NEW YORK -- Sometimes the line between New York and Boston can get pretty blurry. Consider this setting: we're hanging out in a two-story rock club in a neighborhood filled with students, bohos, and winos. There are Boston acoustic acts (Melissa Ferrick, Jennifer Jackson) playing upstairs, and Q Division-associated bands (Expanding Man, Talking to Animals) downstairs. Booking agent Dana McDonald, late of T.T. the Bear's Place, is running around looking happily stressed as usual. But the local heroes who frequent this club aren't Peter Wolf or Mark Sandman; they're Joey Ramone and the guys in D Generation. And we're not in Central Square; we're in the St. Mark's Place hotspot Coney Island High.

Visiting this club was the highlight of a New York visit last week to participate in Gig '96, a Macintosh mishmosh of an event. Despite the computer sponsorship and the event's name (it stands for Global Internet Gathering), the week-long shebang amounts to a much scaled-down version of the now-shamed (and deceased) New Music Seminar -- without the endless stream of self-serving panel discussions, and without a lot of big-name acts in the club showcases (Henry Rollins, who does a spoken-word show, is as big as it gets). Instead the shows are divided between regional-level indie bands and as yet unestablished major-label acts. This makes for a fairly large Boston presence; about two dozen local bands are here, including many unsigned ones (Groovasaurus, Shiva Speedway, Sarah Greenwood). But the multimedia content is pretty much a bust, unless your idea of a technological future involves rock clubs setting up terminals outside the bathroom.

Actually, the first Boston-area act I catch in New York is Kristin Hersh, who's part of a Sweet Relief benefit Sunday at the Bottom Line (a mid Village club that looks and feels like the pre-facelift Paradise). The organization, which pays the medical bills of musicians without health care (and has recently thrown some funds to our own Willie Alexander), is about to follow up its 1993 Victoria Williams benefit/tribute with a volume devoted to Vic Chesnutt, the wry and irascible Athens singer/songwriter who's been confined to a wheelchair since a driving mishap several years ago. Both Vics are on stage for most of the night, which includes guest shots by Garbage, Cracker, Sparklehorse frontmen David Lowery and Mark Linkous (singing each other's songs), Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, and a low-key Bob Mould (who plays rhythm guitar with Chesnutt and does some very tentative drumming on the group finale). Hersh and Chesnutt also harmonize on "Cuckoo" while Williams plays harmonica. A charming, informal spirit rules the night -- at least until the Counting Crows' Adam Duritz shows up with his brand of long-suffering over-emoting.

The audience seems at least half-Bostonian the following night, when Come share a Mercury Lounge bill with Steve Wynn, who plays his first gig with his new band including Rich Gilbert on lead guitar (they also play a short set at the Middle East the next night), doing mostly material from his new Melting in the Dark (Zero Hour), which features Come on back-up. If anything, Gilbert's playing is even flashier than it was at the Zulus reunion last month; after the night's first solo Wynn announces, "I'm astounded too, and I've just met the guy." The set closes with Come's Thalia Zedek and Chris Brokaw joining Gilbert on guitars for a proudly excessive version of the old Dream Syndicate number "Days of Wine and Roses," with Wynn delivering this kicker: "Thanks; we're the Outlaws."

Most of the Boston-related action takes place at Coney Island High, which is just a few blocks from Joey Ramone's house and has been the site of a glam/garage/early-punk circuit over the past few years -- all likely to continue now that T.T.'s alumnus Dana McDonald has taken over booking. The club's atmosphere is about right for such a scene. Taking a look at the dim red lights that serve for upstairs atmosphere, acoustic singer Jennifer Jackson (who was a regular at the Middle East bakery before coming to Boston; she's since recorded a demo with noted UK eccentric Wreckless Eric) notes that, "It looks like a regular strip club in here." One night sees a well-attended Orbit/Scarce/Gigolo Aunts showcase sponsored by A&M, which has signed the first two bands on that list and is apparently hoping to snag the third.

Waiting for Talking to Animals to arrive at the club the next afternoon, I spot a familiar face soundchecking upstairs: Reid Paley, who used to front one of Boston's more challenging bands, the Five (best remembered, perhaps, for their stickers that showed a foot being sliced off). After moving to New York and lying low for a few years, Paley has begun to re-emerge, with a recent single on Sub Pop and a few opening dates with Frank Black last spring.

Looking mellower these days, Paley is politely testing the mike, strumming some intro chords with his acoustic guitar; then he opens his mouth and a Beefheart/Tom Waits torrent comes spilling out. A while later I can still hear it halfway across the downstairs street. Later that night I catch him in the audience, where he's nursing a whiskey and playing the town cynic.

"Yes, it's true -- I've become one of those characters I used to write about when I was 19." Where has he been since the late '80s? "I was in a bad mood for a few years. I used to sing shit for my cats, then all my cats died and I had to come out again." Future plans include another Sub Pop single, "and I want to get a CD out before the millennium. With my luck, though, by the time I release a CD everyone will be listening to Billy Corgan's kid. And he'll be doing yet another ripoff of the Pixies."

On the subject of hard-luck stories, perennial upstarts Talking to Animals are dealing with a sudden change of career schedules. Their show this week was meant to support Manhole -- a moody, edgy and fine disc produced by Mike Denneen -- which had an early-August release date and has already been sent on CD to the press. But they're fresh from a label meeting where it's been decided that the album needs time to be set up. The plan is to release an EP first; but Talking to Animals don't have any extra material in the can and don't want to pull songs off the album. And they're a bit dubious about recording new material before the album comes out (if they recorded an EP, it would feature new drummer Mike Levesque, rather than longtime member Jay Bellerose, who plays on the album). The good news is that Columbia seems devoted to the band (singer Juliana Nash says the label envisions a slow, Jeff Buckley-type set-up), but now it's uncertain whether Manhole will come out this year, and whether it will be released in its original form.

Sounds like a case of paying dues, I suggest. "Yeah, but we've got enough dues paid for 14 bands," notes guitarist Thomas Juliano. Because the album shows a moodier side of the band than comes out on stage ("Kind of creepy for really nice people like us," Nash suggests), they're proud of it and want to leave it intact. Still, the advance CDs now circulating may be different from what eventually comes out. "That way they'll really go over big at Nuggets," bassist Greg Porter adds.

Talking to Animals draw a healthy crowd for an energetic set that night. But along with the Philadelphia-based all-teen band Trip 66 -- who sound as if they should have been on a Simple Machines compilation three years ago -- the night's biggest industry buzz goes to Q Division/Columbia signees Expanding Man, who I'll maintain are the most blatant Pearl Jam bandwagon jumpers ever to come out of Boston. Which isn't to say there aren't some nice song hooks and guitar textures going on. If you close your eyes and filter out the singer's angst-ridden blue-jean-model presence, they also sound a little like recent, harmony-enhanced Aerosmith. Then again, the same thing can be said for Pearl Jam.

Better to head upstairs, where Melissa Ferrick is playing a set of mostly new material. Ferrick's material may not be as intensely angry as it once was -- fair enough, since one song per career about your father's alcoholism is plenty -- but the twisted emotions still ring true, and her material's taken on stronger rock leanings (as one wag in the audience notes, "she plays like a female Pete Townshend"). Although label-less at the moment, she'll be back.

I wrap up the following night with a trip back to the Mercury Lounge, where Charlie Chesterman is performing for nine people. It's so quiet that you can hear it when he and the band decide to stop one song and whistle a chorus instead of playing it. Chesterman appears unflapped, however, doing heartfelt country rock for whoever happens to be around to hear it. Just like at home.

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Both the show and the album demonstrate that these fellows are moving along toward their original goal of being a blues outfit that allows for jazz-inspired feel and improvisation. There's more fluidity in their step, more swing in their approach, and more diversity in their material (which now manages to leave Chicago every so often). And Dick's lead vocals, which were the weak link on the band's debut, are now quite passable; as a singer he still relies more on personality than vocal range, but he's come a long way. Of course the band haven't totally shaken their arena-blooze roots, and it would be a mistake if they did. You go partly to hear Geils let rip with superflash guitar solos, and he's more than happy to oblige. As for Magic Dick's harmonica playing, I'll call up the words of the late Rich Cromonic: "For once I mean it as a true compliment when I say that this guy really blows."

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