High skull musical: Mr. Deadguy will serve as the evening's MC.

A-List

>>Tomb Ravers

Zombie Prom
Sun., Sept. 30, 8pm. $7. Trocadero, 1003 Arch St. 215.922.LIVE. www.thetroc.com

It’s the morning after the Philly Zombie Crawl Zombie Prom and Joe Flyblown wakes up confused, his head throbbing something rotten. “Urgh?” He tries to draw upon the power of every brain he’s ever eaten to figure whose mausoleum he’s rising from the dead in. Slowly the haze curls away like wisps of green graveyard swamp fog retreating from the slowly rising sun. As he untwists the worm-eaten tuxedo he slept in, he remembers dancing to a monster mix by DJs Robert Drake and Dave Ghoul. He hasn’t busted moves like that since “Thriller.” His neck is stiffer than usual from rocking out to live bands Live Not on Evil and the Young Werewolves. Or from wearing the Zombie Prom king crown all night. Then, as he picks up his ragged pants from the cold stone floor, a photo slips out. “Urgh!” He sees himself kissing the half-decomposed darling he just now remembers taking home. Then he recalls, with displeasure, how later she just laid there. Like a corpse. Still, the Zombie Prom was the most fun he’d had since rigor mortis set in, and he wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Not even a free plateful of sweet, sweet brains. (Jean Luc Renault)

Eileen Myles

>>Cunning Linguists

C.A. Conrad/Eileen Myles/Hal Sirowitz
Fri., Sept. 28, 6pm. Free. Robin’s Bookstore, 108 S. 13th St. 215.735.9600. www.robinsbookstore.com

It’s synchronicity, dude, and this week all signs point to Eileen Myles. Running into her books while browsing the bookstore. Innocently open up the Cunninglingus Edition of Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace poetry journal, and there she is riffing on slurping “baby’s apricot” on the first page. Then lo! A just-announced Eileen Myles reading at Robin’s. Myles is an eff-you poet with glass guts—the rockstar of the avant-garde clitterati, the fierce phoenix of the ’70s East Village punk scene. C.A. Conrad, savage mayor of Philly’s poetry scene, is a gentle Buddha with a truck driver’s mouth. Last up is Hal Sirowitz, former poet laureate of Queens and bona fide poetry cult figure. His appearances in Norway have been likened to Beatlemania. Depressing evidence that Norwegians are way more advanced than us heathens. (Tara Murtha)

>>Tats entertainment

Jake La Botz Tattoo Across America Tour
Mon., Oct. 1, 7:30pm. Free. Liberty Tattoo, 4000 Skippack Pk., Skippack. 610.222.4220. www.libertytattoopa.com

Postmodern bluesman Jake La Botz is taking his tunes right to the people. Jake’s wild years were spent working in factories, shaking gin-soaked juke joints and howling a busker’s bittersweet streetcorner blues cross-country till, he says, he ran out of land and ended up at the ocean. He fell in with the tattoo crowd while licking wounds in L.A., inspiring him to both scratch more ink into his limbs (his first tattoo, at 14, was done street-style with Indian ink and a sewing needle) and pioneer the tattoo-shop circuit. This year he’s bringing his foggy funereal ballads and Rolling Stones-y breezy blooze thumps to 21 tattoo parlors in 31 days. Not that the ink-free can’t appreciate La Botz’s sensitive tough-guy charm. He’s got a voice box that’s been basted in battery acid then gravel-kicked through voodoo-plagued backroads rife with sins and whispered secrets. In other words he gets Tom Waits comparisons galore. Go ahead and seek the blues at a tattoo parlor. And maybe freshen up that sacred heart that bled through the lines. (T.M.)

>>I’m With the banned

Banned Books Reading
Mon., Oct. 1, 7pm. Free. Free Library, 1901 Vine St. 215.567.4341. www.library.phila.gov

There’s nothing worse than losing one’s ignorance and learning how fucked up and repressive our country can be. Case in point: This week is Banned Books Week, where groups like the American Library Association and Amnesty International come together to celebrate our freedom to write and read whatever we want—and also to highlight the insidious encroachment on this basic freedom. Every year there are hundreds of attempts to ban books from American schools and libraries. Titles targeted include classics like Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A scan of the 100 most-challenged books between 1990 and 2000 reveals that blue-nose America particularly hates sex, homosexuals and Judy Blume, who amazingly has five books on the list. Monday night at the Free Library, Philly ACLU presents a night of readings from these “dangerous” books by local celebrities including Inquirer columnist Faye Flam and film critic Carrie Rickey. Hosted by WXPN’s Gene Shay, it’s a great chance to give the finger to the fundamentalists and bigots, while remembering just how powerful and liberating literature can be. Give me Judy Blume or give me death. (Jack Schonewolf)