Headlights
Monday 3.31
MAMA Nominees
Brink Lounge, 6 pm
At this announcement party, we'll learn the names of the acts up for a Madison Area Music Award in 2008. Clear Blue Betty, Incidental String Quartet and others will perform.
Mankind Is Obsolete
High Noon Saloon, 9 pm
L.A.'s female-fronted band blast away the Monday blues with insistent industrial beats and the requisite doomy intimations.
Tuesday 4.1
Sister Carol
Majestic Theatre, 8 pm
Smart, funny and a master of reggae rhyming, Sister Carol is one of dancehall's great women singers. You can't help but be impressed by her linguistic acrobatics. Natty Nation opens.
Wednesday 4.2
Overture Center Galleries
Through June 11
The new exhibitions include "The Women of Madison Glass," featuring seven glass artists; and prints from the UW students in Fresh Hot Press.
Bolz Young Artist Competition
Overture Center's Overture Hall, 6:45 pm
See how the younger generation handles Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff as two violinists and two pianists perform in the competition's final round. These Wisconsin high school students will play concerto excerpts with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and conductor John DeMain, and public TV and radio will be on hand to record the results. But hey, no pressure.
Genuflect
Annex, 7:30 pm
Boston's Genuflect rose from the ashes of rap-rockers Reveille. These days the emphasis is on pulverizing beats and growling guitars, but a trace of hip-hop remains.
Headlights
High Noon Saloon, 8 pm
Champaign's Headlights served fans a change-up pitch with this year's Some Racing, Some Stopping. Thanks to some dreamy arrangements, they often come across as a twinkly, Euro-style pop group. Evangelicals open.
Thursday 4.3
Wisconsin Film Festival
The 10th annual event runs April 3-6 in 10 downtown locations, showcasing independent films, world cinema, restored gems and homegrown efforts. The first day's films include Water Lilies (Wisconsin Union Theater, 7 pm), Sky Turns (Majestic Theatre, 7:30 pm) and Loose Cannons (Monona Terrace, 9:30 pm).
Barbara Goldberg and Philip Pardi
6191 Helen C. White Hall, 7 pm
Goldberg and Pardi have won the UW's prestigious Brittingham and Pollak poetry prizes for their book-length works. Goldberg reads from The Royal Baker's Daughter, Pardi from Meditations on Rising and Falling.
Frances Smith Foster
Wisconsin Historical Society Auditorium, 7:30 pm
The Emory University professor discusses the antebellum African American press, focusing on issues of love, marriage and sexual morality.
Wingra Woodwind Quintet
Morphy Hall in the UW Humanities Bldg., 7:30 pm
The UW chamber ensemble keeps you guessing with a program that runs from Stephen Foster to Luciano Berio.
Majestic Theatre, 8 pm
Grateful Dead alumna Donna Jean Thatcher (formerly Godchaux) aims to please dedicated Heads with jumping, R&B-flavored jams. They hark back to her early years working sessions in Muscle Shoals with Boz Scaggs, Percy Sledge and Elvis Presley. Run Side Down opens.
Cursive
Club 770 in UW Union South, 9:30 pm
The Omaha indie-rockers feature antic front dude Tim Kasher's hermetic meditations on everything under the sun. The Capgun Coup opens.
