Metal machine music
Alloy Orchestra, which formed in 1991, had played exactly one gig when film presenter David Kleiler Sr. had this idea: Why don't you guys write a score to accompany the silent film "Metropolis" and play along to it live? They wrote the music in a couple of weeks, performed it at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, and a career was born. "We had no concept this would be a career move, that this would be our lives," says percussionist Ken Winokur, who plays what he calls the Rack of Junk, featuring 50 to 60 items, including a bedpan. But it's become a full-time gig for Winokur, and a half-time gig for percussionist Terry Donahue and keyboardist Roger Miller, the latter joining seven years ago after cofounder Caleb Sampson's death. They do up to 70 shows a year, and just played the Telluride Film Festival. Roger Ebert calls them "the best in the world at accompanying silent films." The Alloys are performing to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu" tonight through Saturday at the Museum of Fine Arts. Winokur: "Our style, our exciting, percussion-based, energetic music is so perfectly suited for `Metropolis' we're able to charge the audience up. `Nosferatu' is creepy and intense and that's the other thing we do best. We pull out the stops in terms of anxiety. . . . When the audience is lit up, it's exciting onstage. Even though there's a film going you can tell when you've got them in your grip." Starts at 6 p.m. Tickets: $28 for both, or $20 for the first movie, "Metropolis."
465 Huntington Ave., 617-267-9300.
They should Coco
We sometimes think it's a bit cheesy when a band puts out what is essentially a "best of" album, and then tours behind it. It's as if its members are saying, "We have nothing new up our sleeves, but come pay money and see us play our catalog!" But when the band is Supergrass we must reconsider our position and say, "What's wrong with that! It's a bloody great catalog." Plus the Brit poppers are promising to return to England to record a new album right after this brief US tour -- which stops at the Paradise tonight. The CD out now is a 21-track affair called "Supergrass is 10: The Best of 94-04," and listening to it reminds us of what a great pop band it's been, with a knack for penning great singles. In this, Supergrass recalls the Undertones and Buzzcocks, first-generation punk rock bands that delivered pop nirvana. The fun starts at 9 with Chauncey opening. It's an 18-plus show. Tickets: $16.50.967 Commonwealth Ave., 617-562-8800.
Church of the poisoned mind?
When an artist's publicist refers to said artist as "our resident nutcase," you have to figure it's meant as a compliment. "I do take that as a compliment," says the artist in question, Adam Glasseye, who fronts the band Reverend Glasseye. "I try to keep from being a borderline Brian Wilson, but my natural tendency is to write the music I do. I get pretty nutty on people." Reverend Glasseye's music is a dramatic swirl of carnival and cabaret-like rock, with reference points being Firewater, Gogol Bordello, and Nick Cave. "I came to Boston and Berklee [College of Music] to learn to do soundtrack music and I couldn't deal with it," says Glasseye, who hails from Colorado and just moved to Providence. "But I took my love of orchestration and brought it into a rock band -- bringing that sensibility of highly arranged, sophisticated horn lines into a very stupid rock band. [The music] has its roots in evangelical shows and faith healers. I degrade myself for the crowd." Reverend Glasseye, which formed four years ago and will shortly release a CD called "Happy End and Begin," plays at 11 tonight at the Middle East Upstairs. Following the band is Beat Circus, which is celebrating the release of a new CD, "Ringleader's Revolt." One Ring Zero, Sob Sisters, and Curtis Eller are also on the bill and somewhere, in the midst of it all, will come comic relief from DJ Hazard. It's 18-plus with an $8 cover.472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-864-3278.
Greek to us
Go! is known not to be in favor of performers who insist on using a first name only, but when Effi's drummer and producer Dan Brown told us her last name, we agreed: Too confusing, too difficult to spell, too likely to land us in the corrections column on Page 2. Whereas Effi just rolls off the tongue. Effi, raised in Los Angeles, is now based in Watertown and has been on the local rock club circuit for the past few years. She has just released her second CD, "Sovereign Soul" -- one that Brown calls (hopefully) her "breakout CD" -- and she's playing a record release gig at Johnny D's tonight. We find the disc rather intoxicating, a heady mix of the familiar and the exotic. Says Brown: "I don't like using the word `alternative'; it's more like a global type of music. I would describe it as blues, heavily influenced by a Greek style of music. One of the biggest things in Greek music is the vocal work, and it runs in her family. Her grandfather was an opera singer, and her mother's a singer." Paul Ingels opens at 9, followed by the band Cahill, and then it's Effi and her backing duo. Cover: $10.17 Holland St., Somerville, 617-776-2004.
Events can always be canceled, rescheduled, or sold out; call to confirm. Go! can be reached at go@globe.com or 617-929-8257.
