The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 186

i t. "i 1 MigMia Rentals' current weirdness is by design By Faith Quintavell act, New York City hardcore Indicates assistive listening devices. Concert Halls GRAND OPERA HOUSE 818 Market St, Wilmington: 302-652-5577 or 800-374-726375 The Memphis Sound Featuring Sleepy LaBeet, Fontana, Sonny Burgess, others. $10420. 8 tonight.

Carlos Nakai William Eaton 8 p.m. Sat. KESWICK THEATRE Easton Rd Keswick Ave. Glenside; 215-572-7650. b.

The Lettermen Christmas Show $23.50. 8 p.m. Sat. Memories ot Ireland Christmas Show $10; $5 ages 15 and under. 2 p.m.

Sun. TROCADERO 10th Arch Sts; 215-923-7625. The Rentals With Tracy Bonham. $5 advance (before 3 p.m. today).

8 tonight. Delaware Valley Music Poll Performances by Strapping Fieldhands, June Rich, Caulfields, Stinking Lizaveta, Black Beans. $5. 8 p.m. Tue.

Wanda Jackson With Rosie Flores, the Friggs, 200 Lbs of Swingin' Hound. $12; $10 advance (21 over only). 8 p.m. Wed. VALLEY FORGE MUSIC FAIR off Rte 202, Devon; 610-644-5000.

Barbara Mandrell With Jack Swersie. $30. 8 tonight. Kenny Rogers Christmas Show $34.50. 8 p.m.

Mon-Thu. Mary Cleere Haran AMTF Cabaret at Hotel Atop the Bellevue, Barrymore Room, Broad Walnut Sts; 215-893-1 145. 6. plus $6 fooddrink minimum. 7:30 10 p.m.

Fris; 10 p.m. Sats; 8 p.m. Thus; (added show 8 p.m. (Dinner show 7:30 p.m. Sats).

Through 1216. Carlos Nakai William Eaton Stockton Performing Arts Center, Jim Leeds Rd, Pomona; 609-652-9000. 8 tonight. 000053 Bruce Springsteen Solo acoustic concert. Tower Theater, 69th Ludlow Sts, Upper Darby; 610-352-0313.

b. Sold out. 8 tonight-Sat. til if Associated Press MIKE DERER It'll be a quieter Bruce Springsteen at the Tower, as his latest, the acoustic "The Ghost of Tom Joad, sets the tone. turned-heavy metal quartet Into Another.

Sara Sherr. White Zombie, with the Ramones and Into Another, at the Philadelphia Civic Center, 34th Street and Civic Center Boulevard, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets: $19.50. 6.

Mercury Rev Mercury Rev proves that the term progressive-rock is not an oxymoron. Its third album, See You on the Other Side (Colum bia), is a paradoxical blend of sweet harmonies and flighty dis sonance that lures you in and spreads you out. The quartet draws from a wide base of avant- garde, pop, rock, techno and soul influences, with Jonathan Dona hue's vocal style pleasantly remi niscent of vocalist-musician Rob ert Wyatt. The band's early roots in making movie soundtracks is reflected in its music ability to create strong visual textures that dance in the air. M.H.

Mercury Rev, with Handsome, at Upstairs at Nick's, 16 S. Second at 10 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets: $6. Phone: 215-928-0665.

And there's A lot of music squeezed into two nights: Good-natured garage-band vets the Fleshtones are at Silk City tonight Seven Mary Three, touted as the "blue-collar R.E.M.," rolls into Dobbs tonight Portland, soulful country blues-man Kelly Joe Phelps does his thing at the Temperance House in Newtown, also tonight Feelies offshoots Wild Carnation and Speed the Plough play the Khyber on Saturday, along with The Joey Sweeney and the New York quartet Lotion, whose coming Nobody's Cool will feature liner notes by Thomas Pynchon. The Delaware Valley Music Poll awards will be given out Tuesday at the Troc, with performances by The Strapping Fieldhands, June Rich, the Caulfields, Stinking Lizaveta and Black Beans. Cajun accordion-squeezer Steve Riley fills the dance floor at the North Star on Wednesday. Rockabilly fillies Rosie Flores and Wanda Jackson cut loose at the Troc on Wednesday. Reggae stalwart Steel Pulse plays the Electric Factory on Wednesday, with the Brooklyn Funk Essentials and Ruder Than You.

New York jazzy-folk duo Once Blue, out with an eponymous debut on EMI, does its Rickie Lee Jones schtick at the Tin Angel on Wednesday as well. D.D. For details, see the listings. FOR THE INQUIRER att Sharp, bassist for i i 1 1 llllfl I JORey PP uanu II 1 1 Weezer, wasn't look- II 1 1 1 ing for a hit. "This If band started not from the desire to have a band, but just to record some songs and see how they would sound," Sharp says of the Billboard-charting Rentals, the new-wave-style combo he formed with Weezer drummer Pat Wilson and violinist Petra Haden of That Dog.

(And no, Weezer isn't breaking up.) Despite such humble beginnings and the fact that Return of the Rentals (Maverick) was recorded by Sharp out-of-pocket on a shoestring budget the album has caught slicker hitmakers off guard. Its sanguine sound marries low-tech oscillators and Moog synthesizers to coagulated bass and distorto guitar reminiscent of, um, Weezer. "When you compare this record to an early Devo or early Gary Numan record," says Sharp, "the similarity is more that it just sounds really weird compared to what is out. When those records came out, those records didn't sound like anything that was going on the radio. It seems to me that's what's happening to us." The weirdness is by design.

Sharp originally had written guitar-based power-pop songs and added synthesized sounds as an afterthought as he mulled it over with Tom Grimley, engineer for Beck and That Dog. But he didn't intend to jump on the new-wave bandwagon currently occupied by Elastica, Supergrass and Echo-belly. "We were mixing this record when I would, hear some of those Elastica songs on the radio and I would go, 'Wow, maybe somebody will play this on the The Elastica record gave us hope." The Rentals, with Tracy Bonham, at the Trocadero, 10th and Arch Streets, at 8 tonight. Tickets: $7 at the door. Phone: 215-923-7625.

Bruce Springsteen This ain't no party. Bruce enough to be holding tickets to the sold-out shows tonight and Saturday at the Tower, be forewarned: The Boss' current tour for his new, muted, desolate The Ghost of Tom Joad (Columbia), bears little resemblance to the sweaty, cathartic, three-hour marathons he has been putting on in arenas for years. At the Count Ba-sie Theater in Red Bank, N.J., last month, the second of two shows to benefit local New Jersey food banks was a spare, severe two-hour evening. Springsteen played only acoustic guitar and harmonica, and though he did reach into his catalog for "Darkness on the Edge of Town," "Point Blank," a reworked "Born in the U.S.A." he only pulled out songs that me: 3d with the down-and-out immigrant and outlaw narratives that make Tom Joad such a rich but slow-moving listen. Dan DeLuca Bruce Springsteen at the Tower Theater, 69th and Ludlow Streets, Upper Darby, at 8 tonight and Saturday.

Sold out. Phone: 215-352-0313. A. Cubanate Ultraviolence Saturday night's show at Asylum is going to emanate enough beats per minute to send the crowd into tachvcardia. On its CD, Cyberia (Dymanica), UK's Cubanate asks and answers the question, "Can you hear the human drum beating?" The group constructs an aggressive, pulsing in-dustrial-techno sound from multiple layers of heavy; percussive computer rhythms, spiked with jagglb guitarwork.

Each song presents a variety of highly dance-able directions with Marc Heal's coarse vocals putting meat behind the band's grinding sound. Also from the UK is Ultraviolence, the ambitious brainchild of Johnny Violent. His new CD, Psycho Drama (Earache), is the first techno-opera. Using six singers and three actors, Violent meshes diverse techno tools with rapping, choral arrangements and vocal interplay to deliver an exhilarating and challenging work. Michael Hopkins Cubanate, with Ultraviolence and Load, at Asylum, North Delaware Avenue at Berks Street, at 7 p.m.

Saturday. Tickets: $10 advance, $12 at the door. Phone: 215-427-1087. White Zombie Ramones When the Ramones released their latest album, Adios Amigosl (Radioactive), the punk vets hinted at the end of their two-decade blitzkrieg bop. Six months later, thpv'rp flTnpnrirxr on tho Qniitrdnw A Morning cartoon-tribute album doing the Spiderman theme and touring with their headliner, Bea-vis and Butt-Head's industrial-strength metal favorites White Zombie which is known for very long album titles, such as this one: Astro-Creep 2000, Songs of Love, Destruction and Other Synthetic Defusions of the Electric Head (Geffen).

If this tour is the Ramones' good-bye, it's rather memorable or just like the title of the Tom Waits cover that opens Adios sys, "I Don't Want to Grow Up." Meanwhile, Zombie fans are more likely to prefer the opening ludy Collins University of Delaware, Bob Carpenter Center, Rte 896, Newark; 302-831-4367. 6. $15 seniors. 8 tonight. Oscar Brown, Jr Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts, 736-38 Broad St (at Fitzwaler St); 215-893-1 145.

$20. 8 a. lutonigm-bat. Pat Martino Quartet With Jim Ridl, Steve Beskrone and Scott Robinson. Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St; 215-925- 9914.

6- $18. 8 10 p.m. Sat. Peggy Seeger Philadelphia Folksong Society concert; includes holiday crafts fair. Germantown Academy Arts Center, Morris Rd Bethlehem Pike, Ft Washington; 215-247-1300.

$10; free for ages 1 1 under. Crafts fair, 6:30 p.m., concert 7:30 p.m. Sun. John McCutcheon With Kolleen Bowers. Cherry Tree Music Co-Op, St Mary's Church parish hall, 3916 Locust Walk; 215-386-1640.

$12 advance; $14 door. 7:30 p.m. Sun. White Zombie With the Ramones and Into Another. Philadelphia Civic Center, 34th St Civic Center Blvd: 2 15-336- 2000 $19 50 7-30 Worl Steel Pulse With the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, Ruder Than You.

Electric Factory, 421 Seventh St (between Callowhill Spring Garden Sts); 215-627-1332. b- $16.50. 8 p.m. Wed. Clubs Philadelphia Asylum 1517 Delaware Ave; 215-427-1087.

Gothic industrial. Tonight, Genitorturers, Drill, Liers in Wait. Sat, Ultraviolence, Cubanate, Load. The Barbary Delaware Frankford Aves; 215-552-8971. Variety.

Tonight, Band De Soleil, David Poe, Doria Roberts. Sat, Sleestak, Bugman, Drop Zero, Black Harvest, Mother's Day. See NIGHTLIFE on Page 18 THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER 13 Friday, December 8, 1995.