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They left the Grammys empty-handed, but the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are doing just fine, plus Boyskout at Flywheel and more
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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"It’s okay," the Yeah Yeah Yeahs posted on their Web site recently, "we didn’t think we would win the Grammy anyway." Yes, Best Alternative Album went, as we expected, to the White Stripes, even as Meg’s furious drumming and spaghetti-strap top seemed on the verge of creating another Janet moment. But thanks to the Grammy nod — not to mention a very respectable fifth-place finish in the Village Voice’s annual Pazz & Jop critics’ round-up and Karen O’s brilliant performance in the video for "Maps," the stealth hit on the YYY’s 10-month-old Fever To Tell (Interscope) — the band are hitting the road once more. They’ll kick off a tour Monday at Lupo’s at the Strand (401-331-5876) in Providence. Boyskout, the latest all-girl post-punk band out of San Francisco, have a lacerating debut, School of Etiquette, just out on Alive/Bomp that marries dark synth stabs to razor-wire guitars and a Bauhaus-ish gothic chill — it’s part riot-grrrl vampire flick, part prison-gang jailbreak. We’re hoping they’ll drag out their "Girl on Girl," which includes a brief detour into Peggy Lee’s louche-wastrel classic "Is That All There Is?", when they make a rare East Coast appearance Friday at Flywheel (413-527-9800) in Easthampton. Located somewhere in the shadow of the valley of the unrepentant, the "Ska Is Dead: And You’re Next!" tour brings defiant holdouts Catch 22, Mustard Plug, Big D and the Kids Table, the Planet Smashers, and Stray Bullets to the Palladium (800-477-6849) in Worcester on Friday. And surely that tour’s title is a subject the Skatalites would have something to say about; the legendary Jamaican outfit is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a tour that hits the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge on Wednesday. Hatebreed frontman and Headbangers Ball host Jamey Jasta’s Connecticut hardcore label Stillborn Records hosts a showcase to celebrate the release of With Honor’s new Heart Means Everything at Toad’s Place (203-562-5589) in New Haven on Sunday; 100 Demons open. And major-label metalcore luminaries Poison the Well are at the Webster Theater (860-525-5553) in Hartford on Saturday. Back among the living, Tufts alums Guster are at the Calvin Theater (413-584-1444) in Northampton tonight (February 19) and at Assumption College (888-882-7786) in Worcester on Friday. Multi-platinum popera heartthrob Josh Groban is at the Wang Theatre (800-477-7400) in Boston for a sold-out show on Tuesday and at the Merrill Auditorium (207-842-0800) in Portland on Wednesday. And New Orleans’s Dirty Dozen Brass Band makes its annual Mardi Gras swing through New England with gigs Friday at Higher Ground (802-654-8888) in Winooski, Vermont; Saturday at Harpers Ferry (617-254-9743) in Allston; Wednesday at the Iron Horse (413-584-0610) in Northampton; and next Thursday, February 26, at the Narrows Center for the Arts (508-324-1926) in Fall River.
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