Fri. Aug. 6

 On Friday Aug. 6 Bim Skala Bim, ska-punk peers of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones back in the day, peers reunite for a show at the Middle East Downstairs. It was Bosstones bassist Joe Gittleman’s idea to get Bim Skala back together for their Hometown Throwdown of 2009. He rang up guitarist Jim Jones.
     “Everybody rallied around the idea,” says Jones. Bim played a date with the 'tones and then a New Year's Eve gig as headliners at the Middle. We spoke back then about the experience. Jones: “The last couple of weeks have been frantic, relearning all those songs, especially the lyrics. I think we’ve got it down now. We’ve been e-mailing back and forth. We have a 90-minute set with a couple dozen songs.”
     Bim Skala Bim has played over 2000 concerts, Jones estimates. But eventually other matters, such as having families, live on the road and musical differences, entered the picture.
   Jones was the first to leave. He’d been in Boston more than two decades and he and his wife wanted to go move on. (He still plays music out west, but his main job is as a website developer.) Other band members followed. Drummer Jim Arhelger went to Colorado. Trombonist Vinny Nobile moved to New York and later Greenwich, Conn. Singer Dan Vitale ended up in Panama.
    Three members stayed in state. Bassist Mark Ferranti lives in Somerville. Saxophonist/keyboardist John Cameron is in Gloucester and percussionist Rick Barry is in Arlington.

Fri. Aug. 6 & Sat. Aug. 7

     There’s a new kid on the block in North End. A big, balding Irish fellow. A chap you might have seen on a Sunday morning at St. Leonard of Port Maurice’s all-Italian Mass. It’s Ronan Tynan, the 50-year-old singer who came to fame both as a solo performer and with Irish Tenors.

Fri. Aug. 6

 Well, this is an obvious - and very sharp - booking from our pal Shred. On Aug. 14, you've got Aerosmith and the J.Geils Band at Fenway Park for the Boston blowout of the summer, if you like your rock and roll in ballparks at least, with most of you watching the action on the huge video screens. Across the street, the week before, on Friday Aug. 6  at Oliver's you've got Aerochix - an all-girl Aerosmith tribute band - and Blow Your Face Out, a Geils tribute band fronted by ex-Tree and still Superpower singer/gutiarist Dave Tree.
There's alwasy a little bit of a kick when gals do the tribute thing to a certifiably male act - remember Lez Zeppelin? - and we expect Aerosmith to walk the Aero walk in a sexy, fun manner. Aerochix was born in April of 2009 when longtime friends and musical collaborators drummer Joni Scimone and guitarist Lisa Addario decided they wanted to do something more than just play cover gigs. Being from Boston, musicians, and longtime fans of the band, it seemed a natural choice to set forth and form a kick ass all-female tribute to Aerosmith. After coming up with the concept, they began the search for the additional members that would put forth the effort to capture this iconic bands sound. Joni and Lisa invited well-known bassist, Justine Klein and soon after, vocalist Rachel Clayton took on the part of Tyler. Since then, things have come together quite nicely. The final addition of guitarist Sara Leketa came in May of 2010, and together they are performing at special appearances everywhere, and surprising audiences with their authentic sound. You can check em out www.myspace.com/aerochixrocks#ixzz0uozn5h9N.

Blow Your Face Out is not a full-time gig for Tree

ongoing – Mon. Sept. 6

 Seventeen years ago, Ed Hardy gave Dr. Lakra three tattoos – Jesus Christ, a pirate gal and a prawn. Ten years ago, Dr. Lakra – no more a Dr. than Dre or Demento, but a well-respected Mexican tattoo artist - reciprocated by inking an image on Hardy of a demon pissing on Christ. (More piss Christ art! Remember Andres Serrano?)
      The 38-year-old Mexican tattoo artist’s real name is Jeronimo cqLopez Ramirez. He said it translates to Dr. Scumbag. (Our interview was done via e-mail and translated from Spanish; this is an expanded version of a Q/A that ran in the Boston Phoenix, www.thephoenix.com.– check it out). The name “Dr, Lakra” was bestowed upon him. It started because bag he used to carry his tattoo gear looked like a doctor’s travel bag. So Lakra inks on skin and many other inanimate surfaces. His first US solo exhibition – 60-plus pieces, mostly from American collectors - is up at the Institute of Contemporary Art and runs through Sept. 6.  Lakra, who started tattoing in the early ‘90s,  acknowledges how in this culture, tattoos have become prevalent and, certainly, less of an “outlaw” badge. In America, 36% of the people 18-35 have them. Once it was verboten, forbidden. There was a day when tattoos seemed to be primarily inked on sailors from the World War II era, bikers,gang-bangers and convicts. Things started to change with the punk rock movement of the mid-1970s and has only grown since. Here in Massachusetts it was illegal until 10 years ago. 
    Tattoos, he said, have less infiltrated the mainstream thatn the mainstream has absorbed it. “In a way,” he added, “it’s all about money.”
    His inspiration was the punk-skate-metal culture in Mexico City. That and reading Hardy’s “Tattootime.”  The questions and answers below are out-takes from the Phoenix interview.
What tattoos do you sport? Did you do them yourself?
When I started tattooing, I practiced a little on my legs to try out needles or different dyes. And I made a couple of tattoos on my left arm but I haven’t tattooed myself in a while. I have figurative tattoos.

 Fri. Aug. 6

My former colleague at the Globe, Geoff Edgers, embarked upon a most unusual journey, a mission to reunite the Kinks. It's a movie called "Do It Again," the title taken from a Kinks song. Edgers wrote the film and was the correspondent/instigator - hooking up with various musicians/Kinks fans, often playing Kinks songs with them, and trying to locate Kinks producers, confederates, ex-bandmates etc., all in the hope of getting the battling Davies brothers Ray (in photo) and Dave back to the point where they'd put the band together again. Hey, singer-songwriter Ray is 65, Dave is 61 and coming off a stroke. Edgers' film is will be shown  Monday July 26 at the Mass. College of Art at 9, part of the Roxbury International Film Festival and Friday Aug. 6 at 9, part of the Woods Hole Film Festival.  It's at the Woods Hole Oceaninc Institute.

Some thoughts I have about the Kinks and an e-chat with Edgers follows:

When I was a college radio music director, University of Maine, WMEB, 1976-1978, I used to send out playlists to record companies and promotion people and signed every one with  “God Save the Kinks.” Hell, they were on a comeback roll of sorts, but there always was that fragility, that it might fall apart at any time because of Ray and Dave’s volatile relationship. And, of course, “God Save the Kinks” was the rallying cry John Mendelsson shouted on his 1972 “Kinks Kronikles” liner notes.