JIM CARROLL 12/4, LOUNGE AX Poet Jim Carroll earned his rocker badge mostly on the strength of his 1980 debut album, Catholic Boy, a solidly fierce piece of art punk that included the accidental standard “People Who Died”–the Impotent Sea Snakes have covered it, for chrissake. But his teenage-junkie memoir, The Basketball Diaries, and the persistent rumor that it’s him demanding Pernod in the background on the Velvets’ Live at Max’s Kansas City don’t hurt either. None of his subsequent musical efforts have quite lived up to the first, but he’s never completely embarrassed himself either–for the most part poetry has kept him honest, though there is a segment of his cult following that loves to watch him skirt self-parody. Carroll has recently released Pools of Mercury (Mercury), his first rock album in 14 years, and a new collection, Void of Course: Poems 1994-1997 (Penguin); at this appearance the only living poet to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio will read rather than sing. He shares the bill with Chicago’s Handsome Family, whose poetics of midwestern despair should present a competitive contrast to his Noo Yawk hustle.
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SPLITSVILLE 12/6, SCHUBAS The title of this trio’s third album, Repeater (Big Deal), says it all. The I-wanna-be-British-when-I-grow-up school of power pop is reassuring in its familiarity but ultimately a mind-numbing genre exercise. Nice suits though.
