It's impossible to avoid comparing the Gabe Dixon Band with the old Ben Folds Five -- sly piano/bass/drums pop trio with virtuosic flourishes and to-die-for hooks -- but Dixon hardly suffers by comparison. Indeed, "The Gabe Dixon Band" (Fantasy Records) combines the best aspects of Folds, Billy Joel, Jackson Browne and other literal and spiritual keepers of the '70s pop-rock flame into one of the best adult-pop albums of the year. There's some heavy lyrical sledding, especially "Further the Sky" (possibly the grimmest meditation on life that I've heard this year), but it's all just unbelievably catchy. Dixon plays Carrboro's Cat's Cradle on Wednesday, opening for Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers.

Speaking of classic-sounding pop, Chapel Hill's Old Ceremony has a big weekend, starting with tonight's show at the Cradle. Then on Saturday, there's a listening party at Mansion 462 in Chapel Hill for the new remix-album version of 2005's "The Old Ceremony" -- which deconstructs that album's songs with dance, hip-hop, dub and downtempo remixes.

The Triangle was a hotbed of twangy alt.country during the style's mid-1990s heyday, but there was only one band that truly put the "alternative" into the genre. That was Pine State, whose shows were immensely strange pieces of confrontational performance art. And after eons apart, the group is back to play a reunion show at Chapel Hill's Local 506 tonight. Even better, it's another benefit for Cy Rawls (cyrawls.blogspot.com). Represent!

Elsewhere this weekend: Megafaun and Goner make up a can't-miss double bill at Durham's Bull City HQ tonight; election-year-benefit season kicks into high gear with Saturday's "Barack the Cradle" show at Cat's Cradle with Hammer No More the Fingers, Tooth, Kaze and others; and Caitlin Cary, Midtown Dickens, Schooner and Lost in the Trees are among the acts playing Durham's Central Park on Saturday for the Coalition to Unchain Dogs (unchaindogs.net).

Furthermore: Liam Finn, who is more notable for his crazed one-man-band performance-art pop than his semifamous last name (his father is Neil Finn, late of Split Enz/Crowded House), plays Local 506 on Sunday; and David Berman brings his wonderfully peculiar folk-rock outfit the Silver Jews back to the Cradle on Thursday.

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