Man Man
Monday 4.14
The Big Eat
Monona Terrace, 5:30 pm
Isthmus' benefit for the Family Centers features tasty morsels from over 20 local restaurants and music by Caravan Gypsy Swing Ensemble. Overeating for a good cause -- a concept whose time has come.
Laurie Anderson
Overture Center's Overture Hall, 7:30 pm
The pop-tech performance queen returns to town with "Homeland," a subversive mix of electronic sound and spoken word. It's a politically charged take on American culture.
Clutch
Majestic Theatre, 8 pm
Even though they're classified as a metal act, Clutch are at their best when fusing the heavy blues-rock of Led Zeppelin with Southern-style stomping. Kamchatka open.
Tuesday 4.15
Pierre Sauvage
Wisconsin State Historical Society Auditorium, 4 pm
The French filmmaker is a Holocaust survivor, and he has dealt with the Nazis' genocide in films like Weapons of the Spirit. His lecture is entitled "Did Americans Fight the Holocaust"?
Karl-Henrik Robert
Mills Hall in the UW Humanities Bldg, 7:30 pm
The Swedish scientist is the founder of the Natural Step, which offers communities a path toward sustainability. He speaks as part of the UW's Distinguished Lecture Series and also appears at Green Medicine, a conference that connects the planet's health to people's health (Monona Terrace, April 14-15).
Crash Romeo
Annex, 9 pm
Crash Romeo get a gold star for blasting through their tuneful pop-punk with a vengeance. But they get a couple demerits for rarely coming up with anything original.
Wednesday 4.16
Banff Mountain Film Festival
Barrymore Theatre, 7 pm
The fest's award-winning films center on mountain themes, from rock-climbing to skiing to environmental issues.
Jennifer Chiaverini
Barnes & Noble West, 7 pm
The local novelist reads from the latest in her popular Elm Creek Quilts series, The Winding Ways Quilt, which continues the story of a Pennsylvania quilting circle.
Mannheim Steamroller
Overture Center's Overture Hall, 7:30 pm
The mega-selling New Age group blends classical and pop elements. This tour features the group's thematic "Fresh Aire" music.
Christopher Taylor
Mills Hall in the UW Humanities Bldg., 7:30 pm. Also Thursday, April 17, 7:30 pm
After a month's hiatus, the UW pianist returns to his cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas. So far, they've been among the most musically and physically intense performances we've seen on a local stage.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon
UW Memorial Union Play Circle, 7:30 pm
As part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Simmons and Dillon use film, poetry and music in a presentation called "For Men and Women of Rage and Reason." On Thursday, April 17, they screen their film NO! The Rape Documentary (Memorial Union, 2:30 pm; and UW Ogg Hall Commons, 8 pm).
The Wilders
High Noon Saloon, 8 pm
The Wilders' take down-home to a whole 'nother level with their full-tilt version of Ozark-style picking. Many of the songs on the just-released Someone's Got to Pay deal with one member's experiences while serving on the jury for a murder trial. .357 String Band opens.
Thursday 4.17
David Macaulay
Monona Terrace, 7 pm
A lecture by the Caldecott-winning children's author-illustrator, who specializes in showing kids The Way Things Work with fabulously detailed drawings.
Kris Radish
Borders West, 7 pm The bestselling Wisconsin novelist reads from Searching for Paradise in Parker, PA, a female-bonding tale about a woman looking to perk up her drab marriage.
Minus the Bear
Club 770 in UW Union South, 8 pm
Airy takes on Pink Floyd, breezy pop, full-blown guitar-driven psychedelia. These days the veteran Seattle indie-rockers make a sonic tasting menu of them all.
Man Man
High Noon Saloon, 9 pm
The percussion-obsessed maniacs pretty much stole the show when they opened for Modest Mouse at the Orpheum a few months back. You will be entertained. Yeasayer opens.
