We find the bookish, the brackish, and the beautiful are dabbling in rock this week. The satirist Neal Pollack, a member in good standing of Dave Eggers’s McSweeney’s mafia, set his sights on literary pomposity in his debut, The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, and with his new Never Mind the Pollacks (HarperCollins), he’s set his sights on the even-more-easily skewered pomposity of rock criticism. He’s also put some music where his mouth is — the book is being accompanied by a CD of the same name, and Pollack will be both reading and rocking on a tour that hits the Attic (617-964-6684) in Newton Sunday and AS220 (401-831-9327) in Providence Monday. Meanwhile, actress Gina Gershon’s music career is already on the way down: her first gig — inspired by her leading role in the forthcoming punk-rock melodrama Prey for Rock & Roll — was an LA club date fronting the Axl-less remnants of the Appetite for Destruction Guns N’ Roses. Now, with the film due out next week, Gershon’s embarking on an actual club tour with Girls Against Boys as her backing band. Hey, we love Scott McCloud, but he’s no Slash. Gershon and GVSB hit the Middle East (617-864-EAST) in Cambridge Tuesday.

Good Charlotte aren’t really a punk band, either, but they play one on MTV. Making their last round of dates in support of their mall-punk landmark The Young and the Hopeless (Epic), they’re at the Mullins Center (413-545-3001) at UMass-Amherst Friday, at the Dunkin Donuts Center (401-331-6700) in Providence Saturday, and at Tsongas Arena (978-848-6900) in Lowell Sunday.

Golden-age legend Del Tha Funkee Homosapien is returning with his Oakland crew Hieroglyphics for dates tonight (Thursday, October 9) at the Middle East, and Sunday at Higher Ground (802-654-8888) in Winooski, Vermont. Former Disposable Hero Michael Franti brings his group Spearhead to Pearl Street (413-584-7810) in Northampton Tuesday, to Higher Ground Wednesday, and to the Somerville Theatre (617-625-4088) next Thursday, October 16.

Bikers all over New England are likely locking up their daughters, as Phish bassist (and woefully unlucky amateur shutterbug) Mike Gordon brings his first-ever solo tour to Toad’s Place (203-562-5589) in New Haven Tuesday and Avalon (617-423-NEXT) in Boston Wednesday. Fans of Hatebreed-style metalcore might want to take a gander at Philadelphia’s A Life Once Lost, who kick up a Pantera-ist racket on their new A Great Artist, just out on Boston’s Deathwish, Inc. label. Catch ALOL Friday at the Living Room (401-521-5200) in Providence and Saturday at the Edge (207-621-6388) in Augusta, Maine. And Thatcher-era UK Oi! legends the Exploited hit Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel (401-272-5876) in Providence Sunday, at the tail end of their first US tour in a decade.