Also this issue: Founding Fathers The experts at Philly's new Foundry label want to make good music and good money at the same time. -A.D. Amorosi Bringing It All Back Home Bob Dylan returns to Newport. -Nate Chinen Mixed Messages Electronic music pioneer Mark Farina puts it all together. -Sean O’Neal Tomas Jirku -Sean O’Neal The Catheters -Paul Burress

August 15-21, 2002

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Paul Westerberg

Don't call it a return to form. Paul Westerberg's two-disc Stereo/Mono (Vagrant) is good because it so convincingly makes the case for life after The Replacements. Like his underrated Suicaine Gratifaction (1999), Stereo/Mono posits Westerberg up front, only this time it's all Paul (as is this tour). Disc one, Stereo (the quiet one), is sad sunset stuff: "We May Be the Ones" and "No Place for You" play like the unhappy endings to "Bastards of Young" and "Sixteen Blue," respectively. And "Let the Bad Times Roll" is one of the most fully realized credos he's written. Mono is the rowdy disc. Though bereft of The 'Mats drunken shenanigans, the sloppy sound (as multi-instrumentalists go, Westy's not exactly Stevie Wonder) manages to accentuate, not sublimate, the effortless power-pop hooks of "Let's Not Belong," "AAA" and the kiss-off "Silent Film Star." At an in-store at Tower Records last April, he was charmingly shambling before suddenly nailing a gorgeous, vulnerable "Swingin' Party" with nary a bum note. One thing's for sure: The eager-to-please, polished Paul of the early '90s is gone. Here comes a regular.

Sat., Aug. 17, 9 p.m., $22.50-$25, The TLA, 334 South St., 215-336-2000.

—Michael Pelusi

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