ANYTHING can happen at a Mekons show, particularly this week, when all the Mekons hold a fly-in at the Mercury Lounge (217 E. Houston St., at Essex Street; [212] 260-4700) Thursday and Friday.
While the 23-year-old band from Leeds, England, started off as a punk band, it’s morphed into an altogether different creature, bringing in influences from every imaginable genre beneath an umbrella of rock, country, blues and folk. What didn’t exist, they made up to create their own distinctive sound.
They’re here to record a new album and to celebrate the re-release of “New York, On the Road: ’86 to ’87.” Even if they don’t sing one glorious note, which they will do and do it raucously well, the theater-of-the-absurd banter among the longtime bandmates is worth at least half the price of admission. Somehow they’ll make the other half worthwhile, too.
* TONIGHT: Berkeley’s Action Slacks strut their power-pop punk stuff at the Lakeside Lounge (169 Ave. B, [212] 529-8463). On Friday, they open for the Figgs, who bring on their punk pop in the alt-Elvis Costello mode to the Knitting Factory (74 Leonard St., at Church Street; [212] 219-3055).
* TUESDAY: Melomane is a French word for crazy about melody as well as a local pop band whose eclectic sound is at turns ambient, twangy, dreamy and all catchy. Melomane celebrates its debut CD, “Resolvo,” at the Luna Lounge (171 Ludlow St., at Houston Street, [212] 260-2323).
* WEDNESDAY: Move up, up and away from all the dreamy pop that’s pervading the planet. D Generation’s Jesse Malin has new band Bellvue, and a new r-o-c-k album, “To Be Somebody,” which has guest appearances by Whiskeytown’s Ryan Adams, Quicksand’s Sergio Vega and Howie Pyro of Danzig. At 7:30 p.m., Bellvue will set up, then tear down the stage at the for an all-ages Virgin Megastore Union Square event. Following that will be a performance and party at Spa (76 E. 13th St.; [212] 388-1062).
* FRIDAY: Songwriter Alex Dezen splashes down the Lakeside Lounge with his band, which includes super “tele-clanker” Boo Rieners (he plays speeded-up country) from the Demolition String Band.
* SATURDAY: Toronto’s Sadies “have spent the past year or so crisscrossing the U.S. of A. in their beat-up van, carrying steamer trunks full of martini glasses and discount wines; saddlebags stuffed with Kinks, Music Machine and Stanley Brothers records; and surfboards strapped to the roof,” says its press release. Whatever. Featuring the Toronto’s famous country pickers the Good Brothers, these Sadies splice in some cow-punk and surf-abilly into the mix.
Blue Mountain blends country blues and Appalachian music, while the Pernice Brothers, featuring the prolific Scud Mountain Boy Joe Pernice in a pop mode, was so overcome by happiness by its last album, the band’s putting out another one in June. Swing by this ‘mazing indie triple-bill at the Bowery Ballroom (6 Delancey St. at the Bowery; [212] 533-2111) Saturday and at Maxwell’s (1039 Washington St., Hoboken, N.J.; [201] 798-0406) Sunday.
