Also this issue: Blast Off Rocket from the Tombs relaunches. -Sam Adams Cash Back Rosanne Cash writes the Rules and rediscovers her voice. -Nicole Pensiero Blistered in the Sun Unwrapping the Summer Package Tour -Jesse Delaney There are heroes in the seaweed -Patrick Rapa Kim Richey -Sam Adams Creekside Jamboree -Sean O’Neal Ssion -A.D. Amorosi Amy Rigby -Sam Adams

June 5-11, 2003

musicpicks

Tim Berne's Big Satan

Within the past couple of years Tim Berne has trafficked in quartets, sextets, duets and even a big band, honing his thorny compositional style. But the saxophonist never seems more at home than in this group, a trio featuring longtime peers Tom Rainey and Marc Ducret (on drums and guitar). The tongue-in-cheek band name makes sense -- think of Lucifer the charmer, dark and dangerous but also smooth-talking and larger than life. Berne often gets pegged as a Sturm und Drang troublemaker, but there's a quiet core to this group, a sense of melancholy rather than rage. They still have yet to record a follow-up to 1997's brilliant I Think They Liked It Honey (Winter & Winter), which set the stage with stark poetics and textural élan. Apropos of their moniker, they've been shape-shifting in the years since then. At least one thing hasn't changed: Like the devil, they're still bad.

Sat., June 7, 7 p.m., $15, Tritone, 1508 South St., 215-545-0475.

—Kyle Parker