CRITIC'S CHOICE

Tenderloin, with Reverend Horton Heat and Useless Playboys, Friday, December 2, at the Boulder Theater, and Saturday, December 3, at the Ogden Theatre, is well named, for this group from Lawrence, Kansas, is meaty and quite possibly bad for you. Still, that's no reason to stay away. The foursome, together for less than a year and a half, makes a racket that owes as much to ZZ Top as it does to the Sex Pistols. On the tastefully named Qwest/Warner Bros. album Let It Leak, lead singer Ernie Locke plays a mean harmonica, shouts out dopey lyrics about carousing and self-abuse that suggest a great breadth of experience in each of these areas, and otherwise proves that rock music still can provide a laugh or two when it's played in the right spirit. Tenderloin: It's what's for dinner.