Chapel Hill
Venice is Sinking
Wetlands–Looking for a respite from springtime sunshine and high temperatures? This bill–Carrboro’s Work Clothes and North Elementary with Athens’ Venice is Sinking–won’t be about sunbeams or buttercups as much as it is about mood, atmosphere and variable shades of gray, the sort of Stephen Crane naturalism-in-relationships that’s smeared across the cover of Venice is Sinking’s latest album, Sorry About the Flowers. The Georgia quintet sounds like Low baked below the Mason-Dixon, striking forlorn metaphors above doleful beds of violin and fireside, tube-driven guitar amplification. As the locals go, North Elementary only gets better, and Work Clothes deserves national attention for truly gorgeous songcraft. –Grayson Currin
Carrboro
Eugene Mirman, Michael Showalter
Cat’s Cradle–Though their hipster fan club might not realize it, Showalter and Mirman’s comedy is old at heart–vaudevillian old. Showalter’s silly, surreal jokes and physical punch lines owe plenty to the off-color humor of early beloved blunderers. Ask Mirman how punk he is on a scale of one to 10: “Apple! I don’t use your scale.” Leo Allen opens at 9 p.m. Pack $12, laughers of the world. –Chris Toenes
