Roadtrips

No one's ever accused the New Yorker of being a reliable indicator of pop-music worth, but the magazine did devote a few pages recently to one Macy Gray, a jazz-educated naïf being marketed as the best thing since Lauryn Hill's Miseducation. Her Macy Gray on How Life Is (Epic) is steeped in a modern update of classic R&B/soul grooves, and her voice is being likened to late-period Billie Holiday. See for yourself when she opens up the au naturel hip-hop-lite tour featuring Everlast and the Roots, which hits the BankBoston Pavilion (331-2211) on August 7 and Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on the 8th. Of course, you can also catch Lauryn Hill herself at the Tweeter Center (331-2211) in Mansfield on the 8th.

Wynton Marsalis is taking a break from his duties at the head of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra to pursue a potentially legacy-making "millennial project" that includes the release of eight new discs. And he's chosen to break in a new 10-piece band (including brother Delfeayo on trombone) at the 170-capacity Iron Horse Music Hall (413-584-0610) in Northampton. In a rare small-club engagement, Wynton and Co. make a five-night, nine-show stand at the Iron Horse August 6 through 9. As if that weren't enough Marsalis for one week, brother Branford is also leading a quartet on August 15 as part of the JVC Jazz Festival -- Newport (401-847-3700) at Fort Adams State Park.

Hitting Lupo's on August 6, in the wake of the Warped Tour, is the "Social Chaos Tour" -- featuring, we presume, all the bands whose résumés ended up in Warped Inc.'s circular file after Suicidal Tendencies and 7 Seconds ended up on the bill. "Chaos" is a good old-fashioned old-school hardcore scare -- and nothing, not even The Blair Witch Project, is more frightening than a bunch of aging punk dudes left to their own devices. On the bill are T.S.O.L., U.K. Subs, the Business, D.R.I., Vice Squad, Murphy's Law, the Vibrators, Boston's own Gang Green (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), Sloppy Seconds, '77-era holdovers Chelsea (who saw Billy Idol pass through one of their myriad line-ups), the Anti-Heroes, One Way System, L.E.S. Stiches, and (in honor of John-John?) the unearthing of Dead Kennedys dude D.H. Peligro. The Chelsea lads then venture up to Cambridge for a gig with local spirit-of-'77 punk champs Showcase Showdown on August 11 at the Middle East (617-864-EAST).

Of course, nowadays skate punk is big business, and all-day multi-band "extreme sports" cavalcades are all the rage. Case in point: "SK8 99", a marathon shindig at the Palladium (508-797-9696) in Worcester on August 7. Murphy's Law ollie over from the "Chaos" tent to represent the old heads, Blanks 77 perform their punk-rock Sha Na Na routine, and plenty more folks like ska punks Big D and the Kids Table, all-ages faves Tree, and rockabilly's the Racketeers join in. Then there's an after-party around the corner that night at the Commercial Street Café (508-797-4550) with sick-ass extreme metal dudes Soilent Green, Today Is the Day (formerly of Texas, of late operating out of Clinton), Nasum, Exhumed, and others. Mr. Steve Austin and the rest of Today Is the Day continue on to Cambridge for a gig at the Middle East on August 10. And if you move quickly, you can also catch Tree warming up tonight, August 5, for the SK8 thing alongside Sam Black Church and Gangsta Bitch Barbie at the Beachcomber (508-349-6055) in Wellfleet, on the Cape.
-- Carly Carioli