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[Future Events]

CLASH CITY: One of the more inspiring returns-to-form of the very late 20th century was Clash frontman Joe Strummer’s re-emergence — on Rancid’s Hellcat imprint — with an album called Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, and an unbelievable tour that found him in top form backed by his new band, the Mescaleros. Lost amid the two million folks sucking down the new ’N Sync album, Strummer and the Mescaleros released their second disc last week, Global A Go-Go (also on Hellcat), and they return to the States this October, including an October 12 show at the Palladium, 261 Main Street in Worcester. Tickets are on sale now; call (800) 477-6849.

ARTSTUFF: Northeastern University’s third annual summer cross-cultural arts festival brings a fortnight’s worth of film, theater, dance, and music to the school’s Huntington Avenue campus this month. Artstuff kicks off with the Roxbury Film Festival, a long weekend (August 16 through 19) of features, videos, shorts, and documentaries. Fred Ho and the Afro-Asian Jazz Trio find common ground in a "jazz/martial arts ballet" entitled Once upon a Time in Chinese America on Saturday August 18. The Slant Performance Group, a trio in residence at NYC’s La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, bring their satirical Big Dicks, Asian Men in the weekend of August 25 and 26. And members of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange constitute the Dance Exchange Express, which performs a collaborative community-dance work on August 25. For tickets and more info, call (617) 373-2247.

NEXT WEEKEND

Incredibly Strange Wrestling

It’s been an insane summer on the Warped Tour for Audra Angeli-Morse, the robust-voiced creator and promoter of Incredibly Strange Wrestling, a San Francisco–based melange of DIY æsthetics, Mexican wrestling, and sociocultural satire. Over the phone from a tour stop in Orlando, Angeli-Morse says that aside from the implicit absurdity involved in managing a roster of unconventional brawlers — including El Homo Loco, a sexually ambivalent matman whose outfit is garnished with a ballerina’s tutu and a tuft of feathers, and the Ku Klux Klown, a pathological racist who never wins a match — she’s been juggling injuries ("Risa de Muerte has had two concussions within three weeks, so we’re figuring that he probably should go home"), grappling with nasty weather ("in Calgary, this huge monsoon hit"), and "making sure that guys in Sasquatch outfits don’t die in the heat."

On top of all that, Incredibly Strange Wrestling has had to wrangle with a bureaucratic arm of the law. "The state of Washington is very strict about its wrestling rules. They wanted us to have 48-hour drug testing, full physicals, and blood tests for congenital diseases. They wanted us to purchase wrestling licenses, announcer licenses, and referee licenses. They wanted me to purchase a promoter license, and then they wanted to take five percent of the gross box office of the Warped Tour, plus our pay for the day. Needless to say, we were not allowed to wrestle in the state of Washington."

Then there was that phone call. "The head of the Church of Scientology left a message on my office machine saying, ‘We hear that you are using the Church of Scientology name and our book. Ah, maybe you’d like to call us back.’ "

And how exactly is Incredibly Strange Wrestling using the Church of Scientology name? That would be the tag team 69 Degrees (a moussed-up spoof of the third-tier boy band 98 Degrees), who ooze a Travolta-like affinity for L. Ron Hubbard. "They come out and sing super cheesy songs — they’re terrible — and then they cut the music and talk about how you need to take the Dianetics personality test and get your anagram done. Occasionally their opponents get a book to the head."

Although Angeli-Morse admits that "we do pit 69 Degrees against homosexuals," she laughingly insists that the proselytizing duo aren’t sullying Scientology’s rep. "We’ve only ever put them in a positive light, so they [the heads of the Church] shouldn’t have much to say. And all of the Dianetics books that we use, I purchased from the San Francisco Church of Scientology. They solicited them to me, and I bought them, so they have no one to blame but themselves."

As for what madness to expect when Incredibly Strange Wrestling hits Boston, Angeli-Morse hopes the only controversies will be scripted, like the bigoted antics of Warped Tour–inspired scrapper Oi Boy. "He’s the little skinhead character, and he always goes against a little Mexican character. The angle is, ‘First time ever, see it here at Incredibly Strange Wrestling, a skinhead fighting one-on-one.’ "

But the skewering of such un-PC archetypes isn’t meant to be offensive. Really. "Don’t take anything seriously," Angeli-Morse begs. "Just laugh and bring tortillas."

Incredibly Strange Wrestling appears at the Warped Tour next Thursday August 9, at Suffolk Downs, in East Boston, with D12, Rancid, Rollins Band, Dropkick Murphys, Alien Ant Farm, Kool Keith, Pennywise, Bouncing Souls, and H20. Call (800) 477-6849.

BY CAMILLE DODERO

Issue Date: August 2 - 9, 2001