SLCene Suggests: 5 Tips for Your Week

This week there’s music both old-timey and modern, plays telling new stories and old, and one wild, psychedelic night out.

Yonder Mountain String Band, Wednesday, April 11, The Depot, p.m., $25

Colorado quartet Yonder Mountain String Band helped me get over my phobia that they might be too much jam-band and not enough bluegrass band for my taste the first time I saw them. These boys have serious chops and kill in delivering a traditional bluegrass sound–even when they do jam out a bit.

Sleigh Bells, Thursday, April 12, The Depot, 8 p.m., $20 advance, $25 day of show

When Sleigh Bells came through a couple years ago, they stopped at The Heavy Metal Shop and bought some gear (see their “Rill Rill” video from the duo’s debut, Treats), and then played a fun-but-brief set at Urban Lounge that was like some sort of noise-rock/cheerleader camp combo. Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss have a special brand of coolness going on–I don’t know if people will still listen to their tunes 10 years from now, but they deliver some immediate satisfaction when you listen to them right now.

Plan-B Theatre Company‘s The Scarlet Letter, Thursday, April 12, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 8 p.m., $20

Jennifer Nii offers up her take on the Nathaniel Hawthorne classic tale of Hester Prynne in the latest production by the Plan-B Theatre Company. Check back at SLCene.com for a review of the show this weekend.

Photo from The Scarlet Letter by Rick Pollock

Salt Lake Acting Company‘s Course 86b in the Catalogue, Friday, April 13, Salt Lake Acting Company, 8 p.m.

SLAC’s latest show is a world premiere of Kathleen Cahill’s Course 86b in the Catalogue, a comedy set in a small community college that riffs on the fight over evolution. Cahill’s past works like Charm proved popular with Salt Lake City audiences; check back for a review this weekend.

Underground Gypsy Cabaret, Friday, April 13, Bar Deluxe, 9 p.m., $7

This sounds like a night out that you don’t find every day in Salt Lake City. Pole dancers, aerial artists, sword swallowers, belly dancers, a hostess channeling Mae West and music from gypsy-rock locals Juana Ghani, Tabla Arabia and Rakatanga. Sounds potential mind-blowing, in the best ways possible.