Critics Picks

THURS/1.21

BANJO KING

CHARLIE CUSHMAN & FRIENDS

Banjo phenom Charlie Cushman is so self-effacing that he's sometimes overlooked by fans, but accomplished enough that his name pops up early in discussions among the cognoscenti (like, for instance, Earl Scruggs). He's typically the first guy called when Vince Gill or Marty Stuart needs a banjo player — he's toured and recorded with both — and his list of recording credits is as long as your arm and getting longer. Friends this time include bass stalwart Mike Bub, lyrical fiddler Shad Cobb, the ever-entertaining Mike Compton (mandolin) and the redoubtable David Peterson on guitar and lead vocals. That's a plenty fearsome ensemble on its own, and they've all played together often enough that the set list should feature more than just chestnuts. But it's likely a couple of current Grammy nominees will drop by too — Michael Martin Murphey and Jim Lauderdale, for instance, since Cushman appears on both of their nominated projects. 9 p.m. at Station Inn JON WEISBERGER

WATERWORLD

PARIS UNDER WATER LECTURE WITH JEFFREY JACKSON

This Rhodes College historian's meticulous study of the great Paris flood of 1910 arrives just as tensions mount over disaster protocol in Haiti. His visit to Nashville coincides a century later to the day that the river Seine surged some 10 feet higher than its usual levels, wrecking a newly expanded and modernized Paris along with it. The book is not just a marvel of research that produces official logs, police records and newspaper reports from the week that saw Parisians climbing into boats to navigate their city streets (just after reveling in a debut electric subway system), but it's also a fascinatingly detailed lesson in man vs. nature — a compelling illustration of the way disasters uncover power structures and political affiliations, and the way good infrastructure can ultimately trump natural disaster. This should be required reading for city officials, engineers and disaster relief workers. 4 p.m. at Vanderbilt's Peabody Library Fireside Reading Room; 7 p.m. at Davis-Kidd TRACY MOORE

DAMAGE CONTROL

RUMORS

Neil Simon's playwriting career has been long and storied, with huge crossover impact into movies, musicals and television — where he actually began his career as a comedy writer in the 1950s. His inexhaustible supply of quick one-liners were the hallmark of the stage works that put him on the map, though Simon's more introspective later works exhibited some depth and even won him a Pulitzer Prize (for Lost in Yonkers in 1991). Still, easy humor is Simon's most generally accepted (and expected) bag, and this 1988 effort finds him working the farce genre with unpredictable but laugh-filled results. A dinner party at the posh home of New York City's deputy mayor goes awry as the arriving guests find both hostess and servants inexplicably missing and the man of the house nursing a strange head wound. Keeping the media and police at bay becomes the game the hoity-toity people play. Popular Nashville comic actor Bobby Wyckoff steps into the director's chair for this mounting, which features a pleasingly varied cast of nine, including Mike Baum, Trin Blakely, Lydia Bushfield, Kelly Lapczynski and Derek Whittaker. Through Feb. 6 at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre MARTIN BRADY

ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN'T SAY THE OFFSPRING?

AGENT ORANGE

Along with Social Distortion and The Adolescents, Agent Orange completed the Holy Trinity of the early-'80s Orange County punk scene. They were among the first to blend elements of instrumental surf music with punk rock. Their seminal 1981 debut Living in Darkness no doubt provided the soundtrack for countless skate sessions throughout the '80s, and then exponentially more in the Aughts upon their inclusion on the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 soundtrack. Despite not having released an album since 1996's Virtually Indestructible, the band maintains a cult following and continues to tour the world relentlessly. They'll be joined tonight by local punk purists Fist of the Northstar, Noisecult and Desperate Measures. 7 p.m. at the Muse SETH GRAVES

FRI/1.22

MEEMAWESOME

MEEMAW REUNION W/JEFF THE BROTHERHOOD, MARJ! & SO JAZZY

While the coming re-emergence of bands ranging from Pavement to Soundgarden and The Faces lighting up news feeds around the globe, this one-off reunion by a couple of basement punks is the one Nashville is salivating for. It came as quite a blow when local punk trio MEEMAW decided to call it quits last year. The band's playful lightning-in-bottle mélange of nervy attitude, recklessly shambolic presentation and infectiously catchy hooks galvanized the local rock scene like a straight shot of 1977 to the jugular. What made MEEMAW so special is that they're the band that can most frustrate the bejeezus out of Nashville's pedantic songwriters and overly academic musicians, who will never figure out how a couple of snot-nosed kids could write a song with a bigger hook and more heart and soul than a lifetime's worth of lessons could ever teach them. Since the dissolution of the band, its three members have gone on to become local institutions unto themselves. Drummer Jessica MacFarland fronts the ragtag girl-punk ensemble Heavy Cream, guitarist/vocalist Daniel Pujol has tried (successfully, at that) to establish himself as a solo entity, and bassist/vocalist Wes Traylor's myriad bands — including Kintaro, Natural Child and formerly Turbo Fruits — have made him one of the most prominent fixtures on Nashville's burgeoning D.I.Y. scene. They might each be great on their own, but damn, were they exceptional together. If an Eagles reunion can last 16 painful years, than let's hope this one can last at least 16 magical minutes. 9 p.m. at The End ADAM GOLD

COUGAR TOWN