Radio Ensuring You Will Be Rocked Almost Beyond Reason This Weekend: Acts Include Future Carnivores, Travels, Varsity Drag, Age Rings, Eldridge Rodriguez

You know who owns you for the front half of Memorial Day weekend -- and will be largely responsible for your inability to do anything the second half -- assuming you are unable to escape the gravitational pull of the greater Boston/Cambridge/Somerville triangle? No, not this guy. Radio in Somerville, that's who. Starting on Thursday (and we're assuming you are still banned for life from River Gods, because, you know, this), the new-ish little club that could is just killing it with non-stop rock 'n roll. It all kicks off with an evening of rock headlined by pop adventurists Future Carnivores and featuring support from slow-core stalwarts Travels. We've weighed in on recent releases by both acts, calling Future Carnivores' self-titled debut "the first refreshing surprise of 2012" here, and we reviewed Travels' most recent maxi-single here last October. Also performing Thursday are Dirty Virgins and The Wrong Shapes. The latter act features Future Carnivores' Bo Barringer along with Rachel Arnold on cello and vocals; the pair parleys sensuous pop that will please fans of same. More deets at the Facebook event page yonder.

Clicky Clicky faves Varsity Drag occupy the center square Friday night in their first performance in who knows how long. Too long. According to legend, if the trio doesn't play its hit "Summertime," we're all doomed to another six weeks of this treacherous spring we've been having (oh, it's actually been kinda nice...?), so let's keep our fingers crossed. As an added treat, 'Drag drummer Josh Pickering is also banging the cans strapping on a guitar and crushing out chords as part of power-pop purveyors Peter Buzzelle & the Soul Clinic Bible School's set, making a characteristically sweaty evening for Mr. Pickering doubly so. Unless it is, like, weirdly cold that night? Not gonna happen, right? The evening is rounded out by a set from BirdsMakeBirds, whose name proposition seems air-tight, and another from Black Fortress of Opium. Here's the Facebook event page; join the army.

You will hopefully have something remaining in your proverbial gas tank for a huge Saturday night at Radio, as that is the latest entry in Midriff Records' reliably awesome monthly residency. This month's event features a set from recent Midriff signatories Age Rings, who will be feting the release of their upbeat new Midriff EP AM/PM (which we wrote about here earlier). Also on the bill is one of the label's flagship acts, Eldridge Rodriguez, who are fresh from a much-discussed appearance on Clicky Clicky's own NOFUCKINGWHERE compilation (download here), as well as guitar pop act Cooling Towers and a tandem performance from Midriff-friendly Sarah Borges and Midriff's own Greg Lyon. Mr. Lyon, of course, among other things is also a notable solo artist on Midriff as well as the latest addition to the label's legendary founders, The Beatings. And those other things: Lyon's ethereal re-imagining of RIDE's "Paralyzed" graced the aforementioned NOFUCKINGWHERE, which compilation's art and layout were also executed by Mr. Lyon. Let's just go ahead and say it: renaissance man. And how about one more Facebook event page?

All that stuff above? All that is happening over the course of three consecutive nights this weekend at Radio. It's mind-blowing. Get into it. We're dropping some song embeds below so you can limber up your ears. Dig.

Be Prepared: Eldridge Rodriguez | You Are Released | 22 March

Boston noise-rock stalwart Eldridge Rodriguez' fourth solo effort, separate and apart from his work with local titans The Beatings. This full-length was written during and around the sessions for The Beatings' superlative 2009 effort Late Season Kids, and as such You Are Released evidences what seems to have been an incredibly fertile songwriting period for Mr. Rodriguez. But while his songs on Late Season Kids sound contemporary, there is something in the production on You Are Released's more aggressive numbers that imbues the guitar squall with a throw-back flannel dysphoria. Highlights include the annunciatory thriller "The Big Windup" and the melodic, mid-tempo, slide guitar-slung "Fragile Things," during which Rodriguez deploys an uncharacteristic murmur over a pulsing mirage of guitars, confessing "Dear Lord I shot my mouth off again." Midriff Records will issue You Are Released March 22.

Selected Previous E.R. Coverage:
Review: E.R. | This Conspiracy Against Us
That Was The Show That Was: E.R. | PA's Lounge
That Was The Show That Was: E.R. | TT The Bear's