GARAGE: Our beloved Mr. Airplane Man have been away from home touring the superhighways and dusty back roads of America for some weeks now. And they won’t be to back to play for us for some time more. But that’s a good thing, miss them though we may. Margaret and Tara are out seeing the world and making friends — both of which are important. And sooner or later they will come back, bringing with them the keening howls and slide-guitar squeals and combustible stomp we love so well. We hear they’ll also have some pals in tow: fellow Sympathy for the Record Industry recording artists the Detroit Cobras. Their first post-tour gig has been officially announced, so what say we welcome ’em home with a party? Maybe with some beer? Hey, Downbeat 5! Hey, Coffin Lids! You play too. Let’s do it at T.T. the Bear’s Place — his parents are never home. Say, December 5 around 9 p.m.-ish? Call (617) 492-BEAR if you’re down.
DANCE: Halloween’s barely over, but those Time-Life Treasury of Christmas ads are already flooding the airwaves, and those creepy little animatronic Santas ho-ho-ho robotically as you skulk past store windows. You might as well give yourself over to the season before it deluges you regardless. So before you pick out that Turkey Day Butterball, buy tickets to Boston Ballet’s hallowed Nutcracker, that dreamy tableau of fleet-footed girls in nightgowns and big-mouthed wooden princelings, of prancing mice and dancing snowflakes and a nocturnal balloon trip to a never-never land. (Artistic director Mikko Nissinen says he’s rechoreographed act two’s Arabian Dance; we trust that has nothing to do with current world events.) The 39th annual production runs from November 29 through December 30 at the Wang Theatre, 270 Tremont Street. Tickets are $15 to $70; call (800) 447-7400.
BOOKS: "American Ground," the three-part serial William Langeweische wrote for the Atlantic Monthly about the dismantling of the World Trade Center disaster site, was the longest piece of reporting the magazine has ever published. Langeweische, the only reporter to be granted unfettered access to Ground Zero, employs workmanlike prose to evoke a self-contained microcosm where outer-borough tough guys rent thousands of tons of massive steel and solemnly, gingerly sifted for human remains, where turf wars erupted and internecine squabbles simmered. It was an elegiac story, but also one affirming pride. Now, his exhaustively reported saga of the whole eight-month operation, from the first groans of collapse to the final sweeping-up, has been fashioned into a book, American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center (Farrar Straus Giroux). And on Thursday November 21 Langeweische will be at WordsWorth Books, 30 Brattle Street in Harvard Square; call (617) 354-5201.
POP: A few months back, hopeless romantic Stephin Merritt’s heartsick side project Future Bible Heroes, a collaboration with fellow Magnetic Fielder Claudia Gonson and Bostonian Chris Ewen (who moonlights as a DJ at Man Ray), released their first full-length album in five years. And on it FBH sound less ancillary to Merritt’s "proper" work than ever. Eternal Youth boasts Gonson’s beautifully breathy coo giving voice to Merritt’s curmudgeonly clever apothegms while Ewen creates otherworldly mood music with his inventive, multi-leveled synthesized melodies. On December 8, FBH will be at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street in Brookline. Tickets are $15 then, $13 now — and they will go fast. Call (617) 931-2000.
Next Weekend
Music for pre-teen hipsters
Dan Zanes & Friends come to the Somerville Theatre
Go ahead, admit it: when you heard that former Del Fuegos leader Dan Zanes was getting into children’s music, you thought he was nuts. This, after all, is the same guy who won a drinking contest with the Real Kids during one of those blurry, mid-’80s nights at legendary Financial District watering hole Cantone’s. Having been into clean living for a long while, Zanes has lately established himself as the troubadour of choice for pre-teens too hip for Raffi. His four kids’ albums include guest shots from the likes of Sheryl Crow, Aimee Mann and, gasp, Lou Reed. And let’s face it — those pre-teens are closer to the median age of an early Del Fuegos audience than their old fans are now.
"It took a while, but I think I’ve found my calling," Zanes — who’ll be at the Somerville Theatre next Sunday — explains over the phone from the studio he runs in Brooklyn. "The old Del Fuegos fans were the people who helped me get this going — that was my goal in the beginning, to seek them out wherever they were. Everybody has another life now, and that feels great."
Although the lyrics are decidedly more wholesome, Zanes’s music isn’t all that different from the Fuegos’ brand of roots rock: his obvious role models are Pete Seeger and Jonathan Richman, who both did plenty of children’s songs for grown-ups and vice versa. After starting out with standards like "Erie Canal" and "Polly Wolly Doodle," Zanes has begun to throw more originals into the mix. "I just think of it as my version of handmade folk music. I was stuck in a songwriting rut at the end of the Del Fuegos, so this has opened it back up for me. You can’t do themes of romantic love or anything sexual; that wouldn’t mean anything to a three-year-old. But that leaves you with a lot of mysteries of life that you can write about."
His Somerville show will feature a full band, including drummer David Hilliard (also of David Byrne’s band), former Boston singer-songwriter Barbara Brousal, and Jamaican toaster Ranking Don (whose Rastafarian "Father Goose" character has been a recurring feature on Zanes’s albums). On the just-released Night Time (Festival Five), he gets Lou Reed to sing Louis Armstrong’s "What a Wonderful World"; that makes Lou the second punk icon (after Joey Ramone) to release the song this year. "My booking agent also books Laurie Anderson, so I met him through her. Sometimes my ideas are just weird enough that someone would be willing to do it — that’s another reason I love what I’m doing. Doing something with John Doe felt like coming full circle after opening for X with the Del Fuegos."
Doesn’t he ever feel the urge to say a cuss word or do something similarly incorrect on stage? "Nah, that’s not really a part of my world. When I need to get it vicariously, I’ll listen to some comedy; there’s plenty of cussing there. But really, there isn’t much about the old days that I miss. With the Del Fuegos, we always used to talk about doing all-ages shows — so here I am, finally getting to do them."
Dan Zanes and Friends play the Somerville Theatre next Sunday, November 17, at 4 p.m. Tickets are $15, $10 for kids under 10. Call (617) 876-4275.
BY BRETT MILANO
