury Park, New Jersey, which also includes a pro-wrestling bill. Sepultura and Biohazard headline day two, on March 13. Scheduled to play earlier that same day at the Meltdown are European extreme-metal "It"-boys Vader, along with international sickos Gorguts and Cryptopsy. All three have a warm-up date at Pearl Street (413-584-0610) in Northampton on March 7, in what's being billed an "International Extreme Music Festival."

For your post-grunge grunge fix, the drums-and-guitar duo Local H is at Lupo's March 11; and Everclear headline the big snowboarding-and-dungarees tour with tragically hip pomo-popsters Soul Coughing, Black Eyed Peas, and hip-hop performance-intellectual DJ Spooky at Lowell's Tsongas Arena (331-2211) on March 10.
-- CC