Heavy Dates

WORCESTER

Heavy dates

On Thursday, Wide Iris celebrate the release of their new David Minehan-produced EP She Said... at the Lucky Dog Music Hall; Slugworth and the newly-revamped Sticker open the show. That same night, T-House of the Almighty, Absinthe, and Daft Samuel rock Liquid. On Friday, NOK are joined by Donnybrook, Cosmo, and Johnny Wishbone at the Alley, the Jones Brothers bring their soulful blues to Gilrein's, Joe Rockhead celebrate the release of King at the Tammany Club, Artie Sneiderman gathers his Belmondos together for a garage rock celebration with the Nines at Ralph's, and the Cartridge Family are at the Above Club. On Saturday, L.B. Worm's Wormtown Extravaganza brings the Real Kids, Time Beings, Preston Wayne Four, Pathetics, and Incest Repellent to Ralph's, you can go from the psycho surf rock of Gein and the Graverobbers and pop sounds of Say Hit to Lisa and Driftwood to the heavy groove of the BBS Allstars at the Lucky Dog, check out the latest edition of Moon Boot Lover, and celebrate your roots with Worcester Country Traditions at Cool Beans. On heavy metal Wednesday, it's Disarray, Candy Striper Death Orgy, and Stock 7 at the Lucky Dog.

-- Brian Goslow

BOSTON/PROVIDENCE

Educated rappers have been skulking around hip-hop since, well, UTFO's Educated Rapper struck out with Roxanne. But the Brown-educated, white, Jewish Prince Paul protégé Paul Barman has become a poster boy for the MC as a wiseass cum laude-mouth -- and his association with the Matador label is more proof that indie hip-hop occupies the same psychic space as indie rock did a dozen years ago. Barman's on a tour with another Matador hip-hop act, Dälek, which brings both to the Met Café, (401) 861-2142, in Providence this Thursday, February 15; to Pearl Street, (413) 584-0610, in Northampton -- with illbient techno egghead DJ Spooky -- on Friday; to the Oxfam Café at Tufts University, (617) 628-5000, on Saturday; and to Toad's Place, (203) 624-8623, in New Haven, Connecticut, on Sunday.

In metal: on Friday, Hydrahead avant-doom lords Isis join Easthampton's Flywheel Arts Collective, (413) 527-9800, with Delvic, Harmatia, Thirteenmiledrive, and Erebus -- a contingent of troops from some strange Western Mass parallel universe where speed metal tag-teams with emo. You can also catch Isis on Sunday with As the Sun Sets, Backstabbers Inc., and August Prophecy at the Living Room (401) 521-5200, in Providence. You could give props to Downset for having kept rap-metal on life-support during the lean years between Judgment Night and Limp Bizkit, but then you'd be obscuring one painful fact: Downset really weren't very good. Perhaps they've gotten better, or maybe expectations have simply decreased, because they're still alive and gigging at the Palladium (508) 797-9696, in Worcester on Saturday and at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel, (401) 272-5876, on Sunday, both nights with Factory 81 and Relative Ash.

Alt-country alkies Drunk Stuntmen are at Northampton's Bay State Hotel on Friday, with Spouse. Honky-tonk showman Deke Dickerson, in town to join his protégés the Raging Teens for their record-release party extravaganza at the Middle East, (617) 864-3278, on Saturday, stops by the Green Room, (401) 351-7665, in Providence on Sunday. The Detroit punk-blues duo White Stripes join the junked-up Lower East Side no-wave/country-punk supergroup Knoxville Girls for gigs at the Met Café on Wednesday and at the Middle East next Thursday, February 22. From north of the border: the quiet and shadowy Canadian instrumental group White Star Line -- more Black Heart Procession than Godspeed You Black Emperor -- are at Flywheel with Tiger Saw and 27 on February 18 and at the Fishtown Artspace, (978) 283-1381, in Gloucester with Tiger Saw, Brian King, and Buxton on February 19.

-- Carly Carioli