Spring Crawl is set for Saturday, April 28, this year. That's three and a half months from now, but I started getting calls from bands asking how they can get on the bill back in October. So, while I truly admire your forethought and tenacity, for the millionth time, don't send me or anyone at the Alibi your demo. Here's Crawl coordinator Joe Anderson on what really works:

Say goodbye to Below the Sound with one last bust at Burt’s Tiki Lounge (free, 21+) on Friday, Jan. 12. Fivehundred, The Bellmont and Fando say they’ll help with the heavy lifting. (LM)

Imagine a metal band at a house party. On ripped-up sofas, overturned chairs, and a floor littered with empty cans and bottles, a crowd moshes wildly as the band trashes its way through the set. A glass vase falls from the shelf, shattering on the tile floor and bringing the party to a halt. The moshers disappear, the sofas are repaired, the cans and bottles are (mostly) gone, but the band remains.

Who is manning the woodblock on 13 Blackbirds? I can get next to soupy folk ambience, super-blended vocals, even a mellow pace. But there is some woodblock-sounding thing (Or alternately, some other awkward percussion instrument. Is that a triangle?) plinking away in the foreground of a bunch of tracks. I zero in. I tap along. I jam ... with the woodblock. All the careful atmosphere falls away, and it's time for "The Woodblock Hour" with Woody and his Syncopated Block Boys. 13 Lotus, a second disc that remixes a song titled “Lotus,” replaces the woodblock with decent electronic work that provides a nice, unexpected contrast to the folksiness of it all.