Mon. Aug. 2

Generally speaking you'll se the Chandler Travis and one of his innumerable bands (the Incredible Casuals and the Chandler Travis Philharmonic) to name two at local clubs like Toad or Johnny D's. By local, we mean Boston area: Travis - a prolific and genre-scrambling singer-songwriter-guitarist - is based on Cape Cod and from the looks of it plays just about every night of the week down that way. But he's got a really big shoe coming at the Berklee Performance Center on Monday, August 2 at 8:15). Travis sent us five tracks from the upcoming, swinging, jazzy new CD, "The Chandler Travis Philharmonic Blows" -it's rather horn-driven. But in the lyrics you will note the witty and droll observations Travis is prone to put into songs. There's one Kinksian, almost happy/quasi-weary song about "Pushing Up Daisies." It's about carrying on until, well, the inevitable.

Travis is playing looking forward to the bigger Berklee venue and thinks he and his large band can do things a lot more theatrical and not just be playing for a bunch of customers more intent on their next beer than the music. (Nothing wrong with that. You make your living in clubs, that's part of the package.) But, writes Travis, "I just wanted to make a case for my/ourselves as doing something unusually original, ambitious, and necessary between these various bands. I've been working like a crazy person with three different bands with at least three different mostly original repertoires. My summer schedule is just hilarious and the CTP is certainly the most of everything, and possibly deserving of more attention in Beantown." Tickets: $15. Starts at 8:15.

136 Massachusetts Ave., 617-266-7455 www.chandlertravis.com