IF YOU have more than a passing interest in British saloon cars of the 1960s (stay awake at the back there. Yes, and at the front. I can see you too, you lot in the middle), you'll probably be familiar with the concept of badge engineering.

Right, is everybody asleep now? Good, I'm off home. Just in case there's anyone left alive, however, I suppose I should explain that 'badge engineering' referred to the then-common practice of tarting up, say, a bog-standard Austin Cambridge by sticking on a few extra bits of chrome, some wood and a couple of extra dials, and calling the result a Wolseley 16/60 or a Riley 4/72.

Call me slow on the uptake, but it's only recently that I've realised that you get badge-engineered groups as well. For example, ska also-rans Graduate had no success whatsoever until they polished their foreheads and became standard bearers of 80s chart angst Tears For Fears.

Likewise, The Doofus Brothers couldn't get arrested until they tipped the contents of their local badminton emporium down the front of their shorts and became Wham - after which they could get arrested, evidently, if George Michael is anything to go by.

Even the mighty Led Zeppelin started life as the lowly New Yardbirds - and now, funnily enough, there's a highly-rated Led Zep tribute band called Stairway To Zeppelin (Finn M'Couls, Weymouth, tonight) who are themselves a badge-engineered version of Dirty Tricks, who toured with Blue Oyster Cult, Iron Maiden, Cheap Trick and Patti Smith and who released three middlingly successful albums on Polydor in the mid-70s.

The line-up remains exactly the same today, except for a bit of badge-engineering on the name front (I'm going to drive this similie into the ground if it kills me): Therefore, vocalist Kenny Stewart becomes Robert Planet, guitarist Johnny Fraser Binnie becomes Jimmy Beige, bassist Terry Horburry becomes John Tom Jones and drummer Andy Beirne becomes Monty Dick. Et voila.

The show lasts a good two hours and covers the entire back catalogue: Trainspotters are invited to salivate over the correct period instrumentation (Gibson 6/12 double neck, Ludwig drum kit, etc).

Yes, not literally salivate, ninnies - it gums up the strings.

If all of this isn't enough to satiate your need for first-rate tribute bands, you'll probably be quite keen to take in the eye-popping visuals and er, ear-splitting aurals of Dressed To Kill (Finn M'Coul's, Saturday), unarguably the known universe's foremost Kiss devotees.

Not content with hammering out note-perfect (or note-imperfect of course, depending on where you stand on the whole Kiss question) renditions of deathless beauties like Calling Dr Love, God Of Thunder, I Love It Loud, Lick It Up, Rock Bottom and War Machine, Dressed To Kill come to you resplendent in authentic Love Gun-era Kiss panstick and haberdashery, and packing enough thunderflashes and nitro-glycerine to fuse your retinas and cause your eardrums to migrate to the nearest monastery.

Undergroove fanzine breathlessly commented 'Just like listening to Alive II, but with visuals! Absolutely superb!' Even Ace, Gene, Peter and Paul themselves have given their wholehearted seal of approval, which is good enough for me and no doubt for you. Ahem: A crazy crazy night is indicated ...

Finally, it gives me a great deal of inner satisfaction to be able to report that, despite the fact that it'll soon be autumn and 'the leaves are sweetly turning' to paraphrase, er, someone, there are still some shafts of light to brighten the corners of the encroaching darkness. Foremost among these are the next batch of Bluesnights in Dorchester Arts Centre, kicking off with Sugarland Slim (Dorchester Arts Centre, Saturday, 8pm, £7.50/£4.75 under-18s).

The delta blues fanatics in question got together in the summer of 1999, cribbing their name from an old penal farm called Sugarland to which they appended the name 'Slim', not unreasonably. Guitarist magazine says 'Sugarland Slim have a great sense of tone, feel and rhythm: Not many bands can pull off old-style blues this well.'

Still not convinced? Perhaps I should add that they're only Peter Green's favoured UK support act, is all - and no English blues guitarist tops Peter Green in my book, so I reckon he should know a wee bit about what cuts the mustard and what doesn't...