At last night’s CONVERGE show at the Middle East in Cambridge, it was evident the single clenched fist has replaced the double “devil horns” as the new symbol of metal solidarity.

The CQ Presents gig sold out a week in advance, it was obvious that no one decided to stay home, with each attending patron sporting either a dirty Sox hat, a neck tattoo, a neatly trimmed beard, or a combination of the three.

If you need evidence that time heals all wounds, look no further than Saturday's UNITY FEST, arriving a bit more than a year following Guru's tragic passing, and marking the first Boston appearance since his death by Gang Starr brethren DJ PREMIER. Whereas last May's tribute show at the Middle East was understandably bogged down with some weighty connotations (both mourning his death and calling for Solar's head), Saturday felt more like a straight up celebration of the man's life.

Let this be a lesson to all -- you lose in the finals of the Rock And Roll Rumble and your next video will be shot on a giant 1991 Sears Roebuck solid state camcorder.

Ahh, oh well, this new SPIRIT KID video still looks rad. "The Wrong Kind Of Money" was directed by the talented Avi Paul Weinstein, apparently a stealth garage-sale hawk and the man responsible for Spirit Kid's insanely cool stop-motion video for last year's "My Imagination."

Columbus, Ohio trio TIMES NEW VIKING started making distortion-heavy, home-recorded noise pop in 2005, later releasing records with Siltbreeze, Matador, Wichita, and, last month, Merge. Their new album, Dancer Equired!, is their first studio recording -- it loses much of the gritty, lo-fi hiss previously pinned as the band’s defining quality (Editor's note: we gave it 2.

Ellie Goulding is at the HoB on July 27

On Sale Today

Ellie Goulding | July 27 at the House of Blues, Boston | $25-$35 | On sale at 8 pm @ livenation.com

On Sale Thursday, May 26

Stephen Marley: "Revelation Part 1: The Roots of Life Tour" | July 15 at the House of Blues, Boston | $25-$35 | On sale at 10 am @ livenation.

GA'AN, Skimask, and Fat History Month tore up Allston’s Problem House last night. In between fits of allergic sneezing in a dusty basement, I stood at the front of the room, next to the only light bulb, soaking up every second of it.

The set from Chicago trio Ga'an consisted of jams that swayed nimbly across a psychedelic progressive soundscape, very reminiscent of Manhattan’s electro psych band Gang Gang Dance.

It was a awesome sight a week ago last Monday night at O’Brien’s Pub in Allston, where a punk bar once famous for a guy taking a shit in the middle of the floor during a show was host to a boisterous queer dance party where drag queens hit the stage to belt out Cher and Rihanna jams. But just as tight as a tuck between the legs was the bizarre live performance from HUNNIE BUNNIES, a sort-of Peaches-on-crack electro-noise duo that threw down a kamikaze of beats, screams, and loops while draped in ratty old gowns and covered in some sort of weird lubricant.

So you’re sitting at your desk, looking at the clock. Not even noon. More than five hours before you can ghost-town that drab-ass fluorescent-bulb office, breaking out through the front doors of doom like some pale-faced Boo Radley motherfucker finally allowed to see the light of a beautiful summer day.

I'm heading to Detroit tonight. In fact, by the time you read this, it's likely that I'll be en route. While you're lounging about this Memorial Day weekend, drinking all the beers and surely enjoying some ace tunes, I'll be doing the same, except the tunes that I'm ingesting will have a much lower bass resonance and will be moving to a 4/4 drum kick.

We're handing out the 2011 BMP Awards -- No shit! Actual handmade craptastic trophies! Announced by people you may recognize! It all goes down at Brighton Music Hall on June 15. (Our annual Best Music Poll issue hits the stands hours later, and the results will be available for posterity at bestmusicpoll.

As promised last week, COACHELLA made its "big announcement for 2012" this morning, and no, it's not a Smiths reunion. California's already-massive spring music and arts festival will double in size next year, expanding across two weekends under the blazing Indio sun to accomodate increasing ticket demand.

My Morning Jacket is at the BoA Pavilion on August 14 [with Neko Case]

On Sale Today

Tinariwen | November 18 at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston | $200 | On sale at now @ livenation.com

On Sale Thursday, June 2

Alkaline Trio + Mewithoutyou + The Drowning Men | August 11 at the Paradise Rock Club, Boston | $19.

It was worth the wait — BIG FREEDIA, New Orleans’s sissy-bounce queen (she identifies as female, y’all), rocking those butts at Brighton Music Hall in a Boston debut on Memorial Day. Freedia (pronounced Freda), doesn’t rap exactly — she exhorts, she coaches, she commands. Her hooks are rapid-fire repetitions of her titles: “AZZeverywhere! AZZeverywhere! AZZeverywhere!” And a lot of incantation that sounds like “wackawackwackawacka,” or — more to the point “wobblewobblewobblewobblewobble.

When DOM hit the WFNX Clambake a fortnight from tomorrow (ahem, June 16), the Worcester post-whatever-pop heroes will have a slew of fresh new jams to blast out onto Lansdowne Street. A bit unexpectedly, Astralwerks is dropping a new Dom EP, Family of Love, on August 9, roughly six months after it polished up and re-released the band’s 2010 breakthrough debut Sun Bronzed Greek Gods

Although the MACROTONES aren't niche snobs who get aggravated with the “world music” label often thrust upon them, vague pigeonholes hardly do justice to this Charlestown 10-piece, which romances any number of micro-scenes on a regular basis. Originally formed three years ago as an Afro-funk collective built to break authentic grooves à la Antibalas, they've evolved into a hybrid fit for freaking fans of jazz, boom-bap, roots reggae, and acid-worthy jam bands.

Hey remember that time at the #Rumble when Keith Pierce of MELLOW BRAVO ended continued his band's set at T.T. The Bear's by running offstage, guitar in hand, and ran outside onto Brookline Street and jumped atop parked cars? Well if bro-sef pulls that shit during tomorrow night's Booze Cruise, he's gonna be swimin' in tha hahbah

Hey nevermind this got canceled. Too good to be true.

First, the good news: Austin, Texas, minimalist pop trio LOVE INKS are in town tonight, playing O’Brien’s Pub in Allston. The bad news: Their Boston debut falls on the same night as Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final. Potentially good (if not entirely helpful) news: They’re not from Vancouver.

When visiting a new city for the first time, you're bound to encounter at least a few trials and tribulations along the way -- parking, navigation, finding a decent place to eat, etc. Somewhat daunting, but I've always looked at it as more of an adventure than anything. But if that new city already happens to be as trialed and tribulated as Detroit? Well, there's a good chance that city may chew you up and spit you out, snatching up your car, cell phone, and hotel reservations in the process.