Rock 'n' roll dyanmo

"Sometimes before a show, I feel like I'm gonna faint, 'cause I know what I want to deliver to people. I wanna create a little tornado, I want people to be able to channel their energies through me. It's a really spiritual process. Yes, it's intimidating. Sometimes, I'm at the mercy of my expertise, but I wanna wake everybody up in the room. My big mission is [that] it serve as an antidote to apathy and fear." So says Juliette Lewis (inset), actress and lead singer-songwriter of the very credible punk rock band Juliette & the Licks, which played a leg of the Warped Tour this summer and is at Axis tonight. Lewis -- who's played a bad girl in "Kalifornia," "Natural Born Killers," and other films -- looks at her dual life in music and film this way: "I'm a dramatist, an emotionalist. I work in movies, it's my livelihood. I love it. But it can be a very frustrating art. It's more insular. I'm not connected with an audience, and I'm telling other people's stories. . . . Music, I wake up with it, I go to bed with it, I breathe it. I can express emotions on a visceral level that I can't through film." Supporting acts for the 7 p.m., all-ages show are Salem and Val Emmich. Tickets: $12. 13 Lansdowne St., 617-262-2437.

Testify! These blues feel good ...
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is now the Blues Explosion. This does not mean singer-guitarist Spencer has flown the coop. Just the opposite. "We are a band, always have been a band, and it just felt right," Spencer says about dropping his name. "I've always called it Blues Explosion. Some people think it wasn't the best thing to do, from a marketing or career move, but we've always cut our own path." And although Spencer shouts out exhortations about the blues in song, he says, "We were never a blues band. It's kind of snuck up on us. You could also make the argument that (the new CD) 'Damage' is kind of a blues record. We do take serious influence from the blues and we did an apprenticeship under (blues singer) R. L. Burnside. But we are a rock 'n' roll band. The name was chosen with that in mind, the spirit of early rock 'n' roll. It's not a post-modern nod or a wink of the eye." The Blues Explosion is at the Paradise tonight for an 18-plus show with the Rogers Sisters opening at 9. Tickets: $17. 967 Commonwealth Ave., 617-562-8800.

Travel! Or at least hear about it ...
w/pix-js We've never trekked up Fujiyama, the highest mountain in Japan, and we never will. Susan Orlean has, however, and she writes about it, and marvels at the whole of Japan spread out beneath her, none of which she could see because of massive fog. In "My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere," she takes us to Bangkok, to George W. Bush's hometown of Midland, Texas, Havana, an Oregon trailer park, all kinds of places. Tonight at Lesley University, Orlean will joined by Barbara Sjoholm (formerly Barbara Wilson, author of "Gaudi Afternoon'') in a program The Center for New Words has put together called "Converge/Emerge: Women of the World." Sjoholm is the author of "Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea." In this book, Sjoholm goes back to 16th century Irish clan chieftain O'Malley who liked nothing more than raiding English ships caught of Ireland's west coast. Sjoholm herself traveled the North Atlantic for four months searching out stories of sea witches, mermaids, storm goddesses, cross-dressing sailors and the like. Tonight, the two writers will swap stories. The gig is billed as a "freewheeling discussion on the art and adventure of women's travel and the craft of writing all about it." It takes place at Marran Theater at 7 and is free. no street number given by Lesley Univ. Mellen St., Cambridge, 617-876-5310.this is the center for new words number for info-js

Laugh! Or cry ...
Bill Maher, a rabidly anti-Bush comic and host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher," started urging people to vote for Bush leading up to the election because it would make Maher's job easier. (Yes, we think he was joking.) We don't know exactly how Boston area comic Brian Longwellfeels about the election. His piece at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway is called "I Didn't Vote for George W.," but it's not something Longwell slapped together last week after the election results poured in. This show played under a different name, "Why Vote?," at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last August where it won a "Top 10 Festival Pick" from the London Times. And "I Didn't Vote for George W." was up and running here last month. But it's just been extended for three long weekends in Somerville and we're not certain that would have happened had the other guy won. Who would have cared? So Longwell, a self-proclaimed "non-motivational humorist/comedian/satirist/entrepreneur," must be having some mixed emotions about it all. He brings his political satire (and cheesy overhead projection visuals) to the stage tonight at 7:30. (Repeats tomorrow and Saturday, Nov. 11-13 and Nov. 18, 19 and 21.) Tickets: $15. 255 Elm St., Somerville, 617-591-1616.

Hot Food
Aerosmith's Joe Perry has attended a few record release parties in his day, but tonight at Jake's Dixie Roadhouse he'll be "dining and signing" (eating and autographing) to celebrate the release of Joe Perry's Hot Sauce, which will be featured on the shrimp, pork, and chicken entrees. The sauce, says Jake's owner Don Yovicsoncq. has "a lot of fruit, mango, and peaches up front, and then it's got what they call 'back heat.' Takes place from 7-9; entrees range from $14.95 to $19.95. Reservations strongly recommended. 220 Moody St., Waltham, 781-894-4227.

Classic Film
Today's your last chance to see a new print of the darkly humorous "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" on the big screen at the Kendall Square Cinema. Screenings at 2:35, 4:50, 7:10 and 9:25 p.m. Tickets: $9.25 for the later two shows and $6.50 for the first two shows. 1 Kendall Square, Cambridge, 617-499-1996.

Cool Music
David Bazan's musical vehicle Pedro the Lion checks into the Middle East Downstairs tonight. This version of Pedro is a trio that includes former Bostonian T.W. Walsh. Alternative Press calls their latest CD, "Achilles Heel," a "heartbreakingly brilliant album that unfolds itself slowly." Opening the 18-plus show at 9 is Starflyer 59. Tickets: $12. 472 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-864-3278.