Sat. Dec. 31 

We've known Nat Freedberg, singer-guitarist of the Upper Crust, going back aways to his band the Flies. And then there was the Titanics, the Satanics and various others. But Nat has made his bones, really, as Lord Bendover, the uppity leader of the Upper Crust, the quintet that dresses up like French nobles of the 18th century, talk like British fops and write AC/DC-ish songs for the masses ... often about the hardships of being an upper class twit. It sounds like a one-trick pony, but it isn't. The Upper Crust, nominally a Boston band, has been pulling this off time and again for 15 years. Their latest release, "Revenge For Imagined Slights," - excellent title! - is available only as a digital download through the band's website, iTunes, and other online retailers. It's "Roque and Roll" as only the Upper Crust do - full of tongue-in-cheek stadium anthems and hilariously written songs like "Class Up the Ass" and "(You're So) Rococo." There are also some rare moments of reverb-heavy psychedelia and, of course, a continuous drip of heavy shredding. And they're coming to back to Church for the 5th year in a row for their annual New Year's Eve celebration, Sat. Dec. 31.

 Fri. Dec. 30

 If you’re unsure as to whether the Mighty Mighty Bosstones still exist, don't feel out too of the loop. They do exist. They’re just not that visible, not like they used to be. But they spring back to around Christmas and this year play their 14th Annual Hometown Throwdown at House of Blues. This year's skein is three nights, Wed. Dec. 28 - Fri. Dec. 30.   

  "Christmas really is about people getting together and knowing what you have and, more importantly, who you have in your life," Barrett told me. "For the Bosstones, we’re all there because of the people that supported us, people that said, ‘You guys are good enough.’ That’s the most important thing to us and that’s what brings us together every year. If we don’t do anything else, doing this is extremely important. It’s not a like a show in Flint, Michigan in the middle of the year. This is the Hometown Throwdown. This is Boston."

Thurs. Dec. 29

Singer-guitarist Sean Altman sometimes goes by an alter-ego, Jewmongous, and writes humorous pop songs, most of them based on his experiences as a member of the Tribe - caustic, venomous or nasty things that make some people think, “Oh my gosh, is he kidding?” Yes and no. Altman, who says “at any given moment I have five musical projects going on,” is usually busy in December. Something to do with Chanukah and Christmas. He’s at Club Passim Thursday Dec. 29, playing songs from “Taller Than Jesus,:  songs like “They Tried To Kill Us (We Survived, Let’s Eat),” “Jews for Jesus,” “My Pact With Satan” and “Christian Baby Blood.”

Let’s deal with the album title first. It is obviously a play on John Lennon’s flip comment in 1966 about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus. The Beatles were one of Altman’s favorite groups and he – he’s quite sure – taller than Jesus. The singer-guitarist stands 6’3” and notes that most Jewish men of the time were no taller than 5’6”. Now, the songs … like “Christian Baby Blood.” “It’s meant to dispel the myth of blood libel,” says Altman. “ To some people merely the mention of it, is the equivalent of making a joke and using the word Hitler. But I’d like to think most people think the way that I do  -that these subjects that have been taboo, should be made fun of.” He notes that by calling his act Jewmongous, “No one’s going to show up thinking it’s a reverent Jewish act.”

 Through Jan. 8

We got to know Lorna Bieber, through a good friend, her brother David, who handles special projects for the Phoenix and WFNX and is avid collector of pop culture artifacts. His home doubles as a private museum - comic books, vintage radios, records, consumer products. (Neither Bieber is related to Justin; Bieber actually used to be a fairly obscure name until the kid from Canada.) Lorna collects stuff too, but does things a little more public with them. Back in the '90s, we took a tour of Lorna's home/studio in New York and was very impressed with collages, photos and montages. Now, Bieber has an exhibit, "Narratives," up at the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy in Andover through Jan. 8,

     Composed of mundane even generic imagesm Bieber’s works are both ambitious and transcendent. For the past 30 years, she has used found images and stock photographs as the raw material for her art. In creating large-scale photographs and wall-sized montages, she begins with ordinary pictures and illustrations found in books, newspapers, and magazines. These appropriated images are then re-interpreted through a range of manipulations that includes photocopying, enlarging, reducing, cropping, enhancing, and ultimately re-photographing. Teasing out unnoticed and humdrum details from ordinary images and collaging fragmented tidbits culled from everyday pictures, the artist spins complex and ethereal worlds out of decidedly simple and earthbound elements. Likening her photography to alchemy, she says, “By altering the ‘root picture’ in these ways, I can create new branches whose narratives are utterly different from the original, bringing the observer to see the world in dramatically unexpected ways.” It makes us think of art the way the Residents make us think of music.

Born out

 Thurs. Dec. 22 - Sat. Dec. 24

Had enough of "The Nutcracker" in your life? Year after year after year after ... The gals in Babes in Boinkland thought maybe some changes were in order, so they conconcted the only change that made sense to them: "A Sexy-Freaky Holiday Zeitgeist Spectacular!" - their words - which they call "The Slutcracker," which is up at the very respectable Somerville through Friday Dec. 24, Thursday through Sunday. Now, it's truly become a bonafide Boston tradition, has it not?

"'The Slutcracker' was so overwhelmingly popular and just plain fun, it was a no-brainer bringing it back," and Ian Judge, who directs the goings on at the Somerville Theatre. Heck, about 5000 people see the show each year So, what's it all about?

We asked BiB's Vanessa White, aka Sugar Dish, to describe this. She, after all is a dancer and the creator of this production. She told us, "'The Slutcracker' is a dance-theatre production comprised of a coalition of Boston-area performance artists including, but not limited to, burlesque and can-can dancers, drag kings, hoopers, ballerinas, acrobats, bellydancers, actors and actresses. Through a contemporary interpretation of the traditional 'Nutcracker,' 'The Slutcracker' aims to bring the art of burlesque back to its sexy, bawdy, hilarious roots."