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Tommy Stinson tours, Tanya Donnelly and Kristen Hersh meet again in VT, plus more
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The replacement Tommy Stinson has led a career that has seemed charmed at times, damned at others. He was the founding bass player for punk-pop legends the Replacements, a band whose infamous alcoholic excess may well have been at least partly responsible for the death of his brother Bob. Tommy subsequently led a couple of his own bands — most memorably Bash & Pop, who signed to Warner Bros. in the early ’90s — and survived long enough to accrue the patina of legend: over the past few years, he’s become semi-famous as the trivia-question missing link between Puff Daddy, who tapped him for the rock remix of "It’s All About the Benjamins," and Axl Rose, who hired him to play in the scab version of Guns N’ Roses. As a result of this last gig, he’s had an awful lot of time on his hands, and he’s put it to good use by recording a solo disc that’s being shopped to labels. In yet another indication that GNR’s Chinese Democracy is not in any danger of imminent release, Stinson has embarked on a tour on which he’ll play both solo-acoustic and backed by Boston/New York power-pop vets the Figgs, who’ve served a similar function for Graham Parker in the past. It finishes up at the Middle East, 480 Massachusetts Avenue in Central Square, on September 13; call (617) 864-EAST. Of girls and garages Warped Tour co-founder Kevin Lyman didn’t ask us for our two cents when he put together the inaugural Girlz Garage Tour, which debuts at Axis on October 20. If he had, the Donnas, Sahara Hotnights, and Le Tigre would’ve been en route. Instead, the Girlz in question are a curious mélange of pop and pretense. Headliners Lillix, a cute and sassy Canadian guitar-band quartet with songs by Avril Lavigne masterminds the Matrix, are MTV’s babes of the week. The Peak Show are an obscure female-fronted funk-metal outfit, and Brassy and Northern State have more to do with basement beats than garage-rock windmills. The former are Jon Spencer’s little sister’s band; the latter are a Long Island all-girl hip-hop trio who sound like what might have happened had the Beastie Boys traded their License To Ill for a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies. Exhaust fumes sold separately. Axis is at 13 Lansdowne Street; call (617) 423-NEXT. Rocking at the Rockingham Lots of folks scratched their heads when the esteemed band-management firm Fort Apache relocated to the wilds of Vermont: they don’t make rock and roll up there, do they? To which the answer is: they do now. Half-sisters and Fort clients Tanya Donelly and Kristin Hersh — founding members of seminal alterna-rockers Throwing Muses — reunite for a quirky three days of pop, sisterly love, and train rides in the Fort’s new home of Bellows Falls. A new-faces night kicks off the mini-fest on August 15 with acts including former Squirrel Nut Zippers violinist Andrew Bird and folk-rockers the So and Sos. Then on August 16, Donelly and Hersh headline an outdoor all-day fest — they’ll play alone and together — with additional sets from Juliana Hatfield, Josh Ritter, the Stone Coyotes, and Blake Hazard. And on August 17, the sisters host a scenic tour aboard the Green Mountain Flyer from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. that’ll be followed by an intimate gig from the two at 2:30 p.m. at the historic Rockingham Meeting House — if it doesn’t qualify as "unplugged," that’s only because there’s no place in the building to plug in. Tickets are $12 for the Friday gig; $40 for the Saturday festival; $15 for the train ride; and $30 for the Rockingham show. Or you can get a two-day pass for $66. Call (800) 586-8686, or visit www.fortapache.net. What’s so funny ’boutpeace, love, and understanding? So an Arab character actor and a part-time rabbi walk into a synagogue . . . If it sounds like the beginning of a joke, you’re half-right, but you’ll have to show up to catch the punch lines. As it happens, Providence-based Rabbi Bob Alper had already carved out a small niche for himself as a stand-up comic — on the albums Bob Alper: Rabbi/Stand Up Comic (Really) and Guaranteed Funny: 101 Totally Clean Jokes — before meeting with the Egyptian-born Ahmed Ahmed, whose stand-up had won him roles on Roseanne and In Living Color. Together, the pair have found their calling as a kind of Lewis & Martin for the post–September 11 world. Promising an evening of "non-political laughter" — no such promise, of course, is made about the jokes — the Rabbi and the Ahmed show up at Temple Ohabei Shalom, 1187 Beacon Street in Brookline, on August 13. Tickets are $20, $18 in advance; call (888) 483-3297.
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