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

musicpicks

Ben Kweller

Listening to Sha Sha (Big Hassle), you'd never guess that Ben Kweller is, well, still very much a kid. After his much-hyped, short-lived Silverchair-y punk band Radish (remember them?) split up in 1999, Kweller refocused his attention on slightly more serious songwriting. Ergo, Sha sees him spinning clever lyrical tales of love and life while mixing country twang, folk, raucous power-pop and aloof piano ditties. Sure, it has its goof-off, rock-out moments; he sings about pet hedgehogs in "Commerce, TX," while the single "Wasted and Ready" is based on the Gregg Araki flick The Doom Generation. But the tender acoustic strums of "Lizzy" and the grandiose piano-and-pedal-steel-driven "In Other Words" show a wisdom and maturity far beyond Kweller's 20 years. It should be interesting to see how well that jives when he opens for The Moldy Peaches, two late 20-somethings who act like they're 12.

Thu., May 9, 9 p.m., $12, w/ The Moldy Peaches and Pilot Around The Sun, the TLA, 334 South St., 215-336-2000, www.electricfactory.com.

–John Vettese