Woodbox Gang Most people think of bluegrass as music for old people, and Alex Kirt of the Woodbox Gang doesn't disagree. He calls it "timeless," but as a performer that has one big advantage.

By the time you hit age 50 or so, you can't credibly play metal, punk, or hard-rock music. "You're probably going to look ridiculous," said Kirt, a singer and multi-instrumentalist with the southern-Illinois "trashcan Americana" band that will be performing at the Bent River Brewing Company on Saturday, April 7. And the age-imperviousness of bluegrass is important, because the 33-year-old wants to be playing this music "forever."

In the world of outsider audio and what's dubbed "incredibly strange music," one lone, haunted figure stands tall above the rest: Joe Meek, turning the traditional studio-recording environment of the 1960s upside down in England with flair, obsession, and wackiness that crossed elements of Ed Wood with Phil Spector. As a clever boy who dissected radios and other early electronics, Meek turned his creative energy into a career as an independent producer free of the stodgy, copycat, high-fidelity desires of in-house record-company studios.

Janinah Burnett When soprano Janinah Burnett takes the stage with the Quad City Symphony Orchestra this weekend, she will sing the role of Violetta, a part she first performed five years ago. But it has taken those five years for her to really develop this leading role in La Traviata - one of opera's most famous works.

"When I first learned it, it was about getting the notes," the 28-year-old Burnett said. "And then as I grew into it ... I just got to know her character a little bit more and within myself tried to go on this journey with her. I searched my own life and my own heart for experiences that could help me understand the journey of this character."

Andy Partridge - Monstrance XTC co-founder Andy Partridge gets his freak wiggle on next week in a loose, layered, free-form two-CD set that reunites him with an old mate from his heady new-wave days. Released on his own boutique label, Ape House Records, Monstrance is an improvised, instrumental three-man roundtable, with original XTC keyboardist Barry Andrews and the drummer from his own Shriekback concoction, Martyn Barker.

Little Charlie & the Nightcats The fills.

That's why Charlie Baty started really playing the guitar. In the early 1970s, when he met singer, songwriter, and harmonica player Rick Estrin, "I had never played guitar in a band," Baty said in a recent phone interview.

At that time, Charlie was the singer and harmonica player in his own band, Little Charlie & the Nightcats. But with Rick already an accomplished harmonica player and set to join the band, Charlie picked up his guitar and studied his Chicago blues heroes.

Dervish 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.

Coldplay, Turntable purists have a friend in Coldplay, as next week the band releases an import-only box set of singles on vinyl but not CD. Entitled simply The Singles 1999-2006, the 15 seven-inch records in the Parlophone project feature plenty of live B sides and the hard-to-find Blue Room EP split into two singles.

Hot Buttered Rum The band's instruments - including mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar - suggest folk and bluegrass. But the centerpiece of Hot Buttered Rum's second studio album, last year's Well-Oiled Machine, is "Waterpocket Fold," an instrumental tune clearly built on the intricacies and interplay of jazz and classical music.

drunk_dead_gorgeous.jpg 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.

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Jazz drummer Leon Joyce Jr. and his trio will be featured with special guest vocalist Dee Alexander at the third-Sunday jazz workshop and matinée concert at the River Music Experience's Redstone Room on March 18.

Joyce will conduct a workshop on drum performance starting at 3 p.m., with admission $3 for students and $5 for adults. The matinée performance begins at 6 p.m., with admission $10 per person. The trio also includes Chuck Webb on bass and Curtis Robinson on guitar.

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