LIVERPOOL'S Cavern Club must be among the most famous inexplicably demolished buildings in the world.

They've rebuilt it since, of course, on the wrong side of the street, but it's still a bit like taking a JCB to the Taj Mahal because they needed a new rickshaw park or something.

The councillors involved in making the original decision to tear it down have all since run off to join the circus, where they kick each other's bottoms in oversize clown shoes while spraying each other's faces with soda syphons and driving in a circle in a jalopy with square wheels. Promotion is a wonderful thing.

Yes, anyway, absolutely everyone else in the known universe and their great-aunties have always known how historically important the Cavern Club is - but comparatively few people know about the club which was the Cavern's big rival in its early 1960s heyday, namely the Iron Door.

While The Beatles, The Big Three and The Pacemakers were making the walls sweat in Matthew Street's infamous fruit cellar, the big draw across town was a group called The Searchers (Weymouth Pavilion, Saturday, £13.50, £12 senior citizens, £8 children, tickets on 01305 783225).

The accolade of 'most-underrated Liverpool group', with due deference to The Big Three, surely must go to The Searchers. Much is rightly made of the impact which George Harrison's brand-new Rickenbacker 360/12 on the soundtrack of A Hard Day's Night made on Roger McGuinn of The Byrds - but the same epochal jangle is all over deathless Seachers hits like When You Walk In The Room, Needles And Pins, Sweets For My Sweet and Goodbye My Love.

As if being a key influence on one of the most important American bands of the 1960s wasn't enough, drummer Chris Curtis went on to become the catalyst for Deep Purple - a long, strange and convoluted tale that I'll relate to you all one stormy night over a pint of mead in the snug of The Slaughtered Lamb.

The current line-up of The Searchers still boasts John McNally and Frank Allen from the glory days of 1964, augmented by well-regarded music biz veterans Spencer James and Eddie Rothe, and the band's back catalogue is an enviable treasure trove of gems both giant and midget.

The Searchers won't be alone on their Pavilion appearance, incidentally: Fellow beat-boom travellers The Four Pennies are also on hand with a set proving that their March 1964 No 1 Juliet was no mere flash in the pan, whatever the pan might be and however the flash may manifest itself.

I believe original member Mike Wilsher is still on board, but I'm idly wondering what happened to original guitarist Fritz Fryer, who went on to become a staff producer at Phillips and hence a bit of a hero in my eyes for manning the phasers on obscure psychedelic classics like Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad by Caleb Quaye...

Still not finished with the value for money motif: As well as The Searchers and The Four Pennies, Linda Gail Lewis is also appearing on the same bill, a highly-respected member of the country and rockabilly community who just happens to be the little sister of the piano-demolishing wild card Jerry Lee Lewis.

So respected is Linda, in fact, that even the notoriously insular, curmudgeonly, minicab-driver-lookalike Van Morrison cheerfully sought her out for a collaboration in 2000 - an accolade not to be sneezed at.

Especially not by Van, whose beige anorak zip would probably burst as his scone cap flew off.

Finally, the long-awaited Blues Summer School (Thomas Hardye School, July 28-August 1) that I seem to keep wanging on about these days receives a little self-promotion on Wednesday, July 30 in the Three Compasses, Charminster, when a healthy complement of the blues school's tutors will be assembling to show off their formidable repertoire of licks, riffs, phrases, grimaces, tics and grunties.

Expect a plethora of jaw-dropping motifs from acoustic bluesman King Rollo, National Blues Harmonica League winner Ian Briggs, bassist extraordinaire Rodney Teague, UK Blues Keyboardist of the Year nominee Paddy Milner, guitarist Darcy Corben from Dr Blues and Tony Farinha and Ian Croft of The Werewolves Of London.

Your cup runneth even over-er.