Minnie, the fetching tambourinist for the TroJams, was a little out of her head Sunday at Hamilton’s and seemed to vainly announce from the stage that a beauty contest would forthwith be held, and the contestants would be herself, Junie Jumper of He-Ven and the Venus half of the duo Venus Penis.
Minnie insists she was misunderstood. She’d been at a wedding that afternoon, heard a stirring rendition of “For the Fairest,” and was in fact inviting the other two women (whom she insists she “worships”) onstage to sing along. But her improvisatory intro created dischord instead of harmony. Someone threw an apple. Rambunctious members of the crowd started catcalling their votes for fairest. Whatever the next song was going to be was ruined. And none of the women—who’d all been at that same wedding, that very afternoon—are speaking to each other. Some scenesters are prophesying a power struggle that could alter the territorial club universe as we know it. Some think that it will blow over like the guitar solo from “Sea Nymph.”
We’re inclined to believe Minnie. In the TroJams, she’s known as “the smart one,” the one who’s had the most to do with the band’s increasing regional fame. In any case, this battle is not over.

Tonight: George Streetsign at the Bullfinch, solo acoustic… The String Sillies at Hamilton’s. It’s a private bash for the classical music department at the college on the hill, but it shouldn’t be hard to crash… The Crimes of England and Utopia of Usurers arrive at D’ollaire’s on their “How to Help Annexation” tour. Best booking that club has had ever. Almost worth the high ticket price…

It started with the Two Sheets—Tom and Chuck, pals since high school—hanging bedsheets on the wall behind the stage at gigs. Then one night a drunken lout called out (more than once; thought he was clever) “Why do you call yourselves two sheets when you only have one?”
“Because we don’t give two sheets!” was the bright reply. Yet at the very next show, the duo not only hung a bedsheet behind them but in front of them as well. To further the joke, the band played only covers. Get it? A lot of the audience didn’t. Two Sheets emerged from between the sheets to find that over half the crowd had vamoosed.
Now Two Sheets—playing Thursday at Hamilton’s, where covers are de rigeur—works in more controllable sheet puns: they bring in sheets of paper, or sheets of ice (from the recent snowstorm). They say “Touché!” so it sounds like “Two sheets!” Where will it end? “Well, we’re never going to wear sheets. I can promise you that,” Tom sez.
Tonight: The Ecstatic Thief and Grave of Arthur at the Bullfinch, with lyrics so florid the music is superfluous… neo-sacred acts All is Grist and Ubi Ecclesia at St. Constant’s Church on Main… The Turkey and the Turk, Irish drinking songs, at Hamilton’s… An Evening With Come to Think of It at D’ollaire’s…