Multicultural festivals might bring to mind images of food and music from Asia or Africa, but Augustana College's inaugural Pulse of the River "multicultural music festival" is staying much closer to home. The free event, which kicks off at 1 p.
National touring acts Martin Sexton, Greg Brown, Bo Ramsey, and Pieta Brown were the main draws for the grand-opening celebration of the River Music Experience's Redstone Room, but the new nightclub's star attraction could be its sound.
• This coming Tuesday Rhino Records offers an open microphone for a wild list of celebrities to show off their vocal chops. Opening with Scarlett Johansson's take on the George Gershwin classic "Summertime," Unexpected Dreams: Songs from the Stars also promises John C.
Death. Everyone will face it. The Quad City Symphony Orchestra and the Handel Oratorio Society jointly presented a concert April 2 that addressed the power of death, the frailty of life, and the comfort we seek in the face of both.
It has been more than a dozen years since Quad Citians have had the opportunity to catch an internationally known jazz act playing in a local nightclub, but on Sunday, April 30, jazz pianist and educator Willie Pickens will perform with his trio at the brand-new Redstone Room on the second floor of the River Music Experience in downtown Davenport.
• Three old friends from the 1980s are back on the radar next week, all with new CDs worth seeking out. No longer growling over the driving churn of The Psychedelic Furs, Richard Butler re-emerges with a self-titled solo album that's calm, mature, and a bit theatric.
Most bands are extensions of their leaders, but Scotland's Battlefield Band is something else entirely, nearly a living organism beyond its members. The group has been around since 1970, and a full-time affair since 1975, but Alan Reid is the only original member still in the band.
• Flashbacks to the decadent, swaggering 1970s burst forth from the boogie juggernaut of the Eagles of Death Metal in the group's sophomore album, Death by Sexy, due next week. Getting sweaty with the grind of Blues Explosion, T.
• This coming Tuesday serves up a warm musical gumbo from the Big Easy, a healing album from an all-star collective of displaced musicians calling themselves The New Orleans Social Club. The new CD, Sing Me Back Home, was recorded in a week's time in Austin, Texas, just six weeks after Hurricane Katrina bore down on their home city.
• With more than a dozen titles in its "Classic Albums: The Making of" DVD series, Eagle Vision has created the ultimate behind-the-scenes experience with the musicians themselves, with producers and other flies on the studio wall dissecting, and illuminating, the journey that created iconic rock albums, from Lou Reed's Transformer to Cream's Disraeli Gears.

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