Rock Candy

PEARLENE
9 p.m., Sticky Fingerz. $5.

That deep-rooted provincialism that runs through the South probably isn’t doing us much good, but when it comes to blues and barbecue, we’re right not to look yonder. Beyond the dominion, barbecue comes like a sloppy Joe and the blues look like Ralph Macchio in “Crossroads.” But damn if two blues-rock bands from the Buckeye state haven’t lately proved to be the exception to the rule. The Black Keys, from Akron, do a churning, hypnotic blues that would sound at home in any North Mississippi juke. To the South a piece, Cincinnati’s Pearlene come just as raw, but with a touch of jangly pychedelia. Of course, today’s aspiring non-Southern blues-rockers enjoy the benefit of having forebears to show them the way. The members Pearlene seem to have spent a fair amount of time with “Beggars”-era Stones, the height of Mick and Keef and co.’s immersion in the South, and with the Stooges, a band who took the blues and buried it’s grief with meanness and lots of amphetamines. Pearlene’s latest album, “For Western Violence and Brief Sensuality,” veers between those touchstones, but always stays anchored through Rueben Glaser’s strong, whiskey-soaked vocals. Mandy McBryde and Rena Wren and the Roach Boys open.