American sweethearts From Courtney Love to Gina Gershon and the Garage Girlz BY MATT ASHARE
	Fall Preview 2003 American sweethearts From Courtney Love to Gina Gershon and the Garage Girlz BY MATT ASHARE Fall safe After a summer of sequels, the real films return BY PETER KEOUGH Curtain time From Of Mice and Men to Bat Boy:The Musical BY BILL RODRIGUEZ Mega-moves Fall brings a full slate of choreographic delights BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ ‘From the makers of Smallville’ Plus Whoopi, The Mullets, Rob Lowe, and HBO BY JOYCE MILLMAN

Any plans Billy Corgan might have had to tackle the role of Uncle Fester in an experimental Off Broadway musical adaptation of The Addams Family will have to wait. Because though the former Smashing Pumpkinhead’s own musical career has taken something of a Zwan dive of late, his old pal Courtney Love is almost certainly going to be looking for songwriting partners as she races to meet the deadline for her next project. That’s right, the queen of mean is back on a musical bender, and she can’t use the Matrix to help her write every song on her forthcoming album. She has, it’s been reported, already collaborated with former 4 Non Blonde Linda Perry, who’s put her golden touch on singles by Pink and Christina Aguilera. That should mean we can start calling Courtney the fifth Non Blonde. Love, however, has a different moniker in mind — America’s Sweetheart. And as the title of what will be her debut as a Hole-less solo artist, that should offer a pretty good sense of what to expect. The disc is slated for November 11 release on the currently ailing Virgin Records.

When it comes to deadlines, though, there’s nothing more amusing than the saga of Axl Rose. And it’s still unclear who’s going to beat who to the punch with what amounts to a really terrible album title. This summer, in what may have just been a brilliant bluff, Dexter Holland got in touch with his inner punk and announced that his Offspring would be releasing an album titled Chinese Democracy. Of course, Rose and his reconstituted Guns N’ Roses have been threatening to release an album of the same name for something close to a decade now. They even tried to mount a "Chinese Democracy" tour, and the farcical endeavor stumbled as far as the FleetCenter before imploding a few days later. Yet there was very little evidence of new material at the Boston show. Offspring, however, do have a new album in the can, and it’s a good bet Columbia will have it in stores, with or without the Chinese Democracy title, before Christmas.

Elvis Costello, meanwhile, is not happy just being the greatest songwriter of his generation. Or even the best thing that’s happened to the rock lyric since Dylan. In his ongoing quest to become a jack of all musical trades, he seems to have set his sights on becoming a master composer. And he appears to have left rock and roll behind altogether: the press notes for North boast that "there are less than 12 bars of electric guitar on the entire record." The disc, which reunites Costello with the Brodsky Quartet on one tune and finds keyboardist Steve Nieve of the Attractions still on board, isn’t even coming out on a pop label — Deutsche Grammophon is releasing it on September 23. Look for Costello to be part of the classical-music preview next year.

There was a day when it appeared that Paul Westerberg might make it up there on that list with Dylan and Costello. In a way, though, part of what made him great as the frontman of the Replacements (and the unwilling voice of what came to be known as Generation X — as he so aptly put it in 1984’s "Bastards of Young," "They got no war to name us") was his will to fail. Westerberg has, however, been slowly resurrecting himself after a bad case of the blands, and his alter ego Grandpaboy has played a major role in the healing process. This fall, Grandpaboy finds a new home on the Oxford (Mississippi) Fat Possum label, which gets its distribution through the SoCal punk stronghold Epitaph. Dead Man Shake is a raucous, bloozy disc that pays tribute to Paul’s home town ("MPLS") and takes a stab at the rat-pack standard "What Kind of Fool Am I?"; it’s due October 21. What’s more, Westerberg, who paid tribute to Alex Chilton in song, will be glad to know that Rykodisc is releasing Big Star Story, a Big Star retrospective that features one new tune recorded by Chilton and Jody Stephens with Posies Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, on September 23. And Teenage Fanclub, a band directly influenced by Big Star, have their own retrospective, Four Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty Six Seconds: A Shortcut to Teenage Fanclub (Jetset), coming out on September 23.

Nobody has ever managed to take the punk out of Iggy Pop. So people have finally just stopped trying. The veteran proto-punk has been spending some high-quality time with his old Stooges pals Ron and Scott Asheton, and they’re just two of the notables who turn up on Skull Ring (Virgin), which also features two tracks recorded with Green Day, a debut single ("Little Know It All") recorded with Sum 41, and a cameo by porn rapstress Peaches. Being the gentleman that he is, the Igster returns the favor by helping out on the eagerly awaited sophomore disc by sweet Peaches, the Canadian ex-folkie who proved there was still a little shock left in rock when she rapped "Fuck the pain away" on her 2001 breakthrough, The Teaches of Peaches. The new one cuts right to the chase with its title, Fatherfucker (Beggars/XL), and it trades the dime-store clamor of The Teaches for sleeker, boutique beats. Look for it on September 30.

It’s a big fall for women in rawk, thanks in large part to the founders of the Warped Tour, who’ll kick off the First Annual Girlz Garage Tour on October 20 at Axis. It features the NYC Beastie-grrrl rap trio Northern State (whose Dying in Stereo came out in June on Star Time), the LA-based neo-new-wave band the Start, the hip-popping Brassy (a/k/a the band who hate to admit that frontwoman Muffin Spencer is Jon "Blues Explosion" Spencer’s sistah), the young, cute, Canadian foursome Lillix, and the trip-hoppy Peak Show. No new albums there, but we’re not finished yet. Linda Perry hasn’t just been working with Courtney Love — she’s also been coaching Gina Gershon in what may turn out to be one of the stranger events of the fall. Prey for Rock & Roll is a movie that stars Gershon as the frontwoman of an LA all-grrrl punk band. The soundtrack has Gershon fronting a line-up that includes former Hole drummer Samantha Maloney, Lunachicks guitarist Gina Volpe, and former Gang of Four/B-52’s bassist Sara Lee; they perform songs written by Perry and produced by Stephen Trask (of Hedwig and the Angry Inch), who also adds some of his own guitar playing. Life will then imitate art as Gershon leads an all-star line-up that has yet to be announced on an eight-city tour that’s scheduled to hit Boston (venue TBA) on October 14.

Anyone interested in the real thing, on the other hand, is advised to check out the major-label debut by the Distillers, a female-fronted LA punk outfit whose pedigree includes singer Brody Armstrong, who got her last name when she hooked up with Tim Armstrong of Rancid fame. Not that they sound anything like Rancid, but Brody’s got the attitude to be the second coming of Patti Smith backed by a band who sound like the Avengers, if anyone remembers that far back. The disc is called Coral Fang, and Sire is releasing it on October 14.

Everyone remembers the Bangles, right? And though they aren’t going to have their Behind the Music bio airing concurrently with their comeback album the way the Go-Go’s did last year, these all-grown-up LA cuties have already garnered rave reviews and a decent amount of commercial success in England and Europe with their new Doll Revolution. Koch will give the disc, which features 14 tracks penned by the original four Bangles (Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson, Debbi Peterson, and Michael Steele) and no Non Blondes, its American release on September 23. And as long as we’re talking ’80s comeback artists, might as well mention that old Bohemian Edie Brickell will release her first disc in 10 years, Volcano (Cherry/Universal), on October 14. It features production by Charlie Sexton, yet another victim of the ’80s.

Contemporary pop phenom Mandy Moore might not have been around for much of the ’80s, but in an effort to find an older audience, she’s reached back to that era and beyond for Coverage (Epic). Due on October 21, it has the actress/singer interpreting anthems and ballads by the likes of Carole King ("I Feel the Earth Move"), Joni Mitchell ("Help Me"), and Carly Simon ("Anticipation") as well as taking some chances with material by XTC ("Senses Working Overtime"), Todd Rundgren ("Can We Still Be Friends"), and Blondie ("One Way or Another"). What’s odd is that Moore wasn’t invited to participate in Just Because I’m a Woman (Sugar Hill), a Dolly Parton 35th-anniversary tribute that brings together an all-female cast, including Shelby Lynne, Emmylou Harris, Kasey Chambers, Allison Moorer, Shania Twain with Alison Krauss & Union Station, and Norah Jones, to cover some of Parton’s best material. It hits stores on October 14.

Two top-notch songwriters who haven’t quite established Parton-like credentials have discs coming out on September 23. Joe Henry distinguished himself as a songwriter and producer with his work on Don’t Give Up on Me (Anti-), the critically acclaimed Grammy-winning comeback album by soul great Solomon Burke. Henry’s own album on Anti-, Tiny Voices, features his own version of "Flesh & Blood," one of the tunes he wrote for Burke’s disc. Meanwhile, Rufus Wainwright continues to uphold the Wainwright family tradition of wry songwriting on Want One (DreamWorks).

There will, of course, be tons of other fun stuff to steal off the Internet, including the two new R.E.M. tracks on In Time: The Best of R.E.M., 1988-2003 (Warner Bros.), which won’t be out until October 28, everything from Dave Matthews’s solo debut, Some Devil (RCA; September 23), and all the acoustic tunes on Godsmack’s yet-to-be-named unplugged CD, which Universal is planning to have ready by November 18. But go out and buy yourself a copy of Per Second Per Second Per Second Every Second (Aware/Columbia) when it comes out in October. It’s the major-label debut by Wheat, an awfully good Boston band who probably don’t stand a chance in hell of recouping their advance. Still, stranger things have happened.