Third to None CD Release Party
Trinity United Methodist Church, Saturday

Ahhh, you gotta love virgins. Wait, before you get confused, this isn’t the adult section—we mean to say that for all the members of Third to None, this is their very first band, which is quite impressive. Very much so, in fact—in three short years, the precocious pop-punkers have shared stages with a number of the genre’s bigwigs, including Autopilot Off, Simple Plan, and, well, Bigwig. Sure, they’ve had a few bad experiences along the way, including the hiring of an opportunistic manager (with whom they’ve since parted ways), but with the release of their debut full-length CD, The Best Secrets, their future is looking awfully bright. Saturday’s all-ages show at Trinity Church on Lark Street will be your first chance to get a hold of the new disc, and you’ll get it for free if you’re one of the first 50 people through the door. Streetlight Manifesto, Big D and the Kids Table, This Time Tomorrow, and Rory Breaker share the bill. (July 10, 7 PM, $10, 476-1000)

2 x 4
Valentine’s, Saturday

The downstairs show that will take place at Valentine’s on Saturday has been affectionately dubbed 2 x 4 because of the nature of the lineup: There will be eight musicians presented two at a time, starting with the Burdens, comprising Karin Stack and Richard Scullin, a drums-and-guitar duo who call their music yard-sale rock. Next up are the Kiss-Ups, a pop-punk pair (Paul Heath and Michael Wilcock) with drums and bass as their instruments of choice. Then will come Ruth Keating and Matt Sutton, aka the Malarkies, who have been expanding their sound beyond drums and guitar as of late, thanks mainly to a baritone guitar (not to mention the banjo, glockenspiel, pianos and wurlitzer). Finally, we have the amazing Five Alpha Beatdown from Iceland, a band who’ll appear in their original lineup: Magnus Stenbösterssen as frontman-guitarist and Georg Jorvic-Englar on drums. These two chaps have flown in especially for the special 2 x 4 occasion. (July 10, 8 PM, $5, 432-6572)

Juliana Hatfield, the Damnwells
Iron Horse Music Hall, Sunday

This one really shouldn’t elicit nostalgia, but we can’t help but reflect on the salad days of the early alternative movement when we think of Juliana Hatfield. Ahh, those were the days, weren’t they? Maybe it’s not so out of line to reflect, as Ms. Hatfield hasn’t had a proper “hit” since the one-two punch of “My Sister” and “Spin the Bottle” from her 1993 major-label debut, Become What You Are. What you may not have noticed is that she’s stealthily continued to release album after album of light, guitar-based alternapop over the last decade-or-so that, with the exception of the disastrous “hard rock” album Total System Failure, have matched or exceeded the standards she set for herself back in the days before Generation Xers had a firsthand dose of male pattern baldness. Reality really does bite after all. Brooklyn-based roots rockers the Damnwells will open with a bunch of tunes from their Sony/Red Ink debut, Bastards of the Beat. (July 11, 7 PM, $15 , 413-584-0610)

Saliva, Earshot, Skillet
Northern Lights, Monday

It’s Spider-Man season again, and with it comes another dose of Saliva. Sure, the Memphis-based hard rockers came to prominence a few years back with singles like “Your Disease” and “Click Click Boom” (from their second album, Every Six Seconds), but it was “Hero,” the awfully Seal-esque love theme from the first Spider-Man film (not to mention a duet with the über-earnest Chad Kroeger of Nickelback) that really put Saliva frontman Josey Scott on the alternative nation’s collective radar. Scott and company capitalized on that single’s success by loading up their next release, Back Into Your System, with moodier, more topical fare like “Always” and “Rest in Pieces”—the latter penned by our candidate for “most unexpected songwriter-to-the-stars,” former Mötley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx. The band will perform on Monday night in anticipation of their upcoming fourth disc, Survival of the Sickest; Earshot and Skillet open. (July 12, 7:30 PM, $15 , 371-0012)

Rock and Soul 2004 Revue
Pepsi Arena, Wednesday

Daryl Hall and John Oates were a soft-rock-single machine, with six platinum albums and six No. 1 singles through the ’70s and ’80s. Hits like “Private Eyes” and the ever-memorable “Maneater” have carved these men and their hair into our collective memory, and are back with their blue-eyed-soul brethren for this summer’s Rock and Soul Revue tour. We understand that these shows last upwards of three hours and the performers promise to deliver lots of soul classics as well as their own material. And this format should work really well for Michael McDonald, the soothing baritone voice of the Doobie Brothers, whose recent Motown album is all soul covers. (The question remains whether he’ll be so adventurous as to attempt Warren G’s “Regulate,” which samples McDonald’s 1982 hit, “I Keep Forgettin’ (Every Time You’re Near).”) Let us not forget the kings of Scottish soul-funk, the Average White Band, who will hold down the opening slot of this stop of the Rock and Soul Revue. (July 14, 7 PM, $63.50-$43.50, 476-1000)

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