Happy Birthday, Elvis!

Today is Elvis Presley's 75th birthday, and to celebrate, the National Portrait Gallery opens One Life: Echoes of Elvis today in the One Life gallery. Look for paintings, photographs and sculptures that illustrate the span of Elvis' life. It's the first of two Elvis shows on display at the gallery this year. In October, Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer, opens.

Tomorrow: Iraqi Jazz Fusions

In my continuing quest for interesting (and free) events, I've come across Iraqi Jazz Fusions: Amir ElSaffar's Two Rivers at 7:30 p.m. at the Freer Gallery.

From the web site: Iraqi American jazz artist Amir ElSaffar leads this cross-cultural quintet in a performance of Two Rivers, an original work inspired by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the composer's Iraqi and American heritage, and the common ground between American jazz and Iraqi classical music. ElSaffar sets the modes of Arab music to innovative grooves, free ensemble playing, and multi-layered sound textures, resulting in a work that the BBC praised as "harrowing to absorb, full of as much beauty as pain." He performs on trumpet and santur with Rudresh Mahanthappa, saxophone; Nasheet Waits, drums; Carlo DeRosa, bass; and Zaafir Tawil, oud, violin, and dumbek.

A pre-concert gallery tour of Arts of the Islamic World will take place at 6:45 p.m.

Extremely Hungary Festival

A year-long, two-city celebration of Hungary, Extremely Hungary, started this weekend with events in New York. The other city is Washington, and there are several upcoming events of note.

On February 8, Beáta Palya, right, performs at The Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. Her music is described as a fusion of traditional Hungarian folk, jazz, gypsy, Indian, and Persian.

In March, Picturing Progress: Hungarian Women Photographers 1910-1946 runs at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

In May, Bronze from the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest opens at the National Gallery of Art.

There are also film festivals and other exhibits, so visit their web site for more events.

Photo by Gail Roberts.

Sunday CDs

I describe Sunday CDs as albums that were made for Sundays. What does that mean? A Sunday CD has to be pretty low-key, the whole album has to be playable, and it provides the background music to a day that is typically spent reading several newspapers, wearing sweatpants until 2 p.m., and making a breakfast more substantive than just cereal.

My new favorite Sunday CD is K-OS's "Atlantis — Hymns for Disco." Andrew Bird's "The Mysterious Production of Eggs" is a Sunday album. Coldplay's "X&Y" is a Sunday album, as is Imogen Heap's "Speak For Yourself." Madeleine Peyroux's "Careless Love" might be the ultimate Sunday album. Pretty much any thing by Iron and Wine qualifies as Sunday music, as does Elliott Smith. This isn't to say that I don't listen to this music at other times, but on Sundays, they are perfect backdrop to my day.

The New Gay on The New Pornographers

Go read Z.'s interview with John Collins of The New Pornographers at The New Gay. All four of us from TNG were at the show last night at the 9:30 Club, and TNP were so ridiculously amazing.

In Rainbows

I'm giving Radiohead's In Rainbows a preliminary listen right now, and I love it. It's more along the lines of the brilliant OK Computer than the more recent discs — though I did like Hail to the Thief.

Radiohead gave listeners the opportunity to buy the songs online for any price they wished — meaning that I just spent no money for the new album. That's probably bad karma on my part, which is why I'm telling you all to go download it — and make a contribution, of course.

current music obsessions

1. KT Tunstall's "Drastic Fantastic"
2. Charlotte Gainsbourg's "5:55"
3. Regina Spektor's"Begin To Hope"

A Fine Frenzy

I really like A Fine Frenzy, and she's the iTunes free single of the week.

Udupi Palace & The Cliks

I went to brunch this morning at Udupi Palace in Takoma Park. It's a place I had been wanting to try for awhile, since I always love trying new Indian places, but it's not metro accessible, so we had to drive out there. It was definitely worth it, although it's in a strip mall (This was the weekend of strip malls. Keep reading.)

I have a new favorite dish, Paneer Makhani. I love anything with paneer, but this was different from my usual saag version. The sauce is rich and delicious, and I'm already craving more.

Friday I went to see The Cliks at Jammin' Java (in a Vienna strip mall). The highlight was a cover of "Umbrella," but they played all my favorites. The band is so cute, and as we learned after seeing them talk to small children (with their lesbian parents) for quite awhile, they're really nice too. They signed a CD for me, even though I had left mine at home, and Lucas is (as expected) really dreamy.

The Decemberists

In a word, The Decemberists show last night at Merriweather Post Pavilion was phenomenal. They played with the Baltimore Symphony, and the orchestra added a depth to their songs that took the whole show to another level.

The Decemberists opened with "The Crane Wife," and also played "We Both Go Down Together" and "On the Bus Mall" before the intermission. After the intermission was "The Tain," which is in five parts, and was the highlight of the show. They also played "O Valencia!" "The Infanta" and the encore was "The Mariner's Revenge Song," which is one of my favorites.

I really can't do justice to the show, but I want to see them again soon and hope that they come back to the east coast after they go to Europe.