The Beatdown

The alliance with Carrot Top, which distributes such estimable indie labels as Camera Obscura and Teenbeat, will ensure that Helmet R00m's catalogue is available throughout the United States and Canada, as well as Japan and parts of Europe. But don't expect to find Drop the Fear or Orbit Service -- whose latest efforts have garnered substantial airplay at stations across the country -- at any of the big-box retailers. "It doesn't mean we're going to be in Tower Records or anything," Frazier explains, "but venues sort of like Twist & Shout on a worldwide scale."

Frazier and company plan to celebrate the match with an all-ages show featuring Orbit Service, Drop the Fear and Mingo at the Mercury Cafe on Saturday, April 2.

Upbeats and beatdowns: Celebrate St. Paddy's Day at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 17, with Love Me Destroyer, Grace Like Gravity, Cost of Living, Signal to Noise, Mustangs and Madras, Frontside 5 and Bowery Boys at the Larimer Lounge, or with Three Miles West, Fifth of Meg, My Life's Worth, the Bad Directions, Jack Spratt, Gordon Frisbee and Chris K (the Goat) at the Oriental Theatre.

On Friday, March 18, Pacify, Negative Four and Tyfoid Mary quarantine the Soiled Dove; Varient, Soma, En Tu Oblivion and Ben Park Drive pop over to the Toad Tavern; Um Concious and Mercury Project hit Herman's Hideaway; and Bad Penny, Dead Beat Radio and Blind Harvest tear up Cricket on the Hill. And on Saturday, March 19, Savage Henry, 10 Cent Redemption, Trampolines and Tequila Mockingbird host the People's Fair kickoff party at the Soiled Dove; Release is over at Bender's Tavern; Brethren Fast will be at the Buffalo Rose raising Hell with the Angels -- Hells Angels, that is; and Denver Joe and the Lovesick Saddletramps hold court at the Cricket.

Finally, on Saturday, March 26, Cephalic Carnage celebrates the release of its brilliant new disc, Anomalies, at the Ogden Theatre, with Origin, Scott Bio's Army and Turambar.