This might be a good weekend to rent a car. New London radio station WCNI is throwing itself a fundraiser, and apparently the folks there like garage punk or something. The line-up? The Dictators, the Lyres, the Fleshtones, and the Reducers. But that’s just the old cats. There’s also the Damn Personals, Bunnbrains, Seratonin, Flesh Hammer, and some other shit we’ve never heard of. That’s on Mother’s Day at Ocean Beach Park (860-439-5417) in New London. The Dictators will also be at Lilli’s (617-591-1661) in Somerville on May 25.

Speaking of old punks: a couple of CBGB’s vets come through this week. Former Talking Head David Byrne (see " Off the Record, " in Arts) hits Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence tonight (May 10) and the Paradise (617-423-NEXT) in Boston on Friday. And the original punk poet, Patti Smith, is at Toad’s Place (203-624-8623) in New Haven on Friday and at the Paradise on Sunday.

If you needed any more proof that Pauly Shore is an idiot, just click your way over to www.paulyshore.com, which — even given Pauly’s own brand of cultivated infantilism — represents some new low in pathetic, needy, vapid self-promotion. Features include " My Ex-Girlfriends, " a gallery of cheesy jpegs of the Wease and his sub-starlet conquests dating back to high school, and " Celebs I’ve Hung With, " a gallery of cheesy jpegs of the Wease with a variety of rockers (Limp Bizkit, Korn, Perry Farrell), starlets he didn’t manage to screw (Pam Anderson, Anna Nicole Smith), aging comedians (Cheech Marin, a disabled Richard Pryor), and other leeches. You can also preview some cheesy semi-autobiographical film he’s trying to sell. Or you can just catch Shore in the flesh at the Comedy Connection (617-248-9700) in Boston this Friday through Sunday.

Among the bands caught posing with Pauly Shore are Springfield’s own Staind, whose association with another moron, Fred Durst, has finally blossomed into a couple of full-fledged pop hits. Last year singer Aaron Lewis scored an unlikely hit with " Outside, " an unreleased song that appeared only as a bonus-track live acoustic duet with Durst on the 1999 Family Values tour CD. Staind’s forthcoming Break the Cycle (Flip/Interscope) takes the hint and intersperses their usual big-metal chops with intimately arranged ballady-type numbers like " It’s Been Awhile, " which is already inescapable on MTV and modern-rock radio. You can catch Staind at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom (603-929-4100) in New Hampshire on Friday, at Meadows Music Theatre (860-548-7370) in Hartford on Saturday, and at Lupo’s on Wednesday. They’re also expected to play a radio-station-sponsored gig at Axis (617-262-2437) in Boston on May 23. In other metal goings-on, Alice in Chains guitarist/mastermind Jerry Cantrell hits Lupo’s on Friday and the Webster Theatre (860-525-5553) in Hartford on Sunday. And ICP knockoffs the Kottonmouth Kings lead a kooky karavan including the Phunk Junkeez and Sprung Monkey into Axis on Monday and Lupo’s on Tuesday.

Issue Date: May 10 - 17, 2001