MAKI - Americana. Murder Ballads. Born in the Mississippi Delta and
raised upriver in Missouri, Elizabeth and Spencer Maki grew up in the
thick of traditional American music. As comfortable talking about the
lineage of a song as a floating trip in the Ozarks, Maki combines the
academic and biographic in their performances. Elizabeth matches clean
melodies on the banjo with an unadorned, plaintive voice. A luthier
and guitar picker, Spencer lays down a driving rhythm on an instrument
he knows through and through. In a unique performance for the Music
Box Series, Maki will be performing an evening of traditional murder
ballads complete with histories. Website: http://www.myspace.com/esmaki

DESERT DOGS (Michael Chopko of Dame Satan) opens with intricate,
melodic north African desert music inspired by Tinariwen. Website:
http://www.ghostmansion.org/chopko/desertdogs/