Music: Welcome back...

It feels more like Halloween than Christmastime this week, as two acts of local notoriety are rising from the dead ... The Heroine Sheiks Remember them? Bugle-blowing acid-punk hero Shannon Selberg formed the band in New York in 1999 after the demise of his uniquely adored/hated Minneapolis group the Cows. With ex-Swans guitarist Norman Westberg, he debuted the seedy, nihilistic Sheiks on 2000's "Rape on the Installment Plan."

Where'd they go? Said Selberg, "There was this wave in the [New York] scene, and we had bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Gogol Bordello open for us." The wave mostly passed them by, though. After three albums, Selberg moved back to Minneapolis last year.

Where are they now? Selberg has slowly put together a new, all-local Sheiks lineup debuting Saturday with two shows at 7th Street Entry. The band now includes guitarist Paul Sanders of Hammerhead (another Am/Rep band, like the Cows) and bassist Jesse Kwakenat of the Stnnng.

"It's not the easiest kind of music to play, so it hasn't been easy getting the band ready," he said. Plus, he said, "We've been working up all new songs."

What's next? "We'll test the chemistry on stage, and then probably record this winter or spring."

Eyedea & Abilities Remember them? The St. Paul-reared rapper/turntablist duo came up through the ranks in the Rhymesayers camp fresh out of high school, first performing in Atmosphere and then touring as its opening act. They made their own mark on the innovative 2003 sophomore album, "E&A," issued via Epitaph Records.

Where'd they go? The seemingly inseparable childhood friends got burned out after touring heavily for "E&A" and decided to sleep around musically. Eyedea created the all-improv rap troupe Face Candy and the experimental rock band Carbon Carousel. Abilities moved to Milwaukee and cut several mix CDs.

"We wanted to learn how to play music in different ways," Eyedea (Mike Larsen) explained, admitting that those new ways didn't appease many fans. "A lot of people hated my other two projects so much, it reminded them how much they love this one."

Where are they now? After a well-received reunion at this summer's Twin Cities Celebration of Hip-Hop, the duo decided to go on the so-called Appetite for Distraction Tour, ending Thursday at the Triple Rock. Calling from Phoenix last week, Eyedea said, "There are a lot of people who saw us before and are happy we're back, but there's also a bunch of young people seeing us for the first time."

As for their own view, he said, "We're a lot more confident now -- and better. We know more and can do more musically, and we're not stuck in any kind of 'Who are we?' phase anymore."

What's next?: "We're recording and making new music, but we don't have any plans yet [to release a CD]. Right now, we're only doing it for ourselves."

Dance Band: Don't get it I'm as amused as anyone else anytime the dance floors at the Hexagon or Turf Club are actually used for dancing. But unlike everyone else, I've had a hard time jumping on the Dance Band bandwagon.

City Pages named the frequently costumed, undeniably energetic disco/rock/rump-shake quintet the best live act in its "Best of the Twin Cities" issue, and it was No. 5 in the Picked to Click Poll. So the DB's hardly need my support going into their CD-release party Saturday at the Varsity Theater (9:30 p.m., $6-$8).

To their credit, they do a good job capturing their live sound on advance tracks from the debut album, "Dance Band Returns From the Land After Tomorrow." Frontman Captain Octagon channels the guy from Cake in his wry sex-you-up lines -- i.e., "shake your babymaker" -- while the rest of the band gets off on P-Funk-meets-"Odelay" kitsch-funk.

Without the live show, though, the songs sound unoriginal and numbingly repetitive. But then, the live antics don't do it for me, either. Maybe it's because this town has already seen its fair share of tongue-in-cheek acts and beefy male singers who take their shirts off (Har Mar, Rowland of Dumpster Juice, Hawaii Show, Brother and Sister). Or maybe it's because Dance Band vaguely reminds me of an indie-rock version of Boogie Wonderland.

Sick diagnosis Sick of Sarah has a lot to celebrate as it winds down its year with the six-band Jam Solid showcase tonight at the Varsity Theater (7 p.m., $10). The all-female rock quartet played the CMJ Music Festival in New York and earned profiles in City Pages and Spin.com. For next year, the band lined up gigs with the lesbian-themed Olivia Cruise Lines.

I caught Sick of Sarah at the Uptown Bar in October, when the band invited everybody to its rehearsal space afterward to film a video. The quartet showed as much promise as inexperience (although bassist Jessie Farmer played on Babes in Toyland's last tour). Frontwoman Abisha Uhl, 25, sang her broken heart out with a powerful if uneven voice. Songs like "Bittersweet" and "Paint Like That" sounded like punkier Alanis Morissette and even Pat Benatar. Hardly the stuff of modern hitmaking, but fire away!

Vintage Cadillac Boogie-woogie/rockabilly wunderkind Andrew Kolstad plays the Minneapolis Eagles Club Tuesday to promote the debut CD by his new old-style band, Cadillac Kolstad & the Flats. The eponymous album isn't officially a live recording, but it nearly qualifies. The trio recorded its 12 vintage nuggets ("Match Box," "St. Louis Blues") in one night and purportedly all in one take, working in a studio with a 50-year-old piano. It sounds like Sun Records circa 1957. The 8 p.m. show doubles as a fundraiser to send Kolstad & Co. as well as Cornbread Harris down the Mississippi to the Road to Memphis Competition, and they're even accepting crushed aluminum cans as donations.

chrisr@startribune.com • 612-673-4658