San Jose street punks the Forgotten remember the English class of late-’70s troublemakers as well as anyone. Their last album, Keep the Corpses Quiet (TKO Records), came straight from the same gutter that spawned Rancid’s Let’s Go — snotty, class-conflict punk as practiced by Sham 69 and the Exploited. (As it happens, guitarist Craig moonlights with Lars Frederiksen’s Bastards.) In advance of a new album, Control Me, that’s due this summer on Youth Brigade’s BYO Records, the Forgotten are at the Century Lounge (401-751-2255) in Providence on Saturday with the Ducky Boys and the Midnight Creeps. On Sunday, they’re at the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge with Crash and Burn, the Losing Kind, and the painfully mismatched Okkervil River, a group of native New Englanders now living in Texas who have to their credit a couple albums’ worth of shambolic but precious singer-songwriterly roots pop. You can also catch Okkervil River on Friday at AS220 (401-831-9327) in Providence and on Saturday at the Free Street Taverna (207-775-3380) in Portland.

Just when you thought emo’s pop jones had permanently replaced the lexicon of deconstructivist post-hardcore that seemed so promising back in the mid ’90s, along comes a wave of bands who forgot to remember to forget Fugazi. From Chicago, Haymarket Riot make grown-up, melodic indie punk you won’t feel stupid shouting along to; from Washington, DC, scurrilous agit-punks Black Eyes (featuring members of the Rapture, with a new single produced by Ian MacKaye) and Early Humans make short, dynamic bursts of rhythmic noise you can study to. The paths of these three groups cross this weekend. Haymarket Riot play Charlie’s Kitchen (617-492-9646) in Cambridge on Monday; on Tuesday they join Black Eyes and Early Humans for a gig at Flywheel (413-527-9800) in Easthampton. On Wednesday, Black Eyes and Early Humans play the Middle East.

Elliott are natives of Louisville, and a bit of that town’s studious post-hardcore lineage (Slint, Rodan) has rubbed off on them. But at heart they’ve always been guileless sentimentalists, and so their albums come off as the missing link between the old emo (Braid, Jawbox) and the new (Saves the Day, New Found Glory). On Sunday they’re at the El-N-Gee (860-437-3800) in New London; on Monday they’re at the Middle East. Both shows include fellow Louisville natives Christiansen, whose new Revelation EP Forensics Brothers and Sisters is a promising update of the quaking progressive hardcore practiced by Quicksand, Jawbox, and Shudder To Think.

Come Memorial Day weekend, the Wellfleet Beachcomber (508-349-6055), the Cape’s unofficial summer home of Boston rock and roll, opens for the season. And in lieu of Helios comes ageless surf deity Dick Dale, a weariless sun god bearing good tides and timeless tunes. The author of " Miserlou " hits the Middle East on Saturday and the Higher Ground (802-654-8888) in Winooski, Vermont, on Sunday before arriving at the Beachcomber on Monday.

Issue Date: May 23 - 30, 2002
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