Also this issue:

Fairies Wear Boots
Who will fight Philly’s most huggable band?
-Patrick Rapa

A Mighty Wind
Le Vent du Nord explores the regional color of the Great White North.
-Mary Armstrong

Joey Sweeney
of The Trouble With Sweeney
-Interview by Patrick Rapa

Calla
-Andrew Parks

Roy Hargrove's RH Factor
-Kyle Parker

Josh Wink
-Sean O’Neal

Gillian Welch
-Sam Adams

Drive-By Truckers
-Sam Adams

June 19-25, 2003

musicpicks

Karl Hendricks Trio

In the alt-rock boom of the early '90s, Sebadoh and Superchunk got the lion's share of notice for writing emotionally driven pop nuggets, but the Karl Hendricks Trio is nobody's second fiddle. For more than a decade Hendricks has occupied the poet laureate's chair for the heart-on-sleeve crowd -- a post previously held by Jonathan Richman circa The Modern Lovers, and Paul Weller during his time with The Jam. Early releases like Buick Elektra and Declare Your Weapons mixed tales of girls, insecurity and the general malaise of being young with all the emotional rush of a first kiss. In recent years, the Trio's been MIA. The absence could be chalked up to the an open-door policy with the band's rhythm section or Hendricks' grad work at UPitt. or whatever, but fear not. The Trio isn't coming to town just to play at ear-bleeding volume for kicks. The Jerks Win Again, the group's first album in five years, will be released in August on Merge and the band will surely be testing out a few.

Fri., June 20, 9:30 p.m., $7, with The Red and the Black and This Radiant Boy, Doc Watson’s, 216 S. 11th St., 215-922-3247.

—Paul Burress