Eight Days a Week 

Wednesday
Durham
Jason Anderson, North Elementary
Duke Coffeehouse
Luckily, Jason Anderson traded in his former Wolf Colonel moniker for his given name to grace the spine of his latest release, The Wreath. As Wolf Colonel, he ran the risk of being another one-man-band type, and neither the fact that he has a band in Omaha nor his proclivity for honest, confessional introspection helps that. From lo-fi Jeff Mangum salutes to Nick Drake sweetness, these songs are good enough for the first-person. Anderson also plays Nightlight on Saturday with Heather from Bellafea, Bibis Ellison and Alina Simone. 10 p.m./$5. --Grayson Currin

Thursday
Carrboro
Melvin Sparks Band
De La Luz
This-after party for the Dr. John show features notable acid jazz guitarist Sparks with his band, bound give an electric finish to the evening. Just walk across the street to Temple Ball Gallery. 11 p.m. $8 or $5 with Dr. John ticket stub--Chris Toenes

Raleigh
Iconic, The Sammies
The Pour House
Iconic are a Raleigh five piece with a rugged rock attack and a Britpop inflection that's beginning to gather momentum. Even more enticing are The Sammies from Charlotte. A noted live act that's become one of that city's best, The Sammies have an at times rustic Southern sound but are just as likely to burnish a bit of punk intensity and garage rock roar. 9 p.m./$5--Chris Parker

Friday
Raleigh
Dirty Dozen Brass Band
Lincoln Theatre
In these hyperbolic times, medals labeled "musical institution" and "national treasure" too often get hung on acts that are neither; however, both truly fit this long-standing brass ensemble from New Orleans. All 10 members (the name comes from the Dirty Dozen Social and Pleasure Club where the band got its start) graduated from the same old school. 10 p.m. $13 advance--Rick Cornell

Carrboro
North Mississippi All-stars
Cat's Cradle
Duwayne Burnside left the band last year, but bassist Chris Chew and brothers Cody and Luther--sons of legendary producer Jim Dickinson--continue to unfurl an electrified, snarl-prone, semi-psychedelic blues that still puts asses in motion and contemporaries to shame. Put your feet in the Mississippi Mud. Good Friday Experiment opens. 9:30 p.m. $15--Grayson Currin

Saturday
Durham
The Wrens
Duke Coffeehouse
Victimized by label troubles, it took seven years for The Wrens' third album, The Meadowlands, to arrive, but boy was it worth the wait. Tender, sweet and revealing, it's a stunning, melancholy tour de force. Unlike the recent spate of psychedelic-leaning indie popsters, The Wrens are undeniably rockers. Though decidedly downbeat in tone, the music has a latent suppleness and muscularity that's reminiscent of '90s college rock acts such as Bettie Serveert, The Lemonheads and Buffalo Tom. Voted Magnet's best album of the year in 2003. 9 p.m. --Chris Parker

Carrboro
Thad Cockrell
Cat's Cradle
Ex-Triangleite Thad Cockrell is now settled in Nashville, where he's been recording an album of duets with Caitlin Cary and playing out with members of the Mavericks as his backing band. Fans of pure-country singing and plain-old good songwriting should consider this a triumphant homecoming. 9 p.m. $8--Rick Cornell

Sunday
Raleigh
Chris Knight
The Pour House
Kentucky's Chris Knight makes my kind of country music. Across three critically acclaimed albums, Knight has relied on a voice full of Bluegrass State twang, a sound full of no-nonsense guitars and rootsy shadings, and stories full of farms and rivers, not to mention guns and bibles that share glovebox space. Mando Saenz opens. 7 p.m. $8--Rick Cornell

Durham
Tapestries
Durham Arts Council
The council will hold a preview and discussion of tapestries by Peruvian master weaver Maximo Laura, whose show runs Feb. 12-April 3. Visit www.durhamarts.org for more information. 3-5 p.m.

Monday
Carrboro
Flicker
Cat's Cradle
Flicker, the brainchild of Norwood Cheek, provides a venue for the creative spirit manifested via Super 8 films. The film screening's humble beginnings date back a decade to the main room of the Local 506, where people crowded onto the concrete floor to watch short films by local filmmakers. Flicker quickly outgrew the 506 and was relocated to Cat's Cradle, where it has been ever since. The Cradle now hosts the Flicker Hat Trick, in which an audience member has the chance to win the sponsorship of a new short film. $3 at the door--Tasha Petty

Raleigh
Mike Babyak & the Shape Shifters
The Pour House
The woods are full of lap steel players, but few lead a double life as clinical psychologists at Duke. Mike Babyak's mind-stretching exercises on guitar range from the works of Ry Cooder to Malian guitar great Djelimady Tounkara. Babyak's electric quartet The Shape Shifters are the official house band of the Temple Ball Gallery's De La Luz Performance Space. 9 p.m./Free--Grant Britt

Tuesday
Chapel Hill
Jesse Malin
Local 506
Ex D-Generation frontman Jesse Malin is a devastatingly moving songwriter and a testament to the idea that most of the best songwriters start out as punks. His 2002 entree, The Fine Art of Self Destruction, still stands as the finest post-Whiskeytown album Ryan Adams ever made. If you can't make tonight's Chapel Hill show, Malin also plays Kings in Raleigh tomorrow. --Grayson Currin

Wednesday next
Chapel Hill
Dalek
Local 506
One of the most innovative artists to emerge from the hip-hop underground, dalek combines busy, complex and dark ambient arrangements reminiscent in their richness of Def Jux, with a strong dance vibe, thanks to the thundering breakbeat rhythms. Their latest, Absence, exists in a shadowy, spooky environment somewhere between Deltron 3030's futuristic dystopia and Esham's decadent Halloween horror rides. 10 p.m. --Chris Parker

Carrboro
Eugene Chadbourne & Han Bennink
De La Luz
Dr. Eugene of Greensboro is the Green Lantern superhero of modern improvisation; once touched to his wiry frame, any inanimate object becomes an amplified vessel of his volcanic life force. Ditto for Mr. Bennink, preeminent Euro free jazz giant, rattling recently in Ethiopia with members of anarcho-punks The Ex. Local free-noisers Nerve Gas Incubator, with members of Defenestrator and Cold Sides, start the action. $8 --Chris Toenes