Going out: the best of what’s on this week

Monday  

Yeats & the West
The Model, Sligo Until May 12
themodel.ie

The idea of the west of Ireland, as much as the reality, was vital for WB Yeats and Jack B Yeats. This co-operative project, involving the Model and NUI Galway, considers WB’s involvement with the Irish west through a wealth of documentary and artistic material. These include a display of the Model’s recently acquired Cuala Press Broadsides, designed by Jack B with hand-coloured illustrations. There is a detailed accompanying programme of lectures.

Tuesday  

Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin
Whelan's, Dublin 8pm €30
whelanslive.com

Californian brothers Dave and Phil Alvin – co-founders of seminal 1970s-1980s LA punk/roots band The Blasters – team up and return to their blues/country roots. Their most recent albums , Lost Time, and Common Ground will undoubtedly be rifled for songs, while choice selections from The Blasters’ back catalogue are also forthcoming.

Wednesday  

12 Points Plus: World Service Project/Pixel/Mixtapes from the Underground
Meeting House Sq 7.30pm, €5
improvisedmusic.ie

Think you know what jazz is? When the Improvised Music Company brings their genre-bending 12 Points attitude to Meeting House Square for a Musictown special, prepare to re-evaluate: rumbustious London ‘skronk-jazz’ outfit World Service Project (below), Nordic punksters Pixel and rising Dublin hip-hop- meets-improv collective Mixtapes from the Underground will leave any preconceptions trailing in the dust. Proceeds to Irish Youth Foundation & Peter McVerry Trust.

Eminent Domain
Gillian Lawler. The Molesworth Gallery, 16 Molesworth St, Dublin Until April 30
molesworthgallery.com

Gillian Lawler was so taken with the strange story of the town of Centralia in Pennsylvania that she was drawn back there to make a substantial body of work about it. Now abandoned by all save one or two inhabitants, its problems began in the 1960s, when an underlying seam of coal started burning, creating sinkholes and waves of noxious gases. The town is still in the throes of slow-motion destruction.

Thursday  

Trad Rising
The Button Factory, Dublin 7.30pm €15
tickets.ie

This year’s MusicTown festival wears its inventiveness on its sleeve with this vast coalition of emerging bands. They take the music to uncharted waters, where linear notions of genre are irrelevant. Featuring Danny Diamond and Slow Moving Clouds, Lynched, Skipper’s Alley, Ye Vagabonds, Lynched and Twin Headed Wolf.

Handel in Ireland with Caitríona O'Leary and Dúlra
Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire
01-2312929 paviliontheatre.ie

Now here is a creative take on Handel and his relationship to Ireland. This is the first in a series of concerts exploring the music that Handel would have encountered during his 1741 visit. The engine room of this exploration is populated by the best traditional and classical musicians in the country, including Dónal Lunny, Kate Ellis, Eamonn de Barra and Adrian Hart. Expect much by way of coalescence and little by way of unbridgeable chasms.