THURSDAY APRIL 12

MUSIC--After 7 years of touring, succinctly gut-crackling cigarette-rockers Fuck have embarked on their "Farewell US Tour." That means it's their last tour ever, although if you want to get semantic, it's their last US tour. They're still recording albums, though. And we all know what happened when Prince stopped touring but kept recording albums: he started touring again. But you'd better go in case they're serious. JS

Meow Meow, 527 SE Pine St, 230-2111, 9 pm, $7, all ages

FRIDAY APRIL 13

MUSIC--Love a guitar/drum duo? So do I, especially when they can make the barest-bones instrumentals sound rocking and mathematical. That's why Bozart is so rad: They're two guys making glaring, kickass metal (and metal ballads!) with only two instruments. Even Metallica needed a bassist, so suck it up! JS

Ash Street, 225 SW Ash, 226-0430, 9 pm, $6

CRASH!!-- Yahoo! The Portland Speedway is open for the summer, and tonight features regular racing as well as a Figure 8 Clash, where hot rods blast around a figure-8 track and (we hope) smash each other to smithereens. However! If this is your first time at the Speedway, you must live by their rules: "No cans, glass, alcohol, fireworks, weapons, laser pointers, lawn chairs, large coolers, or profanity (written or verbal)." Get it? Got it? Good! WSH

Portland Speedway, 9727 N MLK Jr. Blvd, 285-2881, 7 pm, $10

DANCE--It is everything that Rent wishes that it was, has been, or ever will be. With an uncorked instrumental score by DJ Spooky and rousing choreography by Jane Comfort, Asphalt shadows a struggling DJ as he spirals through his tortured ancestry and tries to climb out of his New York poverty. PB

PCC-Sylvania Performing Arts Center, 1200 SW 49th, 242-1419, 8 pm, $15

THEATER--Unless you're sleeping with one of the actors, it doesn't get much more intimate than this: A frenetic stage and dance and performance set in the cramped space of a sixteen-seater loft. The action in Riders to the Sea gravitates around a story about a mother who has lost four sons already to the wicked sea and is waiting for news on a fifth. PB

Catamount Theatre, 1306 NW Hoyt St, 231-0839, Fri-Sun, 8 pm, free (but donations encouraged)

MUSIC--Look, PJ Harvey is a goddess. She's got a voice that can be whisper-whiskey low and wrecking-ball powerful. Her lyrics seep a profundity that is neither too overt nor overly esoteric. So why is she playing with the most annoying fucking band in the world, U2? At the Rose Garden?! For like $555?!?! WHY?!?!? Go if you can afford it, but be sure to leave after her set in protest. JS

Rose Garden Arena, 1 N Center Court, 224-4400, 7:30, $52-$138!!!!!!

MONDAY APRIL 16

ART--Portland is a comic-book town, counting four publishers and a galaxy of creators amongst its population. Eight of the finest--Steve Lieber, Martin Ontiveros, Craig Thompson, Madison Clell, Anina Bennett & Paul Guinan, Shannon Wheeler, and the Mercury's own Kalah Allen--are coming together for one cool exhibition. Word/Image is a one-of-a-kind showing of original comics art, the nuts and bolts (or is that ink and pulp?) of the printed page. JSR

PCC, Northview Gallery, 12000 SW 49th, 977-8334, 8 am-4pm or by appt. (through April 19), free

FILM-- Pungently translated as Love's a Bitch, Amores Perros starts at a screaming dead run and maintains that intensity for the next two and a half hours. Combining three stories of life, love, and aggressively twisted fate in the most polluted metropolis on the planet, Amores Perros is a graphic, breakthrough work for Mexican cinema. RTJ

Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st, 223-4515, 7 & 9:45 pm, $6

TUESDAY APRIL 17

MUSIC--A pastiche of ambient noise and multimedia crash boom, the Koonda Holaa and the Beeches sound really loud and really cool. But who cares about what they sound like, they've got a member who's an ex-con! Kamilsky, their leader, (who's also from the Czech Republic) spent two years in jail for destroying a statue of a communist. He's also worked with a bunch of killer bands and musicians like the Residents, Lydia Lunch, Death in June, Exene Cervenka, and Uz Jsme Doma. If you go, maybe he'll enlighten you. KD

Satyricon, 125 NW 6th Ave, 243-2380, 9 pm, $7

WEDNESDAY APRIL 19

FILM--In this documentary called Hermaphrodites Speak!, put out by the Intersex Initiative (an advocacy group for intersex people), hermaphrodites will speak frankly about successfully growing azaleas in the Northwest's rainy spring season. Just kidding! They'll speak about being a hermaphrodite, duh. KD

In Other Words, 3734 SE Hawthorne Blvd, 232-6003, 7 pm, free