It's good to be back in the saddle again! Recurring viral infections have kept me away from my computer keyboard, so that this is my first "Blues and More" column since Feb. 24. I'm happy to be able to devote it to another top regional blues-based group, Indianapolis's Stone Martin Band, same as I had the honorable pleasure of devoting my Feb. 9 column to Mike Milligan and Steam Shovel.

The Stone Martin Band describes itself as an "eclectic, blues-oriented show band" whose repertoire not only includes modern blues, but also ample soul and funk, and blues classics from the 1940s and early 1950s revamped in contemporary blues and blues-rock arrangements, a la Buddy Guy, Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Covered material ranges from Muddy Waters to James Brown, and also includes band originals.

Unrequited love, artistic failure, death, and--comedy?

It might seem odd, given the first three themes, but comedy is undeniably present from the start of The Seagull, the IU Department of Theatre and Drama's latest production of Anton Chekhov's 1895 classic, when Masha comments, "I'm in mourning for my life" to Medvedenko, the schoolmaster who is desperately in love with her.

Chekhov's play, though centered on the depressing aspects of the human experience, also points out the humorous -- and often ridiculous -- elements to even the most painful moments in life. And the IU production, which opened this past Tuesday at the Ruth N. Halls Theatre at the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, highlights this well, thanks to the cast and set design.

The Seagull is the final MFA thesis project for several of the students involved in its production -- including director Erik Friedman, actress Allison Moody (Arkadina), scenic designer Chris Wych and lighting designer JoJo Percy -- and all should be pleased with the result.

Cardinal Stage Company is doing it again. And this time, the star is -- a goat.

On Feb. 22, O Lovely Glowworm, or Scenes of Great Beauty, will open at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. It is sponsored by Cardinal's 2007-08 season sponsor, Irwin Union Bank, and is a part of Arts Week, an IU community winter arts festival.

According to the news release for the production, O Lovely Glowworm is "the outrageously funny and profoundly moving story of a goat desperately trying to figure out who he is, where he is and why he is."

In 1962, the view that anything could be art was at its peak in the art world. Artists would use unconventional materials -- metal scraps, buttons, cardboard -- whatever they thought would express their ideas best.

In that same year, the Indiana University Art Museum (IUAM) received four works of art that fell into this category. These works, including one other piece received in a different year, are on display as part of the IUAM's "New in the Galleries" exhibition titled The Art of Assemblage.

Ned Puchner, a graduate student in art history and the curatorial assistant for Western Art after 1800, prepared the exhibition. It was partially inspired by the New York Museum of Modern Art's 1961 Art of Assemblage exhibition. He said the works are "an excellent group, indicative of the range of works categorized under the terms 'neo-Dada' or 'assemblage'."

Uncle Fester's House of Blooze got a taste of the real thing last Thursday.

But just a taste -- because when you take a band like the Chicago Afrobeat Project (CabP), whose last show was at the House of Blues in Chicago, and place them on a small stage like at Uncle Fester's, not only do all of the musicians barely fit, they've got a hell of a lot less to work with.

Luckily for the Bloomington crowd, CabP didn't seem too concerned with the venue. They were just having a great time showing us what the Chicago spin on afro-beat music sounds like.

In case you missed the preliminary rounds of this year's Hoosier Guitar Idol, hosted by the IU Business Careers in Entertainment Club (BCEC), don't stress. There is still rock redemption to be had.

The five remaining contenders will battle it out for the "Idol' title at 8 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 28, at Max's Place, located at 109 W. Seventh St.

While competition details are still being worked out, the finalists -- Casimir Lewandowski, Shane Provost, Kyle Gilpin, Austin Johnson and Tyler Baker -- will expose their creative visions, hopefully with their own composed riffs, to the audience for about five to 10 minutes apiece. From these exhibitions, the panel of judges will make their decision on who will be Bloomington's next Hoosier Guitar Idol.

You're invited to a wedding – IU Opera style. On Feb. 1, the IU Opera Theater will open the spring portion of its 2007-08 season with the nation's first collegiate performance of A Wedding by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Bolcom.

A Wedding, based on Robert Altman's 1978 film about a high-society wedding, was first staged at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2004 and is Bolcom's third project with IU Opera Theater. Bolcom's collegiate premieres of McTeague (1996) and A View from the Bridge (2005) achieved critical acclaim with the IU Opera Theater.

Betty Harris
Intuition
Evidence ECD26135-2

With contemporary so-called R&B so dominated by Britney Spears wannabes in blackface, it's so pleasurable indeed to hear the real thing done by a seasoned artist who knows how it's done. Certainly Betty Harris's Intuition fits that bill -- to a tee! It's just an all-around musical pleasure.

Betty Harris perfected her soul, blues and R&B chops from 1958 to 1969, working with singer Big Maybelle and producers Bert Berns and Allen Toussaint, and touring with Otis Redding. Then she retired from music to raise her family, but fan notice posted on the Internet brought her back into performing again in 2005. In December, 2006 she teamed up with producer/engineer/songwriter/musician Jon Tiven to record Intuition, her debut solo CD, released on the well-regarded Evidence blues and soul label.

Watermelon Slim and the Workers
The Wheel Man
Northern Blues Music NBM0038

In the past few years, one of the biggest, most talked-about, emerging blues artists has been Watermelon Slim. Okie, Vietnam veteran, holder of blue-collar jobs, Watermelon Slim honed his hard-edged blues the old fashioned way: in small clubs and juke joints, but also at antiwar rallies, just playing the straight-ahead, raw blues from the heart before demanding but also straight-ahead, raw audiences who could tell who was real, and who was just faking it, as soon as they heard it. They heard the real thing in Watermelon Slim and his band, the Workers, and they rallied.

Indiana University Photography Students 10th Annual Alternative Show will feature a collection of portraits celebrating the people who make up the Bloomington community.

The show, which includes the work of the 14 BFA photography students, opens Nov. 30, 7-11 p.m., at Third and Lincoln.

"Everyone is taking 20 photographs of people in the community," says Christina Allegree, who is in her third semester of the B.F.A. program. "There will be around 300 portraits. Last year the show was a community project, but only two people did portraits, so this year we wanted to involve the community more."