Roadtrips

One man's junkyard, as they say, is another man's symphony, and this week a few of the trash pickers have their say. From the rough side of New Orleans, the Gas Tank Orchestra make their instruments (including reeds, horns, strings, and a stand-up bass) out of -- yep -- scavenged automobile gas tanks. They've got a slew of discs out, none of which is as painful as the premise suggests. On May 26 they're at AS220 (401-831-9327) in Providence with the Eyesores and Princeton Reverb Colonial. And on the 27th they'll be at the new rock & bowl palace in Jamaica Plain, the Milky Way Lounge and Lanes (617-524-3740). The Milky Way bill is filled out by the like-minded Further Experiments from the Neptune Labs, whose Jason Sanford has built a "robot thing" in which guitar stings are plucked by motors hooked to a trash-picked computer that he's programmed in BASIC. The classically minded experimental chamber/rock trio Darts Adler add somewhat more, uh, traditional instrumentation. And Jessica Rylan, a/k/a Can't, plays a self-built "magic box" (has Mary Timony heard about this?) with oscillator panels hooked into an old telephone patchboard.

This summer you can catch the reggae veteran Frederick "Toots" Hibbert and his seasoned Maytals opening for none other than a reunited J. Geils Band at the Tweeter Center, the venue formerly known as Great Woods. This week, though, Toots & the Maytals will play a couple of more intimate New England clubs still known as Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence and the Roxy (617-338-7699) Boston. One of the earliest proponents of reggae (he spawned a 1968 dance craze with "Do the Reggay"), Toots is a guest of the House of Blues' "Reggae Greats" series at the Roxy on May 26, along with Reincarnation and John Brown's Body, who headline their own gig at the Iron Horse (413-584-4610) in Northampton on the 28th. The night before the Roxy appearance, on the 25th, Toots is at Lupo's along with the Ravers.

And just in case anyone cares, the long, sad career of Eddie Money hits an unexpected high point -- he was last seen in Boston playing a bar near the FleetCenter -- when he headlines the Mohegan Sun MusicFest '99 (978-461-0910) at Alumni Field in Maynard. A bunch of blues is on the undercard including local-hero-turned-national-star Ronnie Earl, who's joined on stage by the harp/guitar duo of Annie Raines and Paul Rishell; Fat City, Memphis Train, and Showdown are also on the bill.
-- CC