The Ceili Group's Fourth Friday Ceili is a community event. Come early for dance instruction at 7 p.m. or show up at 8 p.m. ready to frolic in the traditional dance style set to the luxury of live music. Local faves John Brennan and Paddy O'Neill will hold forth on fiddle and flute throughout. The $10 entry includes lessons and coffee or tea. Guests are asked to bring a snack to share.

—Mary Armstrong

Compared with Kristen Hall and Kristian Bush, Jennifer Nettles was a novice when the three singer-songwriters came together as Sugarland, but all were strangers to country music. Since then, Twice the Speed of Life's taken them to the Grammys, Billboard and American Music Awards, not to mention both CMA and CMT ceremonies. But success changes things. Nettles got a boost by collaborating with Bon Jovi ("Who Says You Can't Go Home?"), while Hall quietly left the group in January, right as they went double platinum.

—M.J. Fine

Lungfish is Baltimore's best band— Avail meets Shudder to Think topped by a ferocious Ian MacKaye rant. Pin-prick any point in their catalog—Rainbows From Atoms, Feral Hymns—and you'll find doubly precocious singer/writer Daniel Higgs at its spooky center, an abstract prose tattler as randomly acerbic as Pollock. Plus, he's an original beardo. And, messy Need New Body's Jeff Bradbury opens. Hey scruffy—go without a shower.

—A.D. Amorosi

Where to start on T Bone Burnett? He's produced everybody from Roy Orbison to Ralph Stanley. His scoring and choosing of the right early country music was arguably as important to the success of O Brother, Where Art Thou? as gorgeous George Clooney. This kind of work for others has meant a 14-year gap since Burnett's last solo recording. Clips from his newest, The True False Identity (Sony), indicate the rocking edge is still intact.

—Mary Armstrong

Not all samba is romping through the streets with a huge drum battery bursting your ear drums. Alô Brasil shows its versatility playing pagode, the back-porch picking of samba, with mellower drumming. The singing is front and center with cavaquinho, guitar, keyboards and bass adding to the melodies.

—Mary Armstrong

"Filling up my mind with magnificent design" isn't just a fancy lyric. It's what Randy Goodman's quartet does: stuff your head with high-strung melodies and dipping complex arrangements (think Radiohead's Pablo Honey) that never stray from rock-out simplicity.

—A.D. Amorosi