Critic's picks - Rock

David Menconi on the best rock and more

Nearly a decade after his untimely demise in a car wreck, the late Michael Hedges still casts a very long shadow as the Jimi Hendrix of acoustic guitar -- the summit for virtuosic, other-worldly, oddly tuned acoustic guitar fireworks. Michael Gulezian is among the best Hedges-style guitarists out there. He travels similarly interstellar musical pathways with a percussive style that creates sonic landscapes so vivid you can practically touch 'em. It's no coincidence that Gulezian closed his 2001 "Language of the Flame" album with a song called "Michael Hedges Goes to Heaven," which sounds like Gulezian is doing his darnedest to follow him up there. Meantime, Gulezian plays Saturday at the Carrboro ArtsCenter.

Elsewhere this weekend: Another hotshot guitarist, Tinsley Ellis, blasts away at the Raleigh Music Hall tonight; Widespread Panic kicks off Alltel Pavilion at Walnut Creek's 2006 season with the first of two shows there tonight (story, page 18-19); the immensely likable Rainer Maria plays Saturday at Chapel Hill's Wetlands; South Carolina pop singer Edwin McCain is at Raleigh's Lincoln Theatre on Saturday with Vigilantes of Love main man Bill Mallonee; idiosyncratic torch-singer Quincy Coleman plays Raleigh's Pour House on Saturday; and the Shakori Hills Spring Festival continues through the weekend with Hugh Masekela, Avett Brothers, Sonny Landreth and more.

Furthermore: You want quirkiness, Michael Columbia's got that in spades Sunday at Raleigh's Bickett Gallery; Texas country dude Pat Green holds forth at Carrboro's Cat's Cradle on Monday; Chicago's Fruit Bats are at Chapel Hill's Local 506 on Tuesday; and Flickerstick, VH1's original "Band on the Run," plays Raleigh's Lincoln Theatre on Thursday.