Recently in Weekend Update Category

Today's First Friday, so there's art, box wine, and fruit-and-cheese plates all over downtown. There's plenty more to do this weekend, though. Here are some highlights:



• Wendy Williams, the AVN Transsexual Performer of the Year for 2009, will be signing autographs at Rainbow Video in North Knoxville today at 5 p.m. Jesse Fox Mayshark interviewed Williams for this week's issue.

• The John Myers Band, led by the local veteran R&B singer John Myers (above), is performing at Knoxville Museum of Art's Alive After Five series at 6 p.m. The show is free. Jack Neely profiled Myers in 2007, and I reviewed his new CD this week.

• Royal Bangs play at Barley's Taproom tonight, with former Bang Brandon Biondi's band Coolrunnings--whose remix of Twin Sister's "All Around and Away We Go" was featured on Pitchfork earlier this week--opening.

• The Night of 1,000 Dollys, an annual celebration of all things Dolly, moves to Club XYZ in Happy Holler tonight. The party includes biggest hair, biggest boobs, and Dolly look-alike contests and late-night Dolly-themed drag shows. It's 21 and up and admission is $3, unless you have a Dollywood season pass or ticket stub, in which case you get in free. 

• Local "anti-pop" stars Hudson K celebrate the release of their debut album, Shine, at the new Relix Variety Theatre in Downtown North, on Central Street, on Saturday night at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10, which includes a copy of the disc. Janet Jay interviewed Hudson K singer/pianist/songwriter Christina Horn this week. 

• Cellist/singer/songwriter Ben Sollee, whose scheduled headlining performance at last month's Dogwood Arts Rhythm N' Blooms festival was canceled when volcanic ash stuck Sollee in Sweden, will hold a makeup performance at the Knoxville Botanical Garden on Sunday at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25-$75. The expensive seats include a reception with Sollee. Discounts are available for Rhythm N' Blooms passholders. Jack Neely interviewed Sollee here. 

Last week the Rossini Festival street fair and productions by both Knoxville Opera and UT Opera Theatre made for a busy weekend. There's just as much to do this weekend.

• Walking With the Dinosaurs at Thompson-Boling Arena on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday--as close as your going to get to seeing real-life dinosaurs anytime soon

• Indie-folk singer Josephine Foster (above) at Pilot Light tonight at 10 p.m. On her most recent album, Graphic as a Star, Foster has set several Emily Dickinson poems to music.

• UT's annual spring concert, Volapalooza, moves from Fraternity Row to World's Fair Park this year with electro-pop group Passion Pit, Celtic rockers Flogging Molly, and novelty rapper Asher Roth. The concert starts at 7 p.m. tonight. Tickets are free for UT students, $15 for everybody else.

• Mitch Easter, the guy who produced the first two R.E.M. albums with Don Dixon and fronted the classic North Carolina college rock band Let's Active for most of the 1980s, is playing at Barley's Taproom on Saturday night. The Tim Lee 3 and Angela Faye Martin, whose new album Pictures From Home was one of the last projects Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous worked on before committing suicide in March, are opening.

• Self-deprecating TV comedian Kathy Griffin is performing two shows at the Tennessee Theatre on Saturday. The first show, at 7 p.m., is already sold out, but tickets are still available for the 9 p.m. set. The performances are being recorded for an upcoming special on Bravo. 

• Rossini opera returns to the Rossini Festival with Knoxville Opera's The Barber of Seville, starring Knoxville native and Metropolitan Opera veteran Kevin Burdette, on Friday and Sunday at the Tennessee Theatre.



• It's been a hard year so far for the San Francisco black metal band Ludicra--a national tour was canceled and guitarist John Cobbett had a really bad case of appendicitis. But they're back on the road in support of their majestic new album, The Tenant, and play at Pilot Light with Argentinum Astrum tonight.


 
• Get your BBQ on at Pork Knox Q-Fest at World's Fair Park on Friday evening and all day Saturday.
 
• Rossini Festival Street Fair: Knoxville's biggest street fair, with everything from funnel cakes and corn dogs to opera.
 
• UT Opera pitches in for the Rossini weekend with two short opera productions at the Bijou Theatre on Saturday and Sunday: Puccini's Gianni Schicchi and Stephen Paulus' The Village Singer.
 
• The organizers of the Knoxville Jazz Festival, scheduled for Aug. 26-28, are releasing a compilation of local jazz music, Tenors and Satin, this weekend. You can pick up a copy for $15 at the release party at the S&W Grand on Sunday afternoon (it starts at 5 p.m.). You can read more about the recordings here and here.