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What happened last week: I made my first trip to the Haven Gallery (7th and Laurel) to catch one of my favorite area singer-songwriters, Joe Adranga, fete the songs for his solo album Fall Back. After two albums of pitch perfect jangle pop under his collective project moniker the Junior League, Joe Adranga delivers on Fall Back a set of songs closer to his own heart. The slight rasp in his voice on "Ladders" the first two songs sits in a close dance with the soft bed of stunned acoustics and close harmonies, buffeted by a connoisseur's collection of 70s pop flourishes. He has some talented friends on the record in R.E.M.'s Peter Buck and New Orleans chanteuse Susan Cowsill but somebody, lend this guy a string section to bring his pop vision to completion.

At the acoustic show at Haven, with Lee Barbier accompanying, Adaranga's material lost none of its orchestral grace. The intimacy of a small room like that let's the performer short circuit the buffer of the album or the stage and out the songs right on the listener. See and hear for yourself.

Sunday afternoon at the Shaw Center, two high school-aged bands under the tutelage of Righteous Buddha's David Hinson gave a glimpse at what people can do when inspired. My favorite of the two groups was Mood Rings of Saturn. Logan Ashley's songs lie somewhere on the progress line between confessional folk and the dramatic sweep of Arcade Fire (a comparison helped out by the two string performers sharing the stage) with a touch of Glee exuberance. Basically, age-appropriate angst 'n' wonder framed carefully in the right song. Check out this number or just keep your eyes out for them in the near future.

What's out this week: I'm sure some other perfectly fine records hit the air this week like that Bon Iver one everyone's so hot about, but the only record in the world right now for me is Gillian Welch's The Harrow & the Harvest. It's been a long time coming since Soul Journey (2003... really? 2003?) but she and runnin' partner David Rawlings make it seem like yesterday. Welch gets pegged as folk or alt-country but I think she's more elemental than that. Her flattened delivery follows what every psychic terrain you traverse as you listen to it, like a hawk right over the trees. The new Bon Iver is a great record, clearing the air like one of this expensive ionizers from the Sharper Image catalog, but Gillian Welch does it in a manner of a breeze coming across a graveyard, over the valley and into your house.

What's happening this week: The Red Dragon has Mike McClure and Tom Skinner this Friday. Back in the 90's McClure fronted honky-tonky revivalists the Great Divide while Skinner performed around Baton Rouge. The two will undoubtedly be supporting each other in the Red Dragon's cozy environs; just a couple of people playing songs in a room small enough so other people can heard them.

If your thirst for rustic exegis is yet to be slaked, Flatbed Honeymoon and Denton Hatcher perform at Chelsea's on Saturday. Also Teddy's Juke Joint turns 33 this weekend with Sam Joyner and LC Carney on Thursday, Joyner and Sundanze on Friday, 'Lil Ray Neal on Saturday and Big Red and the Soulbenders on Monday night. Come shake a tail feather at the last juke joint in South Louisiana.