On March 8, the Quad City Symphony Orchestra announced that Mark Russell Smith would be its new music director and conductor. And as the Minneapolis-based musician serves as artistic director of orchestral studies at the University of Minnesota, director of new-music projects for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and music director for Virginia's Richmond Symphony Orchestra, his current positions alone made him sound an appropriate, and sufficiently intimidating, choice.

Yet a day before our recent phone interview, Smith received an e-mail from the Quad City Symphony Orchestra that managed to intimidate even him - a document, he says, titled "Repertoire from 1917 through 2007," listing every piece the venerable area institution has performed publicly during those nine decades.

Wow, I say.

"I know," he says. "It's a little light reading."

Thursday's concert at the Capitol Theatre featuring Spoon, White Rabbits, and the Walkmen represents the fulfilled potential of Daytrotter.com for the Quad Cities.

   For a band with one independent recording under its belt, the White Rabbits have a lot going on. They appeared on Letterman in July - "Maybe U2 cancelled," joked bassist Adam Russell - and a feature-film documentary is in production. (See http://www.whiterabbitsdoc.com.)

Russell credits the band's publicist with the Letterman gig, and filmmaker Andrew Droz Palermo is a friend of the band dating back to some members' high-school careers.

But Russell said these early successes are a sign that people believe strongly in the band. "Having close friends that work with you does pay off sometimes," he said.

Blues musician Guy Davis is the son of legendary actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee. His 1998 CD You Don't Know My Mind led the San Francisco Chronicle to rave, "Davis' tough, timeless vocals blow through your brain like a Mississippi dust devil." His 2003 release Chocolate to the Bone received a W.C. Handy Award nomination for Best Acoustic Blues Album, one of nine W.C. Handy nominations Davis has received during his career.

So it comes as something of a surprise when Davis, during a recent phone interview, says, "The first time I remember hearing the blues, it was being played by white college boys.