Got a fancy flier for a Blats show next Saturday, outdoors on Lancelyn Green. But didn’t we recently report that The Blats were The Blits now? Our integrity at stake, grizzled investigative news guy that we are, we sidled up to the band at the Bullfinch and got more bull than we expected. First, official band pain-in-the-ass (i.e. self-styled “manager”) “Spawn” Smith said he forgot he’d mailed out news of the name change, which he says is “still under discussion.” (Got it right here in the files, Spawny, if you want proof.) Then, for no apparent reason, he backtracked. “Since this is an out-of-town show”—true, Lancelyn’s nearly six miles from here!—“we thought it was best to go with the established name.” Established to who: singer Sonny Blitt’s parents? The gig, by the way, is not only in another town but another era of time—The Blits play on one of the outlying stages at the Lancelyn Green Renaissance Faire. “They’re pretty loose about who plays that stage,” The Blits/Blats’ Sonny Blitt told me (while Spawn kept trying to interrupt). “They told us we didn’t have to change what we do. But we might throw some “thees” and “thous” in there just for fun.”
Renaissance Faire types don’t mind holding festivals in the dead of winter, apparently, because they wear body armor or bustles or whatever. If it snow, the fest simply moves inside to the field’s unheated barn. Also on tap, entertainment-wise: “Cavalcade of Dragons” and, uh, “Cavalcade of Magicians.” Oh, The Blats should fit in just fine.

In more modern and consistent times: Singing Rose gets the midweek acoustic happy hour slot at the Bullfinch, while the only-ever-electric Satyr Plays and Lord High Tiger rule the same place with a one-two swipe on Thursday night… Tellers of Tales and The Beaver Book dwell between the covers at Hamilton’s on Friday, for the college crowd. It really is Beaver Book, by the way, not Beaver Brook, though we hear they may be changing their name to Beaver Blats, since it’s all the rage…