NOW PLAYING SLY FOX "Gold. God with an L," Sly (Richard ...

/b> SLY FOX

"Gold. God with an L," Sly (Richard Dreyfuss) remarks early on in Sly Fox. And that's what the whole play is about.

Certainly amiable in the role, Dreyfuss has a strong feel for the play's lyrical verse, and his impish, intelligent manner translates well as the old man Sly, motivated solely by greed and a desire to outwit. By his side, Simon Able (Eric Stoltz) learns the power of personal charisma, later tempting his fate at the art of the double cross. Together, the two court danger in the style of low comedy, pursuing all of Sly's creditors for more and more of their riches, while the creditors similarly "stoop to any height" to ravage the dying man for a promised inheritance. As a vaudeville-style comedy, written in delightful rhymed verse and rife with malapropisms, the action gets off with a bang. But the multiple variations on the same plot with its line-up of stock characters, all legacy hunters, is enough to make anyone fidget in their seat.

Director Arthur Penn has assembled a noteworthy cast that includes Rene Auberjonois as the stooped merchant who trades his own son for Sly's wealth, Bob Dishy as the insanely jealous husband who surrenders his beautiful wife to obtain the promised fortune and Bronson Pinchot as the lawyer who proves that the law always bends for the rich. Elizabeth Berkley as the devout Christian, and Rachel York as the prostitute appear physically interchangeable in this comedy in which character is transformed by money.

Adapted from Volpone, Ben Jonson's 17th-century comic satire, Sly feels somewhat stale with lots of low-flying jokes and repetitive scenes, while the whirligig of Sly's game, a play within a play, fails to generate the tornado-like action the play needs.

Ethel Barrymore, 243 W. 47th St. (betw. B'way & 8th Ave.), 212-239-6200, call for times, $71.25-$91.25.

Isa Goldberg EVERY TUES. GIANT TUESDAY NIGHT OF AMAZING INVENTIONS AND ALSO THERE IS A GAME

Giant Tuesday Night of Amazing Inventions and Also There Is a Game is not your typical stand-up/variety show. The musical guests are a pair of panhandling bums, Rappin' Stan and Mr. Shakes, clad in trenchcoats, fur hats and garbage bags, who sing, rap and teach homeless yoga. Other guests (which rotate week to week) include a Christopher Walken look-a-like poet and an inventor (Michael Reisman) who goes back in time to find his wallet and tells the audience that the skit they're about to see is no good (a Charlie Kaufman spin that actually works). And, yes, there is a game: contestants must guess whether questions are drawn from real game shows or rhetorical ones plucked from the host's (Jamie Greenberg) failed relationship-a unique premise on a tired skit. The rest of the show is predictable territory: a string of local comics doing five-minute versions of their regular routines.

What's most entertaining about this show is not the stand-ups but the host, Francisco Guglioni (played by Andres du Bouchet). Guglioni, who bears a resemblance to Puddy from Seinfeld, is the show's lifeblood, a Latin-American Jay Leno whose baritone, accented voice and good-natured quips are unfailingly on cue.

"Our show is a takeoff of Sabado Gigante, a famous, long-running, pull-out-all-the-stops Latin American variety show," says Guglioni's doppelganger, du Bouchet, also the show's creator. Du Bouchet has been writing and performing comedy around New York since 1997. A mainstay at Luna Lounge's Eating It and regular contributor to Jest magazine (not to mention an incessant blogger), du Bouchet is a natural, easy-going emcee, self-deprecating and affable. The show, provided you avoid sitting on the Posturepedic bench seats, is a fast and enjoyable 90 minutes, with an endless array of ad libs, surprise sketches and quirky bits.

Under St. Marks, 94 St. Marks Pl. (betw. 1st Ave. & Ave. A), 212-868-4444, 8, $5.

Lionel Beehner WEDS.- SAT., APRIL 14-17 CAETANO VELOSO

With singer/songwriter Caetano Veloso's performance in Almodovar's 2002 film, Talk to Her, the director managed to enhance the film's overlying narrative drive while still honoring-and even lingering on-the music's depth, something so rarely accomplished in film. Let's hope other filmmakers took notice. Though he's enjoyed a cult audience in the States for 20 years now, Veloso possesses stature beyond superstardom in his native Brazil, where his music career got underway 40 years ago. (To put this in perspective, Veloso once visited Brazilian metal luminaries Sepultura, who respect Veloso's work so much, drummer Igor Cavalera recalls, that they were very nervous to meet him and surprised, delighted and relieved to find Veloso admired their work as well.)

Indeed, the monumentality of Veloso's contribution to the pantheon of Brazilian music is impossible to overstate. A flagrantly political leftist with an intensely poetic flair since day one, Veloso's strong, Joao Gilberto-influenced songwriting quickly made him a hit. At the time, the bossa nova movement and overall arts scene in Brazil had fused with political consciousness. But because he has always been restless for experimentation, Veloso just as quickly challenged the conscripts of MPB (the general term for Brazilian pop, which stands for Musica Popular Brasileira). Along with friend Gilberto Gil and collaborator Gal Costa, Veloso helped spawn tropicalismo, a marriage of bossa nova to rock's folk and arty sides that employed the harmonic richness of jazz. Even within the scope of leftist politics, this new movement was iconoclastic.

"Communists never liked gays much. But we did," he once told Brian Ratliff, who quoted him in Spin in 1999. Veloso certainly took his hits from purists (and the military dictatorship that exiled him and Gil from 1969 to 1972), but because he was always open to blending musical styles that spanned Brazil's very sharp socio-economic and racial divisions, his popularity would encompass a wide swath of Brazilian society. Interestingly enough, though this spirit of blending endows his music with a universal appeal, Veloso once professed not to understand why his music appealed to people outside of his homeland.

His first visit to New York 20 years ago sold out three nights at the Public Theater at a time when his records were barely available here. That appearance earned him lavish praise from then-New York Times music critic Robert Palmer. (Veloso didn't see a domestic release of his work until 1989, 24 years after his first album came out.) Like 1994's Fina Estampa, Veloso's latest album, A Foreign Sound, consists entirely of reworked standards. This time, though, he selected the songs from American, rather than Latin, music. Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, even Stevie Wonder, Kurt Cobain, Bob Dylan and David Byrne (a personal friend who appears with Veloso at the Saturday show) are all lovingly recast into a bossa nova frame for Veloso's lithe voice and gentle acoustic strumming.

An intensely ear-pleasing listen, A Foreign Sound simply flows from your speakers-directly to your ears and down to your chest, like taking 22 sips of the finest, smoothest wine imaginable. With its superior acoustics, Carnegie Hall is the ideal setting to let your ears honor the complexity and delicacy of his work.

Weds. with Banda AfroReggae at Zankel Hall, 8:30, $28-$38; Thurs. with Mart'nalia at Zankel Hall, 8:30, $28-$38; Fri. at Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall, 8, $22-$72.

Saby Reyes-Kulkarni THROUGH SUN., SEPT. 26 NEW YORK'S MOYNIHAN > When Daniel Patrick Moynihan died last year, the New Republic quipped that Thomas Jefferson would now have someone to talk to in heaven. Moynihan probably welcomed the company up there too. During his four decades in public life, the amiable, heavy-drinking Irishman had no clear equal in intellect or character. Upon his entrance to the Senate in 1977, it was said that the Democrat from New York had written more books than most of his colleagues in the chamber had ever read.

By the time he retired, it was probably true. Moynihan wrote or edited 18 books and penned thousands of articles and essays, among them some of the most influential works of his time (just as often they were ahead of his time) on everything from ethnicity to foreign policy to architecture. He was a big thinker who also held mastery over myriad arcane policy specialties-traffic safety, taxes, landmark preservation, arms control. All told, the Moynihan papers in the Library of Congress contain 164,000 documents spanning every conceivable discipline. Imagine that tower of work swaying next to Hillary Clinton, who took over Moynihan's seat in 2001, and you get a sense of New York's, and America's, loss.

The recently opened "New York's Moynihan" at the Museum of New York offers a small and respectful window on a singular life. Through hanging portraits, super-sized quotes and a 45-minute loop of tv interviews dating back to the mid-60s, the museum has constructed an elegant, if soft-focus, tribute to Moynihan the public intellectual, statesman and tireless advocate for New York. Those left hungry by the exhibit's sound bytes should pick up Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intellectual in Public Life, just re-released in a new edition.

Museum of the City of New York, 1220 5th Ave. (103rd St.), 212-534-1672, 10-5, sugg. don. $4-$12.

Alexander Zaitchik TUESDAY APRIL13 AIR Name the French people who have made a real impact on the international musical landscape, including the entire history of music and Frenchdom. Take a minute. Now name the ones you actually like (other than Serge Gainsbourg). Pretty slim, hum? Yet, if you focused on the last 10 years, you'd find a surprising number of lovely candidates (Alex Gopher, Dimitri From Paris, Daft Punk) in the marvelously cheeky, chi-chi-kitsch music sweepstakes. Namely you'd find Air, the seemingly simple electro-dance duo of Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin who've proved that they're spookier than first imagined. Initially, Air sounded like a mannered, even sweatless, disco act based on the vexing, breathy electronics made popular by Jean-Michel Jarre. Ugh, right? But no sooner than you got beyond the oozingly ethereal "Sexy Boy" and their poppy debut CD Moon Safari, you found that Air made brooding cinematic stuff-creeping crepuscular music just right for illuminating scenes of self-mutilating, underachieving teens (i.e., their soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides) and quirked-out Italian-male sexuality (i.e., backing Italian author Alessandro Baricco on a recording of Tre Storie Western).

Not unlike another famous French womanly person, Marie Antoinette, Air has shown you can have your cake, eat it, stab it and burn it too. Displaced Philadelphia native Chris Root-he of the swinging Bachrachian bacchanalia that is NYC's AM 60-opens with his Brazi-bossa-nova act Mosquitos, a band that puts the "grrr" in "Girl from Ipanema" -style pop.

Hammerstein Ballroom Manhattan Center, 311 W. 34th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-485-1534, 8, $37.

A.D. Amorosi OLU DARA & VUSI MAHLASELA Here you are, one of Manhattan's loft jazz legends: a cornet player and African-high-life-inspired guitarist whose ethno-fusion blues and free world jazz licks are forever wound-tight and loose-around the equally squirrelly, equally giant works of Jean-Paul Bourelly, Rhys Chatham, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Henry Threadgill, Material and Kip Hanrahan. But that was the 70s. Then you have a kid, and all of a sudden it, he, Nas, becomes a hiphop giant. And you become the Dad.

No matter. Though Olu Dara waited until he was nearly 60 to record his solo debut, he will always be that family's most fanciful funk-ateer. After carrying on sessions with the avant-likes of Don Pullen and James Ulmer, in the mid-80s Dara discovered the sound of his own vocals and a cabbage patch of curly-q world, country blues that would lead Dara to his next phase: an Afrique-to-Alabama country-plucked funk wherein his sweetly, smoked hammy voice took precedence.

The aptly named solo debut, In The World: From Natchez to New York, was then-and is still-a favorite: a rich, silly, sensuous work that's loping and casual in its trip through southerly Soho soul. Not only did Dara-suddenly, the lyricist and singer-make weird greens and fruits as focused and detailed a subject ("Okra") as he did independent African-American authors ("Zora"), he made them equally sexy and equally important. The album's centerpieces-the quietly calm country-groove of "Natchez Shopping Blues," "Your Lips," and "Harlem Country Girl"-are as intimate a portrait of daily lore, love and womanly appreciation as any latter-day Picasso.

That Dara hasn't quite followed up on the gregarious griot's goulash that was Natchez with anything as potent (only Neighborhoods, which was nice but not monumental, followed) means one of two things: That Dara shot his singing/songwriter's load on one pure epic work, or that he's got another 50 years to go in which to blow us away. Here's hoping.

B.B. King Blues Club, 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212-997-4144, 8, $20.

A.D. Amorosi WEDNESDAY APRIL14 GODZILLA CONQUERS THE GLOBE

He may not look it, but Godzilla turns 50 this year. To celebrate, Columbia is hosting an exhibit of vintage Godzilla movie posters, pressbooks and other G-related memorabilia. Subtitled "Japanese Movie Monsters in International Film Art," the aim is to compare the different ways Godzilla and other giant radioactive monsters have been presented around the world. There's a little art, a little history, a little sociology and a whole lotta Tokyo-stompin'! C. V. STARR EAST ASIAN LIBRARY, Kent Hall, Amsterdam Ave. (116th St.), 212-854-5036 call for times, free. THURSDAY APRIL15 DANIEL JOHNSTON & KIMYA DAWSON Within the genre of the "outsider," few bruised artists, at present, seem as vital as Daniel Johnston. While he has struggled through the very real manias accorded to most that suffer his array of "phrenias," Johnston has made a career in primitivism and naive rock that you wouldn't spend time laughing uncomfortably at. Face it. You didn't really like listening to Wesley Willis's repetitive nonsense. Wild Man Fischer is pretty awful. Syd Barrett makes you glad you didn't keep doing acid. And once you get past the gorgeous first-time hearing of his plush backgrounds for Pet Sounds and Smile, Brian Wilson is little more than an irritating oldies act. But Johnston-like Texan Roky Erickson and his increasingly rarer acoustic endeavors-finds himself making crude but quietly beautiful effusive pop music of epic simplicity that never seeks to win you over with feel-sorry sing-song-iness. Dag. Even sane people don't make cool records with big jangling guitars and truth-serum treatises like 1994's Fun, 2001's Rejected Unknown or his most recent freak-out, Fear Yourself.

It's probably and palpably purrfect that Johnston's opener is Kimya Dawson. Like the lo-fi giant Johnston, the Moldy Peaches guitarist/singer makes music that's crusty and crude, stealing samples and beat-box rhythms with the harried panic of someone shoplifting maxi pads from a five-and-dime. Yet, it's that-along with her equally childlike lingo and singing style-that makes her perfect to accompany Johnston in their bittersweet, sometimes dark, revelries.

And that she's opening for this duo of damaged goods and dangerous psychologies probably means that Scout Niblett don't feel so good neither.

Between sets, DJs from WNYU (89.1 fm) will spin in celebration of their new booster antenna, which promises to spread their signal far and wide-well, downtown, at least-without interference.

Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St. (betw. B'way & Church St.), 212-219-3132, 8, $12, $10 adv.

A.D. Amorosi N.E.R.D. & BLACK EYED PEAS Let me get the Black Eyed Peas off my chest first. Having long been a proponent of the L.A.-based OutKast-like collective, I confess that, while its new Elephunk is deserving of all the acclaim BEP have received for their fine-tuned funk, it's a let-down in comparison to their hard, hardier previous CDs. The "Up" songs "Shut Up," "Hands Up"-are smashing; horny, chunky hiphop tunes that rival "1999" for their partylicious-ness. But I simply can't get with the one-love-unification behind the soppy-ass "Where is the Love?" or that guy with the long, straight hair bopping across stage, dressing like a mix of Chers between Half Breed and Black Rose. No. No. No. Now, for N.E.R.D. Anyone who thought Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo's kitschy first CD with Shay Haley (the Andrew Ridgely of rap-rock) In Search Of?was cluttered best make room for Fly or Die. Like their purple-Prince-inspired Neptunes' productions, there's a whole lotta breathiness going on within the tracks-within-tracks that fill Fly. It's a bigger, roomier, more rubbery funk, one wherein soul-struck singer Williams has ample space to croon and ruminate as high and wide as a drunken pitcher on opening day. Yes, the lyrics are, like Search's, silly, wired and salacious (perhaps, this is what Shay does!?), but their dumbo's lyricism is a necessary relish that's been added to N.E.R.D.'s P-Funk-and-the-Family-Stone soul picnic. The trip-delicious prose is a form of ritualistic ancient-to-the-future writing that N.E.R.D. is following; as hallowed and historic within African-American literature as the texts of Cornel West, Trugoy, James Baldwin or Q-Tip. Now back to that azz.

Roseland Ballroom, 239 W. 52nd St. (betw. 8th Ave. & B'way), 212-247-0200, 7:30, sold out.

A.D. Amorosi GOLDEN GLOVES Don't know what a 20-point "must" system is? So what? Do you know what happens when two hungry amateur boxers go head-to-head in front of thousands of people? Humanity at its best. The finals of the 76th annual Daily News Charities Golden Gloves tournament begin tonight and end tomorrow, with the area's top boxing talent fighting for glory-and a well-deserved weekend away from the gym. Madison Square Garden, 2 Penn Plaza (32nd St.), 212-465-MSG1, 7:30, $24.50-$29.50. THE ROULETTE SISTERS It's Bessie Smith's birthday, a welcome excuse to watch this sultry trio of old-school acoustic blues mamas get down with guitars and a washboard. These hard-working girls draw on the more obscure, overtly sexual side of the blues diva's ample body of work with come-hither harmonies, slinky shuffles and every droplet of innuendo that collects on their lips. Equally sly, former Rasputina multi-instrumentalist Serena Jost opens. BLU LOUNGE, 197 N. 8th St. (Driggs Ave.), Williamsburg, 718-782-8005, 9, free. FRIDAY APRIL16 SAVATH + SAVALAS AND JUANA MOLINA Scott Herren is a lot of things: Mr. Too Many Things, as my dead gay friend Louis used to say. Under noms d'electro Delarosa, Asora and Prefuse 73, the now-Barcelona-based Herren has made jazzfunk, noodle-icious soul and industrumental cut-and-pasted pastiche pop. He's nearly an indefinable entity. So you'd think for his latest as Savath + Savalas, the sound would be more convenient-a lot of people do Afro-Cubano folk-jazz or Tropicalistan triphop. Unlike his first S+S release, the all-alone acoustic abstraction of Folk Songs for Trains, Trees and Honey, his second CD, Apropa't, was made as a hummingly autumnal downtempo duet with Catalan vocalist Eva Puyuelo Muns. Girl-boy Brazi-pop? Sounds simple. Sounds sad and au courant. Yet, the duo, after finishing the demos, gave their chamber-Cuban folk concertina-and-harmonium-based recordings to Chicago's Soma Studio soldiers John McEntire and Johnny Herndon, and allowed the baby-rattled and strummed "A la Nit" and "Dejame" to get the Tortoise tango treatment. The results? Below the snaky whispers of Puyuelo and Herren (the Sinatras Nancy and Frank of electro-forlorn folk) sits the slow boiling Braziliana of Gil, Veloso and Mendez circa 1968 with the lo-fi Saran-wrapped seal of Chicago 2004. This is an anomaly even for Herren.

Argentine arriviste Juana Molina has made a name for herself as slippery, strange songstress. With a small, serene voice and an always-vibrating minimalist background of bloops and plinks and whooshes that would be at home on ambient classics, Molina made gorgeously compact melodies that arched like a tall, naked woman stretching every muscle atop an unmade bed. You could see the crumpled white sheets and feel the bare skin across tunes like the darkly detuned "Medlong" or the grandly naive and hushed "El Perro" or "Mantra del Bicho Feo." Mostly, though, her occasionally layered-laconic voices and the grainy background acoustic guitars are just too queer to categorize easily. Her voice is still whispery and winsome, as it is on "Yo Se Que," but there's something more conspiratorial and alpha-kittenish on this new CD-something more rash and rushed in her hush of a voice. As if she's got someplace better to be than here with you. Thankfully, you won't want to be anywhere else but where Juana's at. Such a tease.

Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. (betw. Bowery & Chrystie St.), 212-533-2111, 10, $15.

A.D. Amorosi 2004 SKATE & SURF FESTIVAL Punk rock, or so it goes, was once dangerous. Truth or lie, nothing could be less dangerous than the three-day Skate & Surf Festival starting today in the wilds of Asbury Park, NJ. An annual circling of the wagons for mall punks, the organizers have put together an admittedly impressive roster of more than 150 acts, from Brand New to Senses Fail. Sugary pop-punk and rehashed emo are the order of the day, with heart-on-their-sleeve acts like Taking Back Sunday and Yellowcard whining about their ex-girlfriends and how tough suburban life can be. CONVENTION HALL 1306 Ocean Ave. (5th Ave.), Asbury Park, NJ, 212-307-7171, $30, $84 3-day pass. WHAT ABOUT BILL MURRAY? Someday Bill Murray's gonna die and you'll say, "Bill Murray? I've been into him for years." Dr. Venkman has been holding it down for three decades now, using some Chicago alchemy to transform sleepy hostility into comic gold. BAM is giving a glorious full-screen treatment to those great flicks that get played 24/7 on basic cable. Dig this lineup: today Caddyshack. Tomorrow the underrated Quick Change and the greatest film of the 20th century, Ghostbusters. That's two days of comedy funk. 30 Lafayette Ave. (Ashland Pl.), Ft. Greene, 718-636-4100, check bam.org for showtimes, $10, $7 st., $6 s.c. AMY RIGBY Nobody had a clearer target audience than Amy Rigby in the mid 90s, as Diary of a Mod Housewife and Middlescence examined the plight of aging hipsters torn between traditional happiness and the restraints of a fabulous lifestyle. The suddenly single mom didn't have to revamp her style, either, since she'd spent the 80s as a pioneering urban-country popster. Til the Wheels Fall Off was a fine album from someone who's outgrown the Americana handbook. She's still underrated as a vocalist, too, while her sharp wordplay remains more honest than clever. JOE'S PUB, 425 Lafayette St. (betw. E. 4th St. & Astor Pl.), 212-539-8778, 7, $15. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Quick: The war on terror has a) had an impact on human rights or, b) it hasn't. If you answered b, you fail. Head to the BROOKLYN BRIDGE MARRIOTT and get your globally responsible knowledge on. Starting today, this three-day event features lectures and workshops that focus on how the world is a horrible place and what you can do to make it slightly less so. 333 Adams St. (betw. Willoughby & Johnson Sts.), 212-633-4225, call for times, $20, $60 3-day pass. SATURDAY APRIL17 JACK GRACE BAND Not your grandfather's country music. Grace's ferocious steel guitarist tours with indie rockers the Silos, his drummer is a jazz cat and the man himself slings more than a few sparks from his big, hollow-body Gibson. With a wink and a grin and a few shots of tekillya, they'll quote from Led Zep, the Bee Gees and Neil Diamond before they bring it all back home. LAKESIDE LOUNGE, 162 Ave. B (betw. 10th & 11th Sts.), 212-529-8463, 11, free. AUTUMDIVERS Ready to split your mind open with some pure sonic treats? This wall-of-sound three-piece is coming down from Rochester to show city rockers how they do it. Two of them used to be in the great 90s shoe-gazing band Still Motion, and they've been honing their craft much longer than it takes some of us to read our respective bar tabs. PIANOS, 158 Ludlow St. (betw. Stanton & Rivington Sts.), 212-505-3733, 8, $8. SUNDAY APRIL18 [SMOG] It started off with one artsy dude and a guitar making funny noises with a tape recorder in a basement back in the late 80s. Throughout the following decade, Bill Callahan blossomed into a very fine guitar-wielding singer-songwriter of the classic variety. To date, [Smog] has polluted the airwaves with 11 albums and numerous singles on the Chicago art-rock label Drag City. With a voice deeper than an Afghan foxhole, yet smooth as diesel, Callahan's deadpan lyricism and simple melodies lull you to sleep with a wide grin on your face. Just listen to the poignant "Strayed" off of 2000's Dongs of Sevotion, in which Callahan laments, "Oh I never thought I'd be/one of those men/with pin-ups on their wall/for all to see/I thought that was just mechanics." Yeah, it's pretty dry like that, but something about the formula works: a one-man band called [Smog], featuring a guy with a beautiful voice who doesn't talk much but who can hold a crowd in the palm of his hand with or without a backing band. He's foxy enough to keep the ladies swaying to and fro, yet has an endearing dorkiness that the sensitive male contingent can relate to.

Mercury Lounge, 217 E. Houston St. (betw. Ludlow & Essex Sts.), 212-260-4700, 10, $13.

Travis Jeppesen MICE PARADE & STEREOLAB The headliner may be the better-known act-the long-standing legend of Pet-Sounding electronica that is Stereolab-but the opener, Mice Parade, is the more diabolic and cunning. One-man Parade Adam Pierce, who founded the label Bubble Core, has made rubbery, post-rock musique concrete without the leaden weight usually associated with that noise; something that borrows from the staunch repetitive melodics of Steve Reich with the lightly drummed-and-strummed Germanic-jazz reediness of a Mouse on Mars. Perhaps it's because Pierce played percussion for the Dylan Group that there's such an intuitive emphasis on flesh-feeling rhythm within his work. Perhaps it's that physicality-the heartbeat behind any thoughtful musician's improvisational nature-that made Pierce take such risks.

What risks? Recording and mixing one album, Ramda, in a single take or teaming with the likes of Nobukazu Takemura and Jim O'Rourke for Collaborations. That sort of dedication is unheard of within such softly spun electronic music circles. Now, with an intimate band of quiet sons alongside him on several tracks, Pierce has made his most vibey, varied, open CD in Obrigado Saudade: a brushed-cottony affair so filled with holy, ghostly voice samples, poly-rhythms and gooey keyboards that it doesn't, at first, sound Mouse-y or Mice-y. Yet, with songs like "Out of the Freedom World" and the epic "Mystery Brethren" driving the Parade, it isn't long until Pierce's usual unctuousness sets in and the wriggly dark shadows loom.

Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Pl. (15th St.), 212-777-6800, 8, $25, $22.75 adv.

A.D. Amorosi MORBID ANGEL & SATYRICON Used to be, a death metal band and a black metal band couldn't sit in the same room together without pulling out their knives and attempting to gouge each other's eyes out. In the end, it was the fans who ended the rivalry. Now, so many bands have fused the genres' elements that the initial boundaries have dissolved into a mutual affinity for evil, pain, violence and Satan. Tonight's show is important for its pairing of two bands at the top of their respective subgenres. Morbid Angel is one of the oldest and best-selling death metal acts of all time. A product of the late-80s Florida death-metal explosion, these guys have unleashed a demonic frenzy of powerful riffs on a series of alphabetized albums (their latest is their eighth, so this time around it's H for Heretic).

Satyricon is endemic of the various facets in the development of the modern Norwegian black metal sound, dishing out a decidedly mystical strain of black metal that's infectious. They were the first band of their kind to introduce medieval themes into their music, and they tend to be more experimental than their peers in the fledgling subgenre, as evidenced by 1999's excellent Intermezzo II, which employs digital drumming and fuses the band's evil elitist standards with industrial and electronic elements a la Mortiis. Frontman Satyr is also the owner of Moonfog Productions, a label whose roster features several of Norway's most important bands, including Darkthrone and Thorns.

If you're a metalhead, then you already have tickets to this show, and if you're a recent convert to the underground scene, expect to leave the club with three 6s branded onto your forehead.

B.B. King Blues Club, 237 W. 42nd St. (betw. 7th & 8th Aves.), 212-997-4144, 7, $30, $25 adv.

Travis Jeppesen ATTACK OF THE FIFTY-FOOT REELS This evening heralds the long-awaited, third annual, "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Reels," where over-30 folks turn in super-8 footage to be seen for the first time (even by themselves) in front of a fairly large audience. It's a bawdy crowd for "filmmakers"-you know, the sort who like to chug a few at home while watching that bitchin' graviton scene in The 400 Blows one last time before heading out on a Saturday night. Lord knows we'll all need something to steady our nerves this year, as tonight promises the return of the infamous and highly controversial El Toro Blanco. KNITTING FACTORY, 74 Leonard St. (betw. B'way and Church St.), 212-219-3006, 6:30, $7. NOSTALGIA TRAIN Today, the Transit Museum parties like it's 1905, rolling out a more vintage than vintage train. Replete with wicker seats and overhead fans, the train that retro-straphangers can ride today was the first line that extended to the then-distant countryside of the Bronx. Follow the same path today-the landscape may have changed, but the train hasn't. The tour begins & ends at Grand Central. NY TRANSIT MUSEUM, Gallery Annex, Grand Central Terminal, 42nd st. (Park Ave. S.), RSVP, 718-694-1867, 10, $30. DWI TOUR WITH THE MODERN DRUNKARD Yes, folks, there is another magazine coming to an overflowing stack of unread magazines near you. But keep the groans in check; it isn't another scenester fashion glossy. It's about drinking and drunks. It's about you, me and our co-mingling puke on the floor. To celebrating their launch, the Modern Drunkard presents an evening of strippers, door prizes, music and booze, booze, booze. Including the Hanging Garden, the Sideshow Prophets, Fisherman and Cisco Jeeters. ARLENE'S GROCERY, 95 Stanton St. (betw. Ludlow & Orchard Sts.), 212-358-1633, 8, $7. BENEFIT FOR NYC WATER In case nobody told you, in upstate New York there's been a movement to clear-cut some 550 acres of trees, and our water quality may be in serious danger. Renowned NYC musician Ben Perowsky, along with Oren Bloedow and Jennifer Charles of Elysian Fields, John Zorn, Anton Fier, DJ Olive Quartet and a slew of others put on a benefit concert to keep the city's drinking water pure. The least you can do is absorb some good jazz, and take interest in what constitutes 75 percent of our bodies. TONIC, 107 Norfolk St. (betw. Delancey & Rivington Sts.), 212-358-7501, 8, $15. MONDAY APRIL19 HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY Honor the memory of the dead by remembering the real-life Spielbergian character of Nicholas Winton, the English stockbroker who saved 669 Jewish Czech children from the Nazis-and told no one. Today MAKOR presents a special screening of Matej Minac's documentary Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good. The film is followed by a discussion with Minac and some of the rescued children. 35 W. 67th St. (betw. Columbus Ave. & Central Park W.), 212-601-1000, 7 & 9, $9-$15. TUESDAY APRIL20 OPEN CASTING FOR STREET PERFORMERS Are you obnoxiously outgoing and lacking in talent? Can you juggle? Fart on cue? Do you have a wardrobe of clashing, bright clothing? Can you stand really still for a long time while covered in silver body paint? Most importantly, can you stand the all-pervading smell of dead fish? This is your moment, young Jedi. Survive the open casting call, and a street performer slot at South St. Seaport is yours. Finally, that humanities degree can be put to use. SOUTH STREET SEAPORT, Pier 17, South St. (Fulton St.), 212-SEAPORT, 12-2 & 5-7, free. THE BUTCHIES Kaia Wilson has an impressive solo career going, but the Butchies remain stuck in a riot grrrl fantasy of Wilson (formerly of Team Dresch) creating punk tunes as catchy as the old fanzines claimed. They probably fare better in secondary markets, where lonely punks can pretend they're not listening to a plodding rock act. Besides, Kaia's old NYC fanbase is busy marketing $100 t-shirts and listening to house music. KNITTING FACTORY, 74 Leonard St. (betw. B'way & Church St.), 212-219-3006, 8, $10, $8 adv. Contributors: Adam Bulger, Jim Knipfel, Jeff Koyen, Aaron Lovell, Tanya Richardson, Sarah Shanok, J.R. Taylor, Dennis Tyhacz and Alexander Zaitchik.