Or acordeonistica, with buttons, for a modest cover charge at Jovita’s on Saturday and for free at the MACC on Sunday. Cerronato, the factor other than the presence of accordions that these events have in common, will take the stage on about 4:30 on Saturday and at about 2:30 the next day.

At Jovita’s the event is Las Chicas del Barrio, a showcase for women in Latin music sponsored by the Austin Latino Music Association. The music starts at 2 or thereabouts and continues until it’s over. On the bill are Girl in a Coma, Bocastria, Frenetica, Cerronato, the Texana Dames (6:00), Eva Yabarra y Su Conjunto (7:30), Melinda Hernandez y Sister Sister, and the Gina Chavez Band, not necessarily in that order (call Jovita’s at 447-7825). Cover will be a mere $10, which will probably amount to about a dollar an hour for this great program.

Sunday at the MACC is brought to us gratis by Texas Folklife. We’ll hear great personal favorite Cerronato backing four future stars of the accordion who are semifinalists in the Big Squeeze, followed by another great personal favorite, Los Texmaniacs.

Austin may well live up to it’s nom de plume, Live Music Capital of the world, but it is hard to sort the wheat from the chaff. I like to listen to live music, and as is the norm for a Brit’ I have wildly eclectic, or is that varying musical taste. The hardest thing for me since arriving in Austin is the weekly stare-fest looking at the music pages of the Chronicle.

There they are, page after page of band and live music listings. Almost without exception I’ve never heard of any of them. As I’m not in my teens I don’t have the time or energy to do night after night of music venues to find out what I like, and since I’m new’ish in town I don’t have the circle of friends with like-minded tastes. Oh, what is a boy to do?

Well for this week I’m all set, its going to be a very busy w/e. Tonight is First Thursday down on South Congress, always good for a late dinner and bar hoping between Gueros outdoors, Bottecelli’s back yard and the Continental club. Friday is B Scene at First Friday at the Blanton Museum, followed by a curry.

So, whats the home and away reference? Well Friday evening see Maneja Beto do their CD Release gig at the Mohawk at 10pm. I’ve seen the local Austin band twice and had a great time. Given my earlier post on VMU, to use the analogy, Maneja Beto are like a VMU band. They are an overlay on existing styles of dance music, indie, with more than a hint of electronic and south west thrown in for good measure. So thats the home band.

For an away band, Peggggy has been bugging me too see Four Way Free, who’ve been gigging and blogging their way across the country from LA. They are on Saturday at the Dirty Dog. Much easier to classify, and probably more mainstream but just as interesting to listen to. I only hope I can make it from the ride and the beer at Shiner…

We approached the new Long Center for the Performing Arts on foot. Even though we had printed a little map, this building does not read well for pedestrians, and we haven’t even been to the Palmer Events Center since it opened, so everything about the grounds these days was new. After going inside the new Gypsy Italian Bistro, which was full, to inspect the promising menu, we headed for what we hoped was the safest street crossing, selecting the one by the Daugherty Arts Center, where we felt reasonably secure. It was wonderful that the moonlighting law-enforcement people directing traffic on the grounds gave precedence to pedestrians. What a treat, and how unusual for Austin!

The Long Center doesn’t read well for those approaching for the first time, and on foot. It appears to be designed for entry from the parking garage, which we did not use. People are already wearing informal footpaths where walks should go, not where they really are. The batteries in my toy camera failed, so I have no image to show here, but the terrace facing the river and downtown offers one of the most spectacular night-time views to be seen anywhere, and I think certainly the most amazing skyline view in Austin.

I’d suspect that the peculiarities of parking at the Long Center accounted for the fact that nearly the entire audience was seated in the five or ten minutes after the scheduled 7:30 curtain time. On our level of the building, at least, men and women lined up side by side to go into the restrooms, offering scanty facilities for men and not much larger ones for women. The lighting is not flattering, to say the least. Exit signs in the large performance venue are well lit for the audience. I did not use any elevator in the building, but the stairways do not seem to be as commodious and well marked as they ought to be, should there ever be an emergency. The seats in the big hall offer much more leg room than those in Bass Hall. Row markers and seat numbers are not easily legible.

Restroom lines moved with reasonable dispatch, but not so quickly that it was possible to explore the various lobbies. I’ve written elsewhere about the acoustics, experienced so far at just one performance. I look forward to attendiing performances other than opera, in order to gain a different perspective on how well this building works.

It’s tough to get there these days, according to the local daily (”Weekend events overwhelm Palmer Events Center parking,” byline Jeanne Claire van Ryzin, April 22), tougher than it used to be to reach the Bass Concert Hall on campus, even though this location is closer for many. We used to eat downtown, ride the bus up the hill part of the way and walk part of the way, and then take the bus home. The only bad thing that could happen would be that a performance would run long, so that buses were off the streets, but then it was easy to walk to a downtown cab stand and catch a ride the rest of the way.

Last week, charter buses and vehicles of all sorts were delayed in reaching the new Long Center or could find no nearby parking and were very late to the Sunday matinee performance of Carmen.

ALO’s general manager fired off an e-mail blast today, declaring to ticketholders that this weekend it will be different:

I would like to assure our Thursday and Saturday night Carmen ticket holders that they will not encounter such parking difficulties. On Thursday evening there is a performance at Rollins Theater which holds 250. On Saturday there is a City Wide Garage Sale from 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. and the University of Phoenix Graduation Ceremony from 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. in the Palmer Events Center but both will be finished well before our 7:30 curtains.

I confess, though, that I’m suspicious, since in that same e-mail people are advised to arrive an hour early. If gridlock occurs, cabs won’t help, and it’s frightening crossing the streets around there on foot. It’s so near, and yet so far. We’re still considering the logistics.

Carmen is one of the operas most often suggested for beginners (La Traviata, Tosca, and The Elixir of Love are some others; people will argue for hours over this question). The last performance of Carmen that I attended was the wonderful event staged in the Austin Coliseum, now demolished. Even sitting on bleachers didn’t diminish the pleasure. Last-minute tickets are often available at the box office. Like it or not, the melodies from Carmen are unforgettable and you will hear people humming them as they leave the show.

If you weren’t listening to the Wakeup Call this past week, here’s just some of what you missed: a long and in-depth forum featuring the candidates in the Democratic primary run-off election for district attorney, many first-hand accounts from those who attended the Travis County Democratic convention this past weekend as delegates or alternates, and a discussion this morning with a call-in by Chief Acevedo on how the Austin Police Department is preparing for the Texas Relays and all the visitors that this major event will bring to Austin this week. KAZI 88.7-fm broadcasts the Wakeup Call from 7 to 8 am five days a week.

Chief Acevedo said that there will be more information about APD and the Texas Relays weekend up at the City’s site later today, but it’s not there yet. He was encouraging visitors to see more of Austin than Sixth Street only. There’s way more than the official Relays site, with its schedule of all the track and field events. Here are some sources for the party side: Urban 512, SoulCiti, the Urban Music Fest, and TexasRelays.com. It’s the site for the Urban Music Fest that brings us a guide, complete with reviews, of some Austin restaurants owned by African-Americans, with information supplied by the Austin Blackpages.

Previously the Waterloo Brewing Company and later the Fox and Hound, and spotted on my walk across Austin this morning…

Seems like development is on the menu today.

Eddie Izzard will be performing for three nights, June 6, 7, 8 at The Paramount Theater here in Austin! If you haven’t heard of Eddie, he is, in my opinion, one of the most brilliant, intelligent and hilarious comedians ever. I’m always surprised at how many people I meet are indeed not only familiar, but in fact die hard fans of his. His humor is simultaneously absurd and cerebral tackling many subjects such as history, bigotry (Eddie likes to wear women’s clothes), movies, love, flags, monkeys with banjos, royalty being attacked by crazy dogs, Star Wars, riding a Vespa and coolly saying “Ciao”, murderous dictators and oh so much more.

Tickets go on sale March 16 at 10 a.m. here. Prices range from $40-$72.50.

Show World is no longer a weekly section in the local daily. Quietly and with no announcement that came to my attention, the little tabloid disappeared from the Sunday edition. The Life section contained an abbreviated television page that highlighted certain programs for the week to come and showed the evening schedule only, and only for yesterday. We’re now going to have to go out of our way to make sure not to miss such recent gems as Daredevil: el hombre sin miedo (”the man without fear”) or The Atomic Fireman (a Cantinflas item).

There is now an on-line listing, which does show the Spanish-language stations but doesn’t show their non-cable or non-broadband numbers. It’s going to be a big nuisance to boot up the computer just to make sure not to overlook those American movies dubbed into Spanish with a certain verve. Most are action movies, but there are movies of other kinds, including a Herbie movie recently. Other occasional Sunday favorites are enjoyed in their original language; among them are charro movies and society comedies from the golden age, as well as any and every Cantinflas movie that appears on the schedule.

Television came into my life late and has been a presence only sporadically. I think it’s been almost a decade that we’ve been enjoying our first color TV, a great change, although it boasts the 13-inch screen that the old black-and-white model did, and brings in only those channels that a rabbit-eared antenna can capture.

I don’t think we’ll be buying a converter box before next February, when, without one, ordinary television reception for people like me will disappear. That’s when television itself will probably disappear from my life. I’m not late about everything and I still remember all the DOS commands, but I don’t have a cell-phone. Yet.

The KO-OP Web site is mysterious, but reports that the station will return to the air this Friday, day after tomorrow, January 26. I’ve been checking the site twice a day since fire number three shut the station down. Again. A quick search reveals that Burnt Orange Report seems to know more. I’ve really hated being without KO-OP. I tuned in to Thomas Durnin’s Big Band Sound show on Saturday, January 5; then, on Sunday, Czech Melody Time could not be heard and there was nothing but dead air. KO-OP is as local as they come and I welcome its return.

Lighten your heart and brighten the darkness this evening, at the twelfth annual luminarias trail of lights in Big Stacy Park. This is a wonderful family-scale alternative to the big trail of lights, with homemade music and neighborly conviviality just part of the pleasure. All that’s asked in return is that carolers bring an article of non-perishable food to donate. The Girl Scouts will see that it reaches the Capital Area Food Bank. There will be illuminated trails to walk and spirited singing back at the bonfire, and refreshments of hot chocolate and apple cider are promised. It all begins at around 6:30 (or dusk) this evening and will continue until 9 o’clock. The official address for Big Stacy Park is 700 East Side Drive. Begin near Travis Heights Elementary School on East Side Drive between Live Oak and Woodland, a little east from South Congress (see map one or map two). The goal is happy hearts and 650 pounds of donated food. Only a downpour will cause cancellation.