SUN 7/11 at Silk City (5th & Spring Garden)
9:00, $7, 21+

V.I.P.
Somewhere between the nasty-ass electro of Peaches' Fatherfucker and the bukkake backdrop of Outkast's "Hey Ya" is the lo-fi, glitch-house squalor of V.I.P. On the debut, Mad Coke EP, DJ Andrew Ryan (Illoin, Black Mountain Collective), Peter Seprish (Walkie Talkies),MC Jonny Szymanski and Bear Smith prove they can make throbbing icy music and fey raps about partying down with "Viagra and wine," and "thugs sucking dicks for drugs" sound scarier than any crazy-ass rhymes since Kool Keith. Request "Chubby Chaser" then tell me this isn't Philly's best new band. (AD Amorosi, CP)

Gravy Train!!! (Kill Rock Stars)
Mollie's Mix, the latest Kill Rock Stars compilation, opens with a demo cut called "Titties Bounce." The final version of the song appears on Hello Doctor, Gravy Train!!!!'s full-length debut, and it's as infectious and ridiculous as the demo. Live-wire leader Chunx (not to be confused with bandmates Funx, Hunx and Drunx) is a riot-grrl diva determined to flaunt her scatological obsessions. She coos, catcalls, screams and raps about blow jobs, burgers and gender ambiguity, usually over bargain beats and tinny synths. We're talking about a band that seems on loan from John Waters, boasts an exclamation point for each member and named its website rapbitches.com. (Doug Wallen, PW)

JUST ADDED! Plastic Little
Plastik Lital, Plastique Likul, Plazdick Lidel, or quite plainly Plastic Little, is a hip-hop group that has been performing at various music venues and art galleries in the city of Philadelphia since the summer of 2001. Plastic LittleÆs perfect blend of party hip-hop, is due to the impeccable production of Michael SQUID, mixed perfectly with the emcee skills of Jon Folmar a.k.a Jon Thousand: The Human Hundred Dollar Bill, Jayson Musson a.k.a PackofRats and Kurt Hunte a.k.a No BodyÆs Child (NBC). Live shows are a blend of comic relief satire and hip hop flagrance, a social phenomenon, one can only understand once the experience has settled in. Look for a forthcoming EP aNYthing and a 7" on Sound Ink later this summer.

JUST ADDED! The "Where's My Pager?" DJ's
There was something so pure and unfettered about early-'90s pop hip-hop: the bad production, the odes to booty, the jammin'-in-the-back-of-the-school-bus-on-your-Walkman hits. It's with that in mind that DJs Promking, Phonee and Weezy indulge us with another episode of junior high nostalgia with Where's My Pager?, a night for all the old heads who go crazy for hip-hop's adolescent years. Don't front--you listened to that stuff way back in the way back too. (We've all got a few bad cassingles in the closet.) So get to practicing the Cabbage Patch and take a refresher lesson on the Kid 'n Play--you will be tested on the dance floor. Where's My Pager? promises all the Tone-Loc, Young M.C. and Vanilla Ice business you can stand, without any of the blinged-out rap you've grown used to. (Julie Gerstein, PW)

FRI 7/16 at Tritone (1508 South Street)
9:00, $8, 21+

This Radiant Boy (Record Release Show!)
Our city's most visible embodiment of indie-rock geekiness, This Radiant Boy comes off like a teenage Superchunk with a penchant for matching costumes. Their new EP, Shakedown at the Russian Disco, which documents five years of creative changes and growth. Shakedown is an honest to goodness shakedown of pop and indie music in the span of five songs.

Dragon City
Dragon City includes ex-members of the Persons and the Clocks and generally pays impressive tribute to the gods of shoegaze like Ride, Spacemen 3 and My Bloody Valentine. Two of the three songs on the band's demo top eight minutes, splitting that time evenly between meditation and turbulence. Even when affecting the snarl of '60s psychedelia, Dragon City is both maddening and fascinating in its opaqueness. (Doug Wallen, PW)

Fivehead (Austin, TX)
Hüsker Dü meets Guided by Voices. Austin's reigning indie rock kings sound like neither, yet incorporate the former's heart-on-sleeve demeanor and the latter's drunken young-adult angst. The long-awaited follow-up to 1999's It's Not All Good and It's Not Right On is due later this year on local indie stronghold Tight Spot Records, and documents the emergence of co-frontman Beaty Wilson as a sunnier foil to the firebrand songcraft of ex-Silver Scooter bassist John Hunt. (Michael Chamy, Austin Chronicle)

Regina Hexaphone (NC)
Regina Hexaphone has an eclectic folk-pop-rock sound that never leans too heavily in any of those three directions and sometimes goes off quite on its own. Members of Regina Hexaphone have been and continue to be musically active with a myriad of bands: Angels of Epistemology, Shark Quest, the Comas, Sparklehorse, the Frames,  Cat Power, and Belle and Sebastian.