Our Critics' Picks

THURSDAY 3/20

Three-Ring VandyJUGGLEVILLE III Vanderbilt Juggling and Physical Arts is a 5-year-old student-run organization whose performers entertain on campus and in the community. The group’s big formal showcase is this annual event, this year subtitled “Catch-a-Sketch,” in which the 60-member cast, including dancers, gymnasts and musicians, blends acrobatics and physical comedy to portray a young girl’s fantasy world as it comes alive through her magical coloring book. Local hula-hoop artist Fiona Flaherty takes on the leading role. Youthful energy and a circuslike atmosphere prevail. View the three performances via live webcast at juggleville.com. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital. 8 p.m. Thursday and2 & 8 p.m. Saturday at Ingram Center for the Performing Arts —MARTIN BRADY

MusicBLACK LIPS After several years of grinding it out in a smelly ol’ van, the Black Lips finally got their break. Signed by the taste-making Vice Records, the Atlanta-based indie darlings released two albums for the label in 2007: the live-in-Tijuana document Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo and the studio album Good Bad Not Evil. The latter contains such instant addictions as “Veni Vidi Vici,” “O Katrina” and “Cold Hands,” which infuse the feel of oldies and surf-rock with raw, punky swagger. What the Black Lips are selling is a return to rambling, Nuggets-style rock ’n’ roll voodoo—at least a reasonable facsimile for our times. And lately, it’s taken them to the Middle East and put them on the U.K. charts. Should we expect anything less from a band whose influences include both The 13th Floor Elevators and Robitussin? 9 p.m. at Mercy Lounge — AARON JENTZEN

MusicHONI DEATON & DREAM Honi Deaton grew up singing gospel and then country out west before arriving at bluegrass. She’s got a big upright bass and a big voice—along with a sometimes impish sense of humor onstage—and she’s not afraid to use them. She and husband Jeff Deaton (guitar, mandolin) have some enthusiastic fans, too, drawn not only by Honi’s forthright appeal but by a whiz-bang band that digs into showstoppers like their extended rave-up version of “Mystery Train.” But she can also quiet things down convincingly, and even has been known to drag a keyboard along for a distinctively non-hardcore turn, which helps to move the group out of the run-of-the-mill category. 9 p.m. at Station Inn—JONWEISBERGER

12-Step HilarityGEORGE SINGLETON Once upon a time, novelists like Faulkner and Welty struggled to make sense of life in the South. Nowadays, native sons like George Singleton have pretty much decided you can’t make any sense out of it, but you sure can scratch your head and laugh at it. Take Harp Spillman, the black out-plagued protagonist of Singleton’s Workshirts for Madmen. He’s a recovering alcoholic who makes obscene ice sculptures of noted Southern Republicans before hiring a group of misfits to help him create giant angels out of rusting bolts on a North Carolina mountaintop. And then it gets weird. 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, Cool Springs —MICHAEL RAY TAYLOR

MusicNATALIE MACMASTER Perhaps it’s a rite of passage, but it seems every roots musician en route to becoming a household name needs to jam with that purveyor of eclecticism, Béla Fleck. But even if Natalie MacMaster’s name isn’t on everyone’s lips, she’s become as much of a pop star as you can be while playing fiddle in the traditional Cape Breton style. Her early-’90s recordings were a young virtuoso’s straightforward explorations of the repertoire of her native Nova Scotia and its roots in Scottish and Irish folk. But by 2003’s Blueprint, she was jamming with Fleck, and by 2006’s Yours Truly she’d taken “Danny Boy” to the streets, collaborating with yacht-rocker Michael McDonald. Thus it ever shall be, perhaps, for folkies taking their arcane craft to a larger audience, but MacMaster just might have the grace to pull it off. Performing with the Nashville Symphony, 7 p.m. atSchermerhorn Symphony Center —AARON JENTZEN

MusicBELLAFEA W/SOUND & SHAPE AND THE TITTS Judging from their music’s hard-edged angularity and serpentine, post-punk pulse, Bellafea’s heart must pump molten steel. The Chapel Hill power trio are prepping their debut full-length, which arrives in May. Their early material shook and rattled with ragged distortion, balancing delicacy with roar in oddly shaped arrangements, as frontwoman Heather McEntire’s sweet, breathy trill drifted like fog over choppy guitar that built into a storm. Their latest trades more in moody post-rock shimmer-scapes that build in tension with little release, recalling Jawbox in their noisier moments, or the tuneful Sonic Youth-style squall of ’90s acts Arson Garden and Band of Susans. McEntire’s voice grows flinty against the cold gleam of the new album’s guitars, its beauty peeking out infrequently lest it undermine the churning rumble. Local progressive rockers Sound & Shape break out their Yes and King Crimson vinyl, while The Titts are old-school cock rockers of the first order. 9 p.m. at Springwater—CHRIS PARKER