While rap music began with two turntables and a microphone, most of the early commercial releases featured session players grooving to disco beats. The Roots, who bum-rushed hip-hop culture during the neo-soul era, revitalized the use of real musicians in rap by incorporating hip-hop traditions like scratching, sampling and beat boxing into their funky original tunes. The Roots’ music, with tastes of bebop and gritty Parliament-era funk, exemplifies the groove-heavy throwback soul that came out of Philadelphia during the late ’90s. MC Black Thought keeps the music percolating with his machine gun delivery and no-frills approach to rap—?uestlove may be the drummer, but Black Thought provides the percussion. When the band play live, they use the flexibility of live musicians to mesmerizing effect, merging rap music with improvisational jazz-fusion. With Blackalicious on the bill, this is a one-two punch of rap royalty. They’ve hit Nashville at least five times in the past year, which must be some kind of record for a major rap act. After the all-star freestyle jam that concluded Blackalicious’ last appearance here, hopefully the two crews will get together and rock the spot. ( www.theroots.com ; www.blackalicious.com) City Hall —MARK MAYS MUSIC THURSDAY, 25TH BILLY BURNETTE Billy Burnette has been so many things over the last 40 years—pop crooner, country singer, Fleetwood Mac member, ace sideman with Bob Dylan and (currently) John Fogerty—that it’s easy to forget that he is also rockabilly royalty, the son of the trailblazing Rock ’n’ Roll Trio’s Dorsey Burnette. (Legend has it that “rockabilly” itself is named for Billy and his cousin Rocky.) Burnette offers a potent reminder of that lineage on his new live album Memphis in Manhattan, a blast of raucous rockabilly so hot you can hear the sweat on the walls of St. Peter’s Chapel in Chelsea, where it was vividly recorded. ( www.burnette-rock.com/BillyBurnette.htm ) Mercy Lounge –CHRIS NEAL SONGS OF WARREN ZEVON This is the first in a series of shows at The Family Wash dedicated to the songs of a single composer. This week’s focus is on the catalog of Warren Zevon and its heart-worn mixture of wry wit and sarcasm. Come out and behold wack and not-so-wack versions of “Werewolves of London,” “Lawyers, Guns and Money” and “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me,” among the many others. Scheduled performers include Reeves Gabrels, Circus Dog Serenade, Bob Delevante, Joe Pagetta, Kevin Gordon, Colleen McFarland and Cheese Chronicles author Tommy Womack. Family Wash —COLLIN WADE MONK DURALUXE with THE LUXURY FLATS Named after the self-destructing medium used by artist Rabo Karabekian in Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard—a supposedly long-lasting paint that eventually reduces his masterpieces to dust—Duraluxe rock like they’re meant to last forever even though they know they won’t. The Evansville-by-Nashville group don’t want to tread in the clown-shoe footprints of prog-pop explorers like the Flaming Lips; they just want to give sturdy pop clichés like Beach Boys harmonies and pub-rock sing-alongs a fresh smell and appearance, like a shrieking coat of high-gloss house paint. As such, they beckon to the world like one of Steve Keene’s fast, cheap, brazenly rendered paintings, which turn recognizable subjects into a Technicolor riot. The Luxury Flats are Duraluxe’s ironic counterpart, accessorizing the same basic artistic materials with an implied sneer and the faint echo of feather boas and combat boots. (www.duraluxe.net ; www.theluxuryflats.com ) Springwater —COLLIN WADE MONK FRIDAY, 26TH KEVIN GORDON To paraphrase Bono, art is created while either running toward or away from something. If so, then Kevin Gordon has it coming and going. He’s a certified scholar whose second major is swampy rock ’n’ roll, and the tension among his many inclinations supplies the struggle so many artists need. Gordon has an MFA in writing from the University of Iowa, which gave him the tools to hone his lyrics about hotrods and hell-bent lovers into sharp detail. But the guitar that he pounds on during shows came with no instructions. Even though he admits that guitar playing is a perpetual thorn in his side, his bluesy, sauntering style is all his own, and it accompanies the character sketches on his latest CD O Come Look at the Burning like a steady but seething companion. ( www.kevingordon.net ) Family Wash —COLLIN WADE MONK GRAYSON CAPPS On his sparkling Americana solo debut, If You Knew My Mind, critical darling Grayson Capps’ swamp-blues soul-searching recalls Southern literary giants such as William Faulkner and Eudora Welty. Capps’ rambling man protagonists are remarkably Sisyphan—strung out in the grubby gutters of New Orleans and the dusty locus of small town Alabama. A former theater major from Tulane University, Capps knows a thing or two about method acting. He breathes life into the barebones characters of his story-songs, filling his tortured denizens with a folk-tinged ethos. (www.graysoncapps. com ) The Basement —JOEY HOOD Ghostfinger w/The Clutters & How I Became the Bomb As fun as it is to bitch, this weekend offers multiple opportunities for us, as a city, to reflect on our remarkable good fortune. No matter how many times you’ve crossed your arms or rolled your eyes at a self-serious singer or yet another white dude with a guitar—there’s still an abundance of music in this town worth getting excited about. So, spend a couple hours on Eighth Avenue for the Next Big Nashville festival and be sure to head over to the Exit/In for this crash course in the Nashville rock that is worth uncrossing your arms for—especially since you’ll be needing them for devil horns, beer raising, dancin’ and the like. The bill is a diverse all-star line-up: Ghostfinger and their Stones-y, referential mayhem, the Clutters with their gritty garage rock and the ironic synth stylings of How I Became the Bomb. (Any band with a song entitled “Fat Girls Talkin’ ’Bout Cardio” is worth a listen.) As an extra special treat, Ghostfinger, returning from a monthlong tour, will be playing with a horn section that includes Don Aliquo, director of jazz studies at MTSU on tenor sax. ( www.myspace.com/ghostfinger, www.myspace.com/theclutters, www.myspace.com/howibecamethebomb ) Exit/In —LEE STABERT FRIDAY 26TH-SATURDAY 27TH KEVIN MAHOGANY Because he’s something of a throwback to the commanding big-band vocalists of the swing era, Kevin Mahogany was a natural choice for director Robert Altman in his film Kansas City. In the decade since the movie was produced, Mahogany has completed a productive major-label run with Warner Brothers and founded his own label, Mahogany Jazz, for greater creative control. His mastery of rich baritone dynamics, pliable phrasing and ballad intimacy is virtually unmatched among his generation. He’s done a lot to stretch the standard repertoire of jazz singers, incorporating the Motown he grew up listening to, the edginess of Charles Mingus and material from a few of the more evocative singer-songwriters of the past three decades. While his delivery naturally returns to a well-honed core of familiar male vocal stylizations, Mahogany’s confidence in reshaping a popular song and finding nuances of expression is his greatest strength. When he opens up a set with the Fats Domino mainstay “I’m Walkin’, ” for instance, his apparent ease masks the subtle interplay between his lagging mid-tempo pace and his shadowy, playful reading of the blunt lyrics. Mahogany will perform in concert on Friday and Saturday night at 8 p.m. He’ll also be holding a master class on Saturday at 2 p.m. ( www.kevinmahogany.com ) Nashville Jazz Workshop (www.nashvillejazz.org ). —BILL LEVINE SUNDAY, 28TH ZOLOF THE ROCK & ROLL DESTROYER Taken regularly in large doses, Zolof will help manage depression almost as well as their similarly named pharmaceutical counterpart. The pulsing and swooping of old-school synthesizers, thickly layered over the tumult of a garage-band groove and semi-sweet vocals, make listening to this Eyeball Records band uplifting. Music with this much industrial-grade verve usually comes from Japan or Sweden, not Pennsylvania; somewhere among the steel mills and brotherly love, Zolof have discovered that there is no shame in beating a cliché eight to the bar. ( www.zoloftherockandrolldestroyer.com ) Exit/In —COLLIN WADE MONK Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s Richard Edwards named his eight-piece band after Gwyneth Paltrow‘s character in Wes Anderson’s film, The Royal Tenenbaums, which tips off his creative direction as much as his taste in films. Eccentric and eclectic, Indianapolis’ So and So’s create an offbeat yet balanced sound that’s a perfect match for Edwards, whose sweetly soaring voice is as fearless and compelling as his story-songs are. At their core, the So and So’s are about classic pop songcraft, but through use of trumpets and timpani, cellos and xylophones and a host of percussion that avoids a kick drum but nothing else, they deconstruct and rebuild timeless pop music with the kind of originality and ingenuity that suggest this could be the beginning of something for the ages. The Basement —MICHAEL MCCALL Mat Kearney This singer-songwriter switches styles freely, from U2-like passionate repetition to easy-going white-boy acoustic rap to sensitive story-songs. His eclectic style leaves the impression that he can convincingly assume different identities, but hasn’t yet grasped one of his own. Still, his Aware/Columbia debut, Nothing Left to Lose, has a sweet and observant tone that uses a lot of allegories from nature, no doubt influenced by his time growing up in bucolic Eugene, Ore., and living in the Sierra Foothills while attending California’s Chico State University. Now a Nashville resident, the well-traveled Kearney is taking a full band out on a national tour for the first time, and he’ll come home determined to show he deserves his shot. ( www.matkearney.com ) 3rd & Lindsley —MICHAEL MCCALL Film School Another American band heavily influenced by ’80s English dance-rock, Film School features singer Krayg Burton’s aloof, theatrical voice arcing dreamily over washes of electronic keys, guitars that alternate between reverbed chords and rhythmic riffs, a prominently thumping bass and a drummer who emphasizes a martial dance beat. As urbane and dispassionate as high-rise architecture, with a spray of psychedelic colors bouncing off the wet pavement, the San Francisco band get more interesting when they drop the pose and let guitarist Nyles Lannon lead them into a noisy, thrusting cacophony. ( www.filmschoolmusic.com ) The Basement —MICHAEL MCCALL TUESDAY, 30TH PLEX PLEX A few years ago, Plex Plex’s swirling, textured dreamscapes would have been more reminiscent of New York or London than Nashville, but given our own resurgent interest in dark electronic pop, the band’s British new wave appeal isn’t out of place. The band are relocated from Memphis in a retooled version of their former group 81, and the tracks online offer something that would have been perfect for the soundtrack to, say, Pretty in Pink, washed in the codeine-slurred vocals of Siouxsie Sioux and the darker currents of Bauhaus. Expect an EP this summer, The Beauty of Nothing Left on Earth. ( www.plexplex.com ) Mercy Lounge —TRACY MOORE THE COURT AND SPARK Because of the typography, looking at the cover of the new album by The Court and Spark, your eye mistakenly reads “He Arts.” Of course, it’s Hearts, but it aptly illustrates the line this San Francisco band straddles between arty playfulness and artful song craft. The song “Your Mother Was the Lightning” unfolds in the languid, smoked-out country shuffle that defined the band’s earlier work, but the album is full of pleasant surprises: a gauzy piano instrumental with glitchy electronic clicks; a sly echo of Curtis Mayfield’s “Freddy’s Dead” in a guitar riff. With all due disclaimers about reductive comparisons, there are points where TCAS sound not unlike James Taylor fronting The Sea and Cake. That might not sound like a compliment to some, but there is a lot to like in the hazy ’70s vibe and bloodshot cool that runs through the earnest vocals and between the lean ballads, churning rock soundscapes and lazy funk-rock excursions. ( www.thecourtandspark.com ) Grand Palace –STEVE HARUCH WEDNESDAY, 31ST Trioshift Sporting a combined résumé featuring stints with heavyweights in jazz, blues and country—Martina McBride, Herbie Hancock, Koko Taylor, Jimmie Heath, Lorrie Morgan and Sugar Blue (remember the harmonica solo in the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You”?)—guitarist John Cook, drummer Chuck Fields and bassist Tony Nagy bring a wide range of influences to their instrumental project Trioshift. On their eponymous debut, the group bring to mind guitar-centric jazz-rock heavies like Allan Holdsworth, Mike Stern and the ’90s session-guy supergroup Lost Tribe. Like all of the aforementioned acts, Trioshift are unrepentant destroyers of stylistic boundaries, indulging whatever harmonically obtuse or rhythmically challenging whim pops up—from the sinister dissonance of “Southern Discomfort” to the fatback funk of “Ode to the Bel-Aire Bees” to the near-metal mayhem of “Steve-O.” It’s a rare opportunity to hear a local jazz act so willing to push the envelope, and these guys have the chops to back up their impetuousness. Playing 6 p.m. at 3rd & Lindsley —JACK SILVERMAN CLASSICAL jackson hall farewell Except during some full-bore passages of high Romantic compositions, the deadening acoustics of Jackson Hall have not been kind to the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, which nonetheless has evolved into a formidable presence over the last 26 years at TPAC. Those who designed multipurpose high-art complexes like TPAC in the ’70s did not intend to pave a road to hell, but could not have anticipated the reaction against cavernous performing spaces and the ensuing return to a more natural scale for symphonic acoustics. Anyone who wants to hear the full textures of the NSO has to look forward to the classically designed, shoebox-shaped Schermerhorn Hall when it opens in September. To say good-bye to TPAC in a quietly gracious way, Haydn’s “Farewell” Symphony, in which each member of the orchestra gradually departs from the stage during the final movement, will conclude this weekend’s concerts. Visiting conductor Giancarlo Guerrero will preside over a program that also includes guest violinist Anne Akiko Meyers as the featured soloist in Samuel Barber’s Concerto for Violin and a performance of Richard Strauss’ “Eine Alpensinfonie” (An Alpine Symphony). The NSO will bid farewell to TPAC on Friday and Saturday, May 26 and 27. Jackson Hall, Tennessee Performing Arts Center ( www.nashvillesymphony.org ) —BILL LEVINE COMEDY IMPROV NASHVILLE/IRON COBRA Nashville is littered with the remains of many an improv troupe, most of which followed a familiar path: the eager start-up, early enthusiasm, a search for venues, a modicum of success, retooling in the face of imminent demise and then...oblivion. The list of groups that have come and gone (or are still trying to hold on) is growing: Cereal Killers, Comedy Company, Spontaneous Comedy Company, One Hand Clapping, The Skeleton Crew, IdeaProv. The latest addition is Improv Nashville, which debuted in 2005 and, based on last Friday’s performance at the 12th South Arts Venue, seems to be attracting a faithful following. The 12 performers have obvious passion for what they’re doing, sometimes hitting the mark with their comic scenes and improv games inspired by audience suggestions. They play it straight and clean but witty, and happily exploit the animated presence of regulars like Cindy Carter, Scott Field and Barry McAlister. Commendably, the actors are usually on the same page when it comes to working the set-ups and incorporating audience interaction. Clever keyboardist Eric Quiram backs things up with a steady soundtrack. Improv Nashville performs at Bongo After Hours Theatre on May 28 at 8 p.m. Also on the bill is the entertaining Iron Cobra, an offbeat Toronto-based comedy duo comprising Graham Wagner and Becky Johnson. They arrive in Nashville fresh off a performance at the Atlanta Improv Festival. For tickets, phone 385-1188. For information about Improv Nashville, call 418-0905 or visit www.improvnashville.com. —MARTIN BRADY ART “Summer Browsers, Summer Buyers” Wrapping up a busy stretch of spring shows, Cumberland Gallery launches the new season with this rotating exhibit, featuring all of the artists the gallery represents. Nashville art aficionados can see work by some of the city’s best painters, sculptors, photographers and printmakers in one venue: in addition to gallery favorites Barry Buxkamper, Jack Spencer, Bob Durham, Jeff Danley and Carrie McGee, the exhibit will feature work by new artists Whitney Nye, Cheryl Goldsleger, Michael Greenspan and Dan Hall. “Summer Buyers, Summer Browsers” opens Saturday, May 27 and runs through Sept. 9. —JOE NOLAN “The Horse You Came In On” The board members of the Secret Show Series have decided to call it quits after two years of exhibiting installations, performance art, painting, sculpture and other media in its not-so-hidden location at 310 Chestnut St. Like the still-missed Rule of Thirds, the Secret Show Series will be remembered as a street-smart, enthusiastic effort by a group of emerging artists to establish an autonomous zone where art could be displayed for its own sake, removed from academic scrutiny or commercial concerns. Featuring 30 artists, including Mike Bielaczyc, Shaun Slifer and Iwonka Waskowski, “The Horse You Came In On” promises to be the biggest show in the series, and the dance party that follows will ensure the proceedings end with a bang. The show takes place 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday, May 27; there will be an artist talk at 7:30 p.m. —JOE NOLAN Jennifer Quigley/Kristin Barlowe Before moving to Detroit a month ago, Jennifer Quigley was one of the most prolific artists on the Nashville art scene, exhibiting in several solo and group shows each year. Her playful, abstract canvases—many of which deal with musical themes—hang in many Nashville homes and offices. Though Kristin Barlowe is a highly sought-after music industry photographer, she’s not big on pretense, as she makes clear in her mission statement: “I’m a girl, I take pictures.” Quigley and Barlowe will show their work May 26 through June 16 at Hanging Around Gallery, on 17th Avenue South behind Sub Stop. A reception for the artists takes place 6-9 p.m. May 26. —JACK SILVERMAN BOOKS TED LIBBEY Eleven years in the making, Ted Libbey’s The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music bills itself as running “from a cappella to Zuckerman,” and indeed it does, for 979 packed pages. It is a lively excursion through musical history, famous performers, recordings, repertoire and terminology, from the familiar to the unexpected. (For example, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for musical composition was Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1982.) The book also contains precise explanations of musical structure, analyzing such obscurities as J.S. Bach’s revolutionary “tempered tuning” and the design of the 13-string lute. The gold standard for this kind of reference manual is the 29-volume New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, but at $2,200 it is hardly the stuff of a personal library. The NPR guide comes in at a manageable $19.95, however, and is both thorough and accessible, rich with illustrations and amusing sidebars. The book’s website, www.naxos.com/workman/ , offers 75 hours of free music downloads. Ted Libbey will sign books at 6 p.m. May 25 at Davis-Kidd Booksellers. —WAYNE CHRISTESON EVENTS DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL CELEBRATION Ever active in exposing our town to the richness of Asian culture, the Chinese Arts Alliance of Nashville will host this family-friendly community event from 3 to 5:30 p.m. May 28 at the Belcourt Theatre. Celebrated with almost as much fervor as Chinese New Year, the Dragon Boat Festival is held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Activities will include storytelling, dance and, especially for the children, crafts that relate to the legend and lore of the festival. The event is open to the general public; admission is free. Refreshments will be sold for a small charge. For more information, visit www.ChineseArtsAlliance.org or e-mail jojo_ChineseArts@comcast.net. —MARTIN BRADY FILM BLUE VELVET/“MY DAD IS 100 YEARS OLD” Has it really been 20 years since David Lynch’s plush nightmare of psychosexual suburban rot first sank its hooks into viewers’ psyches? Even two decades after its appearance during the Reagan administration’s “morning in America,” Lynch’s vision of bizarro Americana remains so evocative that a friend recently described a trip home as “so Blue Velvet.” See it this week in a new 20th-anniversary print at the Belcourt, where you can chase down its horrors with madman Frank Booth’s aperitif of choice, Pabst Blue Ribbon. In a can’t-miss double bill showcasing leading lady Isabella Rossellini, the theater is pairing the film with Guy Maddin’s “My Dad Is 100 Years Old,” the actress’s haunting expressionistic tribute to her father, Italian neo-realist master Roberto Rossellini. The star wrote the 17-minute short and plays her father’s contemporaries Alfred Hitchcock, Federico Fellini and David O. Selznick—as well as her mother Ingrid Bergman, in a moment that will leave movie lovers shivering. As a special treat, some screenings may feature the widely bootlegged short “Blue Peanuts,” which synchs up Lynch’s soundtrack to animated clips of the Peanuts gang. Snoopy, you’re one suave fucker. (Editor’s note: Jim Ridley will introduce the 9:30 p.m. screening Friday.) —JIM RIDLEY THE BEAUTY ACADEMY OF KABUL The soldiers of Liz Mermin’s captivating documentary are training not suicide bombers but suicide blondes: they’re a troupe of American beauticians who set up Afghanistan’s first beauty school for women in the wake of the Taliban’s misogynist rule. It sounds like sketch-comedy fodder, and the Americans’ can-do blitheness in the midst of the region’s devastation often produces amazement. But the issue at the core—a woman’s right to control over her body, and thus her status as a citizen and human being—is literally deadly serious. The film opens Friday at the Belcourt. —JIM RIDLEY X-MEN: THE LAST STAND With its mutant coming-out saga and threats of conversion therapy, the previous sequel X2 smuggled in the most potent here-and-queer subtext this side of the Ambiguously Gay Duo. In the (purported) final chapter, a cure for mutation leads to civil war among the nation’s super freaks, including Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), Storm (Halle Berry) and the newly risen Phoenix (Famke Janssen). With X2 director Bryan Singer busy blowing the Kryptonite off the Superman franchise, Brett Ratner takes the controls—good news for all fans of Rush Hour 2. Opens Friday, everywhere. —JIM RIDLEY KINKY BOOTS A big heart-shaped box of a starring role for one of the brightest rising stars of the moment, London-born Chiwetel Ejiofor, last seen as Denzel Washington’s bantering sidekick in Inside Man and the unflappable hired raygun in Serenity. Ejiofor plays a drag queen who proves the unlikely savior of a stodgy British shoe factory in this comedy cut from The Full Monty’s boot leather. It opens Friday at Green Hills. —JIM RIDLEY THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE If there’s anything Nashville loves more than a hometown girl, it’s bondage. Put ’em together, as the Belcourt has learned, and you’ve got a blockbuster. Mary Harron’s biopic about the Nashville lass who became a fetish-mag icon, stunningly incarnated by Gretchen Mol, has become the Hillsboro Village arthouse’s biggest success in 18 months. (We hear much of the traffic is coming from Page’s alma mater, Peabody.) The theater is holding the film over yet another week, so dust off your whips. —JIM RIDLEY