Catie Curtis is an acoustic songwriter who has landed her songs in high-profile slots with television shows like Grey’s Anatomy, Dawson’s Creek, and Felicity. Julie Clark opens.

Folk singer Steve Forbert performs at Gravity Lounge tonight.

That would be “Romeo’s Song,” his 1980 hit, which was just rerecorded by no less than Keith Urban for an upcoming Nicole Kidman movie.

The second clip needs no introduction, but Forbert allegedly has a cameo somewhere in there. Can you find him? (As if you needed another reason to have that stuck on repeat…)

Steve Forbert - Autumn This Year [live]

Pennsylvania shoegaze from Aydin and the instrumental tunes of Northern Valentine.

The Black Twigs = blue grass, red hot

The Black Twigs - Boatsman

People named “Rat” playing gypsy music on accordions? We couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried.

Nathan Moore is a singer-songwriter from Staunton

Nathan Moore - Understand Under

A Cosmonaut’s Ruin leads a long list of regional rock bands at this Outback blowout showcase. Also featuring The Evil Tapeworms, Evil Bebos, and Gifts From Enola

Junk Science fuses rock and funk.

Chicago indie dude and PASTE magazine 5-star champ Ezra Furman gives his acoustic folk sensibilities another electric rock ass-kicking. Local staple Travis Elliott opens.

Ezra Furman - God Is A Middle-Aged Woman

Given that they won The Hook’s online download competition a year ago, it’s pretty clear that dreaming isabelle has a hungry fan base. It’s a good thing, then, that they finally got around to rescheduling the CD release celebration that was canceled back in December. The new EP “Awake” is available from iTunes and at Plan 9 — but, oddly enough, not via the Snocap download store they used to win the competition!

Connecticut export Andrew Hoover opens.

dreaming isabelle - Not Missing You

American Dumpster frontdude Breeden uses a solo set to warm up the crowd for Fishburne’s jazzy jams.

Rob Cheatham and Brunkle Jordan from the Nice Jenkins break free of the band for one night.

Richmond rock from The Ladys and Los Rudos from Nashville. Also featuring Cheap Time and The Wax Museums

As a former Charlottesville resident, guitarist and songwriter Ali Marcus is probably looking forward to playing at Miller’s more than performers who are just passing through. “While I lived in town, I spent some time playing at the Prism, Live Arts, Baja Bean, Jaberwoke, UVA functions on campus, WTJU and house parties,” she tells us. “Coming back to sing at Miller’s just feels right.” Since moving to the Pacific Northwest several years ago, she has attracted attention of publications like Harp magazine and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Ali Marcus - The Other Side

The Biscuit Rollers play classic blues descended from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and R.L. Burnside.

The Biscuit Rollers - France Blues

This trio of locals plays traditional Old World and Americana music on fiddle, mandolin, and guitar

This trio of locals plays traditional Old World and Americana music on fiddle, mandolin, and guitar

This trio of locals plays traditional Old World and Americana music on fiddle, mandolin, and guitar

This trio of locals plays traditional Old World and Americana music on fiddle, mandolin, and guitar

This trio of locals plays traditional Old World and Americana music on fiddle, mandolin, and guitar

Lotus mixes instrumental post-rock with electronic and dance music. Telepath opens.

Lotus - Tip Of The Tongue

For those who haven’t already heard, Charlottesville blues and ethno-fusion guitarist Corey Harris was one of 24 nominees recently chosen for the 2007 MacArthur Fellowships, a distinction informally known as the “Genius Awards.” The rest of the world is finally starting to catch up to what we’ve known for years.

Corey Harris - Ark Of The Covenant

The Mighty Clouds Of Joy have been putting gospel on wax for nearly fifty years, but it was the blend of gospel and R&B they experimented with in the 1970’s that won them their greatest pop successes.

Classical pianist Dan Franklin Smith performs pieces by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Chopin.

Local legend Jamie Dyer picked these guys as one of his favorites when he was interviewed for our music issue last year: “Whether they’re laid back or rockin’, these guys play downright American music with a lot of heart,” he said. Do you think he knew that Hook staffer Lindsay Barnes is a featured member?

Junior Moment plays rootsy rock with an occasional psychedelic twist

Retrospective Collective plays the background music for your latest karaoke freak out — and they’re heavy on the 80’s tunes, the way anyone with a nostalgic side likes it.

The local pianist livens up the weekly brunch.

The Hogs have been C-ville’s favorite Americana ensemble for the past zillion years. The weekly gigs they played for years are no more — catch them while you can.

Piano for dinner

Matthew Willner is typically a pretty busy guy, but he’s currently taking it easy and nursing a recent injury. If you’re a fan, be sure to drop by.

Matthew Willner - Churchfoot

Local pianist performs for dinner

George Melvin brings out “Miss Lucy,” his beloved Hammond B-3 Organ, for a jazz quartet gig (Organnosaurus Rex?). Expect the usual fare: blues, Latin jazz, and standards. The chance to catch Johnny Gilmore and Jamal Millner playing together is nothing to sneeze at, either.

Bill Adams takes his Banty Rooster project solo with bluesy acoustic guitar.

This singer-songwriter is a local favorite.

Local piano man pounds the keys during dinner

This Berklee-educated guitar player surrounds himself with three highly capable musicians to play classic blues descended from Muddy Waters and Albert King.

Local pianist performs for dinner

Monstrous mandolin player performs with a mix of other locals

The local musical chameleon puts on his old-time pants for this show, which will also feature all sorts of friends sitting in.

Retrospective Collective plays the background music for your latest karaoke freak out.

Traditional bluegrass

The local pianist livens up the weekly brunch.

UVA’s leading trombone player coaxes jazz from his horn

Local pianist performs for dinner

Old-time music

Local pianist performs for dinner

The local jazz guitarist, who just happens to be the most active teacher in town, breaks out the acoustic for this solo show.

The local pianist livens up the weekly brunch.

Organ-driven funk/jazz

Local saxophone player

The talented youngsters of Charlottesville High School perform Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” which pairs narration by theater director David Small (pictured here, looking almost as scary as the aforementioned wolf) with character-specific melodic and timbral themes to relate the classic tale.

Local old-time outfit Mando Mafia more or less stopped performing when longtime member Kelly Perdue passed away two years ago, but they’ve decided to seriously bounce back with this family-friendly matinee — it will be the first performance featuring new member Collin Gallahue, who won state championships on both fiddle and mandolin while studying luthiery in Utah.

Prepare for an evening of metal with local wonders ThisMeansYou, who are undoubtedly the best distortion-slingers in Jefferson’s Virginia. Frequent Outback visitors One Slack Mind open, and Colossus brings the Iron Maiden riffs from North Carolina.

Jazz combo driven by guitar and sax

Jazz combo driven by guitar and sax

Jazz combo driven by guitar and sax

Jazz combo driven by guitar and sax

Gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz

The best local jazz around

The best local jazz around

The best local jazz around

The best local jazz around

The best local jazz around

Last-minute show from the local pop-rock quintet

Scuffletown consists of the songs of singer/songwriter Marc Garraway as augmented by multi-instrumentalist John Whitlow.

Download Window On The World

House jazz band

Serving as the backing band for Amy Winehouse on her breakthrough album catapulted the Dap-Kings into the international spotlight last year, but the Bushwick funk ensemble is just as capable when backing matriarch Sharon Jones.

Given that James Brown passed away last year, Dap-Kings bassist Bosco Mann and Daptone Records are now responsible for most of the authentic funk and soul being produced today — the Budos Band, for example — but Jones is definitely the flagship. The Ivan Milev Band opens.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights

Welcome to the Hook’s new online concert calendar. We’ve slaved for ages over the functionality, and we hope you will utilize it.

Feeds

Every day we update one RSS feed for our favorite events and another for all the shows in town. The feeds are purged of past events every morning, so you can get super-cool one-click access to the day’s concerts using the “Live Bookmarks” feature in Firefox and Safari.

There’s also a feed for non-Calendar content so you can get your daily music fix without having to first wade through too many depressing news stories.

iCal

Every concert in town gets an entry in our constantly-updated iCal web calendar, which you can view with Google Calendar, Apple iCal, Mozilla Sunbird, and Microsoft Outlook, among others.

Audio

We can attach MP3 files to our event listings, and there’s an awesome Flash music player on the left side of every page which will give you one-click access to all the music we have for the next 30 days. Once a show has passed, its songs are automatically removed, so the remaining tracks move up toward the top of the playlist as the show gets closer.

On the right, you’ll find smaller one-shot MP3 playback devices which can also be used to find out which posts have audio content. The audio feed also podcasts those files — most of them, at least — so subscribing in iTunes or any other podcast-friendly application will put a playlist for the day’s concerts on your iPod every morning.

Pages and Comments

Every concert is given a discrete page so you can email a link to friends or post it on your band’s MySpace page.

Each page includes a commenting function for discussions both before and after the show, and you can follow all the gossip either by using the comments feed or by keeping an eye on the comments section at the bottom of the front page.

Bookmark http://readthehook.com/music to stay up to date on all the best concerts in town, or submit your own for inclusion.

This is the second time in about a year that Yo La Tengo has performed in Charlottesville, but the Satellite Ballroom brewed up something different for this visit. Where the last was the expected Starr Hill blowout, this one promises to be more low-key and will involve mostly acoustic instrumentation. So what if their last album was called “I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass?”

Don’t miss the opening act — Kurt Wagner is best known as the voice of Lambchop (not, as you might have guessed, the alter-ego of Nightcrawler from the X-men) and he delivered some of the creepiest vocals imaginable on his 2002 collaboration with British electro-popsters Morcheeba.

Yo La Tengo - I Feel Like Going Home [live]

Ferron is a Canadian folk songstress hailed both for her own compositions and for her influence on the likes of Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, and the Indigo Girls. Old standbys Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule open.

Monticello Road’s accessible pop-rock was on the rise and poised to explode at the exact moment when guitarist Vaden Cox announced his departure. He has since returned and will open up for his former band with a solo set.

Peyton is a rootsy local songwriter with an all-star supporting cast which includes many top-shelf local jazz musicians.

This band of brothers and their unrelated goofball of a bassist currently rank pretty high as local favorites go, but if you’ve already seen them a few dozen times, go for the opening act: Shannon Worrell was in the same place several years ago, and is in the midst of a pronounced resurgence after an extended period of dormancy.

The band may still be going strong despite founder David Sickmen’s departure last year, but like so many other things, the annual tradition of New Years with the Hacks has moved from the late Starr Hill to the Satellite Ballroom.

Lynchburg’s Hi Ho Six Shooter is a 5-piece “neo-Western” band, which at first glance appears to mean “Western, but not stodgy old dudes.”

After looking at their web site, though, we’re not so sure.

We’re glad that you’re taking the time to check out our website. You can find out all about us by navigating around the site using the “hyperlinks” above. We ourselves don’t really know what hyperlinks are because we were born in the 1800’s and died in the 1800’s.

You can also find us on Virb.com and unfortunately on Myspace.com.

They also know how to use YouTube, apparently.

Navel reunites to blend prog-rock with pop-rock one last time. Bassist Drew Worsley split for L.A. after Starr Hill closed last year, so this may not happen again for a while; don’t miss out.

Ring in the New Year with the coolest new-school bluegrass ensemble Charlottesville has produced since the Hackensaw Boys.

6 Day Bender - Down The Line

Fellini’s favorite punks move over to Miller’s for the night. Accordion Death Squad opens.

Jam rock; Waynesboro’s Vapetones kick things off.