THURSDAY 9/8

‘LOVE THY NEIGHBOR:’ INTERFAITH PEACE EVENT

6 p.m. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Free.

On the 10th anniversary of the events of 9/11, the Arkansas House of Prayer and its sister organization, St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church’s Interfaith Center, established a gathering open to all religions — and to those who don’t practice a religion at all — as a collective ode to community and world peace. Whether it was a particularly well-timed response to a rapidly increasing sense of political division or just the promise of a supercharged performance from Beebe’s Cody Belew of “The Voice” fame in 2013, the now annual peace event began to need larger venues, and this year is at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Mississippi Avenue. The event includes performances from the executive director of the House of Prayer and an ever-eloquent asset to the local music scene, John Willis; soprano saxophone virtuoso Marquis Hunt; soulful singer and future events manager for Mylo Coffee Jessica Lauren; the Interfaith Kids Choir; Indian percussionist and UALR musicologist Dr. Rolf Groesbeck; and singer/songwriter Maddie Robinson. The service adheres to a tight timeframe of about an hour and is followed by what they call the Interfaith Food Festival, a buffet-style feast of vegetarian dishes accompanied by live music from Temple B’nai Israel’s Schechinotes.

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THURSDAY 9/8

JOHN FULLBRIGHT

8 p.m. South on Main. $22-$34.

If John Fullbright has something in common with his fellow Okemah, Okla., native Woody Guthrie, it’s the economy of his lyrics: “I could use another 20 years to fix the last 15,” or “Everyday we go running on a razorblade/Sewing up the edges frayed waiting to arrive/While joy is Little Lord Fauntleroy/Sitting in his La-Z-Boy keeping hope alive.” Unlike, say, “Ludlow Massacre” or “Dust Bowl Refugee,” though, Fullbright’s song titles are as Plain Jane as his deadpan stage presence. If you skimmed a track list, it’d be easy to place Fullbright in the crowded file of aspiring Americana artists who haven’t yet found what exactly it is they have to say. Like those would-be troubadours, Fullbright certainly borrows from his predecessors, but even in songs that so clearly remind the listener of older iconic songwriters the way, say, “High Road” sounds like a cut straight out of Warren Zevon’s best years, they somehow avoid feeling derivative. They stand out because they feel lived in; they feel like they’ve been around much longer than the 28 years Fullbright’s been alive.

FRIDAY 9/9

WALTER HENDERSON GROUP

7 p.m. Ron Robinson Theater. $10.

While Walter Henderson isn’t exactly a household name, you’ve heard him play if you’ve witnessed an Amasa Hines show when the band brings in auxiliary horns to boost the “aural baptism” vibe, and Henderson’s jazz combo boasts some major credentials. A trumpetist, flugelhornist, vocalist and piccolist, Henderson recorded his first solo album “Schema” in 1997; appears with Velvet Kente and Funkanites; has played with Leslie Gore, Buddy Guy and Frankie Avalon; and inspired a mostly instrumental tribute from the late Art Porter Jr. titled “Uncle Walt.” For this concert, he’s backed up by the consistently innovative drummer Jamaal Lee (also of Velvet Kente and Funkanites), as well as Matt Dickson on saxophone, the Arkansas-born and Memphis-educated Chris Parker on piano and David Higginbotham (Bob Boyd Sounds, David Rosen Big Band) on bass.

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FRIDAY 9/9

DIXIE CHICKS

7:30 p.m. Verizon Arena. $54-$119.

The Dixie Chicks — sans lead singer Natalie Maines, at the time — made their first CD, “Thanks Heavens for Dale Evans,” for $5,000. A few years later, in 1998, they’d sell more album copies than all other country music groups combined that year, having morphed into a powerhouse trio that blended bluegrass fiddle with pop harmonies and boasted the sorts of standout lyrics that landed songs like “Goodbye Earl” and “Sin Wagon” in karaoke catalogs at dorm room parties and VFWs across the nation: “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition/Need a little bit more of my 12-ounce nutrition.” And, wherever your political allegiances might lie, you’ve got to hand it to Maines for speaking her mind at a London concert in 2003, saying, “We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States [George W. Bush] is from Texas,” even when it meant she’d outrage a good chunk of her fan base. The result was what Merle Haggard called “a verbal witch-hunt and lynching”; the group answered fan criticism a few years later with their song “Not Ready to Make Nice.” Elle King, the whiskey-and-Red-Bull-swilling daughter of comedian Rob Schneider who crashed the pop scene last year with a set of pipes that rivals Adele’s, some seriously fabulous eyeshadow and a trailer-trash glam video for her breakout hit “Ex’s and Oh’s,” opens the show.

SATURDAY 9/10

LEGENDS OF ARKANSAS

Noon. Argenta Plaza. Free-$40.

The imprint of the makers boom in Arkansas is indelible. It’s evident in the lines for The Southern Gourmasian food truck at the Hillcrest Farmers Market, in the fact that a necklace with a gold honeybee perched on a gem is instantly recognizable as one of Amy Bell’s Dimestore Diamonds, in the skyrocketing volume of Lost Forty Brewing’s Daydrinker, Stone’s Throw Brewing’s Shamus Stout and Diamond Bear’s Two Term Imperial IPA behind the taps of every bar on town. If you’re looking for a primer on your local scene, this is it. Legends of Arkansas moved a couple of years ago from the River Market to Argenta, and this year’s all-local lineup is dizzying: group yoga sessions from Barefoot Studios, a hip-hop workshop with Big Piph (Epiphany Morrow), a hula hoop playshop with Arkansas Circus Arts, and performances from Amasa Hines, Bad Match, Gil Franklin, Dangerous Idiots, Charlotte Taylor and Gypsy Rain, Mark Currey, Sad Daddy and Jamie Lou and the Hullabaloo, to name a few. The event’s family-friendly, but if you’re more inclined to frequent the past-bedtime scene, there are after-parties at Four Quarter Bar with Weakness for Blondes, at Discovery Nightclub with Big Brown and at Midtown Billiards with Black River Pearl.

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TUESDAY 9/13

MELVINS

8 p.m. Metroplex Live. $20.

Bands like Black Sabbath and Black Flag are undeniable harbingers of the sort of slow, heavy, plodding guitar riffs that the world would later call “sludge metal,” but if there were ever a band that steered that sound from the “War Pigs” era to its contemporary iterations — Mastodon, EyeHateGod and even Alice in Chains — it’s the Melvins. Named after the object of lead singer/guitarist Buzz Osborne’s hatred, a supervisor at a Thriftway in Montesano, Wash., the band made waves as a punk-informed trio as early as 1987 with “Gluey Porch Treatments.” It released its 24th studio album in June this year. Other fun facts about the Melvins include (but are not limited to) the following: Shirley Temple’s daughter Lori “Lorax” Black played bass for the band in the 1990s, Buzz Osborne is credited with having introduced Kurt Cobain to the people with whom the late icon would form Nirvana, and the Melvins’ 2011 tour landed them in the middle of a disastrous earthquake in New Zealand, then — only two weeks later — in the most powerful earthquake to hit Japan. This show at the Clear Channel Metroplex opens up with a set from fellow Washingtonians Helms Alee, a math rock trio with killer three-part harmony and dreamy mid-song breakdowns.

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