September 11-17, 2003

musicpicks

Erase Errata

Rock/pop

Since it's possible my friend Andy was the only Grateful Dead fan at the last Erase Errata show, here's a revelation for everyone else: That weird-sounding thing they played was a cover of the Dead's "Alligator," not exactly a cornerstone of the kiddie-punk canon. But then, for all their kinship with their Leeds-loving contemporaries The Rapture and !!! (to name only the good ones), there's a sense in which Erase Errata's music is as much for the lips as the hips, as much to be savored and lingered over as jumped around to. What might (and at first, probably does) sound like a scraggly, vaguely incompetent attempt at strung-out, Wire-taut post-funk emerges as something more unsettling and unresolved; the sound of the world falling apart, revealing an even better one underneath. Check out the artwork, or even just the title, of their new At Crystal Palace (Troubleman); underneath the post-punk exterior, they're a bunch of goddam hippies.

Sun., Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m., $10, with the Ex and Numbers, First Unitarian Church, 22nd and Chestnut sts., 800-594-TIXX.

—Sam Adams

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