Also this issue: Once More, With Feeling After an 18-year break, Mission of Burma's Clint Conley returns with a brand-new band. -Sam Adams Local Land-Marc One of the greatest living piano virtuosos calls Philly home. -Lou Camp Beat Box Hip-Hop & You Don't Stop -Ainè Ardron-Doley The Gig -Nate Chinen They Survived Philly -Patrick Rapa

May 9-15, 2002

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Kelly Slusher

If there's one thing Kelly Slusher knows, it's traveling light. The locally based singer-songwriter doesn't own a car, so getting her keyboard, her guitar and herself from show to show always presents a formidable challenge. It shouldn't be too big an ordeal when she plays The Khyber on Wednesday to celebrate the release of her debut full-length Rocks and Tears (Elefant). But the Madrid label has fallen so in love with Slusher's melancholic indie-pop sweetness that they're flying her out to Spain for a two-week tour at the summer's end, with a jaunt across the rest of the continent following. We'll be expecting some priceless keyboard-stand-meets-Eurail-conductor stories when she gets back.

Wed., May 15, 9 p.m., $6, w/ The Snow Fairies and The Realistics, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888.

–John Vettese