Few people in the United States have heard of it, but the Eurovision Song Contest might be likened to an American Idol for songs (rather than singers) on a multinational scale. The contest (http://www.eurovision.tv), which was started in 1956, draws hundreds of millions of television viewers, and it has helped launch the careers of ABBA and Céline Dion.

"It's like the Super Bowl in Europe," said Shane Mitchell, an accordionist and founding member of Dervish.

Rock and roll, in its conventional hard-rock form, seems to have all but disappeared. Who practices this archaic type of musical expression, with its earnest guitar-bass-drums-vocals format and no acknowledgment of irony or speed metal, alt country, world music, hip hop, emo, or any other musical fashion of the past 20 years except grunge? Pearl Jam seems the last vestige of this noble tradition with both credibility and market presence.

Trend-chasing is less prevalent at the local level, of course, and Kewanee's Drunk Dead Gorgeous - playing at Penguin's Comedy Club on March 16 - creates unapologetic guitar rock that's heartfelt and played with passion. With its emphasis on acoustic guitars, the band's new-ish album, The Great Disillusion, sounds a lot like a collection of power ballads.

It's no surprise that Jen Chapin was pulled in several directions.

Her father, the late Harry Chapin, is most famous for writing and performing "Cat's in the Cradle" but was also a humanitarian, co-founding World Hunger Year (http://worldhungeryear.org) in 1975. (He died in an automobile accident in 1981.)

Jen Chapin, who will perform at the Redstone Room on Saturday, March 17, is following her own social-justice calling. She chairs the World Hunger Year board of directors, and will lead a forum on "Music & Social Action" at the Unitarian Church of Davenport on Sunday, March 18.

He has the magisterial licks and unbound ambition of Billy Corgan without the self-seriousness. He has the expressive, expansive palette of Andrew Bird but with an arena-rock heart. He's an insatiable omnivore like Mike Patton, stirring everything together into a sometimes-ugly stew, but without the aggressiveness and with most of the rougher edges buffed off. He has a fascination with twee '60s pop, and with muscular prog rock.