Also this issue: Folk Gone Wild Philly's own Full Frontal Folk doesn't have time for angst, ballads or clothes. -Mary Armstrong Prime Meridian Steve Forbert exhumes a country legend from his hometown. -Nicole Pensiero An Evening of Russian Romances -Peter Burwasser Lady Alma -A.D. Amorosi Erick Sermon -Elisa Ludwig Goldie -A.D. Amorosi DJ Nights -Sean O'Neal Beat Box -Ain� Ardron-Doley

December 25-31, 2002

musicpicks

Tandy

While not to be confused with anything Radio Shackish, there's something glaringly electric -- even sleekly diode-heavy -- about the no-dep-hickishness of Tandy's old-fashioned country-punkapolitan sound. Creepingly noir-poetic and musically adventurous, North Carolinian singer/songwriter/acoustic guitarist Mike Ferrio, on CDs like Lichtenstein's Oriole, Some Summer's Day and The Bloodroot Transcriptions -- whose best and brightest tunes are folded into the just-out The Lowdown: 1997-2002 (Gammon) -- has made mincemeat of the cowpoke's experience. Together with lap-steel guitarist Drew Glackin, Tandy has creased country's punk-cushiony sound in ways friendly to the likes of Wilco, Gun Club and Frog Holler. They dot the eyes of their stormy sound with sitars, tablas, crepuscular synthy arrangements and a torturous tedium-weary vocal sound so coolly forlorn the tear in your beer'll ice up from the chill. That's cold, buckaroos.

Sat., Dec. 28, 10 p.m., $7, with The Kwait Brothers and Asteroid #4, The North Star, 27th and Poplar sts., 215-684-0808.

—A.D. Amorosi