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Music for sleepy or crazy days of summer
BY MIKE MILIARD
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It’s that time of the summer when the days are hazy and lazy and humidly soporific and even at two in the afternoon you feel like a lotus eater ready to drift away to dreamland without a second thought. New York City’s Hem make music for days like these. Their sole record so far, Rabbit Songs (2001), is a gossamer waft of august Americana that gently evokes the transcendent peace that comes with slumber’s descent. They’ve just been scooped up by DreamWorks (who reissued Rabbit Songs last month), and they’ll be at the Iron Horse (413-586-8686 ) in Northampton on Sunday and the House of Blues (617-931-2000) in Cambridge on Monday. Ryan Adams inamorata and one-time Diana Ross stepdaughter Leona Naess, who mines a similar vein of delicate, wistful introspection, opens both shows. Mining an opposite vein of bombastic, euphoric extroversion is ageless atomic dawg George Clinton, who drags his motley Parliament Funkadelic conglomerate to Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence on Friday. Less funky but sometimes just as bombastic, Crosby, Stills & Nash have teamed up for another of their sporadic summer jaunts. And while their hoary sometimes fourth, Neil Young, is perplexing audiences with the homespun moralizing and homemade stage props of his Greendale song cycle, these three, we’re guessing, will be more than willing to offer up all their old chestnuts when they swing by the Meadowbrook Farm Musical Arts Center (603-293-4700) in Gilford, New Hampshire, on Friday and FleetBoston Pavilion (617-931-2000) on Saturday. Also on Saturday, back at Meadowbrook Farm, Meat Loaf — who these days is skinnier than two out of CSN’s three — will get bombastic in the extreme as he waxes operatic about what he will and will not do for love. Ace Fu recording artists An Albatross have a new album out called We Are the Lazer Viking, a strident, spastic blast of deep-space synths and screaming snits. They’ll do it live at the Dedham Unitarian Church (680 High Street in Dedham; 781-326-7463) this Thursday (the 21st) and at a new DIY space referred to alternately as the "The Soul Cellar" and "The Awesomedome" at 1399 Bridgton Avenue in Westbrook, Maine, on Friday. (There’s no phone number for "The Awesomedome," but you can reach Ace Fu at 212-352-8052.) Closer to home: An Albatross label mates Officer May promise to career around the stage and implode in a most excellent fashion Saturday night upstairs at the Middle East (617-931-2000) in Cambridge. Finally, we’re reminded of the season’s sad waning as Three Landmarks Sopranos (that’s sopranos Leah Hunt, Jonita Lattimore and mezzo-soprano Deborah Fields) round out their season of free summer concerts this weekend. They’ll be at Mechanics Hall in Worcester this Thursday (the 21st), the Tabernacle on Martha’s Vineyard on Friday, and Piers Park in East Boston on Saturday. Call (617) 520-2200 for more information about all three.
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