Modern Music

If you’re a musician who has a gig, or you’re a venue owner who has a musician playing, send us your information. It’s FREE to be listed here, but we can’t tell everyone who’s playing if no one tells us.

Deadline is one week before publication.

ABILENE

Abilene Seafood Tavern, 1882 S. Clack St. Nathan Hawkins, 9 p.m. today. Cliff Owen, 9 p.m. Friday. Band Night, 9 p.m. Saturday. KC/DC, 9 p.m. Sunday. Start on the Patio, 7:30 to 10 p.m. Monday. Kirk House, 9 p.m. Tuesday. Kelly Murphy, 9 p.m. Wednesday.

Ball Ranch, Highway 83-84 (2 miles south of Abilene Regional Medical Center). Chuck wagon supper and Old West songs, 7-9 p.m. Saturdays.

Central Baptist Church, 3232 Grape St., Old-time acoustic country music, 7 p.m.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Maybe it’s her tutti-frutti sense of fashion.

For whatever reason, Katy Perry says she felt like a natural doing the voice of “Smurfette” in the upcoming movie about the blue creatures. That’s because she feels like a cartoon character in real life.

“The Smurfs movie was really fun for me cause a lot of times, you know, 360 days out of the year I feel like a cartoon.

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“ Musica+Alma+Sexo ,” Ricky Martin (Sony U.S. Latin) The back story is upfront on Ricky Martin’s “Musica+Alma+Sexo,” his first studio album since 2005 and his first since he announced last year on his website that he is “proud to say that I am a fortunate homosexual man.” On this album, his usual exhortations to seize life’s pleasures mingle with coming-out manifestos, and he smiles through them all.

The video clip for the album’s first single in English, a lilting duet with Joss Stone called “The Best Thing About Me Is You,” shows Martin pulling a gag off his mouth, then juxtaposes him with gay and straight couples with equal signs painted on their chests.

In “No Te Miento” (“I’m Not a Liar”), he insists that despite accusations and judgments, “With you I’ll lead an open life.” Yet Martin is a pop star before he’s a crusader, and he’s clearly determined to reach a wide audience, both Spanish- and English-speaking. Read full post…

Photograph by David Nutter Tweet

Elton John walked shyly into the corner room of his sprawling suite on the tenth floor of the Sherry-Nether-land Hotel in New York, delivered a bone-crushing handshake and assumed the middle of a white sofa. He rarely does interviews and when his eyes, behind blue-tinted glasses, look away, they reveal his discomfort.

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Kristin Ward (vocals)

Steven Ward (bass)

Jeff Cottrell (trombone/euphonium)

Derek Brown, ACU’s director of jazz studies

Mark Wilcox (trumpet)

Allen Teel (drums)

In Abilene, jazz musicians have to stick together …

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