He's going to show you a night on the town -- his kind of town, that is...

Illustration by HEATHER ERWIN

By Jeff Spevak
Democrat and Chronicle

(October 11, 2001) -- As Sinatra once sang, ''My Kinda Town, Rochester Is.''

Well, that song was kind of a regional release. Not a lot of people bought it.

But my town has potential. To prove it, I'll be your tour guide to some of the cool places infested by my own personal Rat Pack, places where you'll find action and attitude on a weekday night.

And, as Sinatra also sang, we'll be going till ''the wee small hours.''

Early evening at Monty's Korner, 363 East Ave. Owner Will Taggart, a real live Englishman, has created an authentic pub feel in his two clubs, Monty's Krown and Monty's Korner. It's the English beers on tap, not the guys at the bar with crooked teeth, that do the job.

Taggart has been booking some offbeat music as well: local punks, feminist singers, guys playing Tibetan prayer bowls.

Off to Shep's Paradise, 293 Clarissa St. The Corn Hill institution has the dark and cordial atmosphere of an old Chicago blues club, with red-checked tablecloths and a juke box stuffed with Walter ''Wolfman'' Washington. Oh-too-trendy clubs pay college-
educated interior designers a lot of money to create the kind of elegantly cheesy, authentic aura that Shep's has accumulated in its third decade as a monument against the blind eye of urban renewal.

The best thing about Shep's is that owner Ruther Sheppard means it when he hangs a disco ball; a friend calls it ''pre-irony.''

But by 8 p.m. we gotta be at the Bop Shop in the Village Gate Square. If store owner Tom Kohn has something booked for the acoustically excellent atrium outside his door, it's a don't-miss for the musically adventurous.

''I lose $200 to $300 every show I put on,'' Kohn says, but he figures it's advertising that goes straight to his target demographic: Anyone who will sit through a jazz band playing Middle Eastern rhythms will groove on the esoteric music found in a store that refuses to carry Michael Bolton CDs. ''They've already stepped over the threshold of curiosity by coming here,'' he says.

Seek deep roots at Milestones, 170 East Ave., and Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, 99 Court St. The planets align in harmonic convergence more frequently than we dare ask, with dynamic national acts rocking just a few blocks from each other. One such blessed Wednesday this summer began with Rosie Flores, Nashville's Rockabilly Filly, playing an early show at Milestones.

Between enthusiastic pitches on the life-enhancing qualities of Uncle Ralph's Magic Sauce, Flores brought a parade of local talent onstage: Bobby Henrie of Bobby Henrie and the Goners, Kurt Wilmarth of Croonin' Kurt and His High-Geared Combo and Frank DeBlase of the Frantic Flattops.

Flores -- who chatted with almost everyone in the bar after her show -- and the rest of the roots-music crowd then ambled down to the Dinosaur for the Tarbox Ramblers.

Whatta revelation. Hillbilly anthems such as ''Honey in the Rock'' were amped up to a danceable level by Cajun fiddle, unwieldy upright bass, back-porch percussion and electric slide guitar.

The Boston quartet is Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?'s Soggy Bottom Boys come to life. They look like the scuffed-up employees at a junkyard who stumbled across a bunch of musical instruments in the back of a rusted delivery van and started playing.

Next, be a regular guy at Rab's Woodshed, 4440 Lake Ave. If this is Thursday night, that must be Jeff Elliott at Rab's Woodshed, on Lake Avenue in Charlotte. Elliott knows some John Prine if he ever lands an upscale gig at Tonic. For the Woodshed's blue-collar crowd, Elliott unleashes a repertoire of Jimmy Buffett and drinking songs. Here, Big Mouth Billy Bass looks perfectly comfortable screwed to the wall.

Elliott's between-song wisecracks are worth the price of admission, which on this night is free. After a Beach Boys song, Elliott helpfully points out that there's a live-bait machine at the Wilson Farms next door.

Let's check out that Wilson Farms thing. ...Elliott wasn't joking! There is a live-bait machine at Wilson Farms. It's $2.50 for a dozen ''premium'' nightcrawlers. One drawback: To anyone stumbling out of the Woodshed after going one
Labatt's over the line, the live-bait machine looks like a soft-drink dispenser.

Last call at the Bug Jar, 219 Monroe Ave. Significant national acts of no importance love the Bug Jar. Far from the maddening mainstream, over-the-top punks rant from the stage as the dark souls of Rochester's underground-music
cognoscenti lounge amid the Jar's psychedelic-kitsch decor.

Last Thursday, New York City's Heroine Sheiks stopped by. Lead singer Shannon Selberg -- sometimes referred to as the ''Crispin Glover of the noise-rock community'' -- spared the crowd his usual stunts, which have included taking the stage wearing nothing but well-placed shaving cream.

But the Bug Jar is an intimate club, and getting your privates in a lather would be inappropriate. Instead, the Sheiks sat at the bar after the show with the few Rochesterians who refused to let the night go, drinking beers till the wee small hours of the morning.