Nathan Weinbender

Alicia Bognanno’s voice begins as a soft, come-hither growl, but when she hits the chorus and the distortion kicks in, it transforms into a raw, cracking howl. It’s a little bit Courtney Love, a little bit “Exile in Guyville”-era Liz Phair, with perhaps a hint of riot grrrl venom thrown in. Bognanno’s band Bully, which stops by the Bartlett on Tuesday, traffics in the kind of propulsive, catchy, to-the-point fuzz-pop that would have been right at home in the post-grunge ’90s. “I’ve always written my own music … well, not always, but in college,” Bognanno said. “My goal was, when I was nearing the end of college, to go full force and have a project of my own where I was the primary songwriter.”

The main hurdle you have to clear when putting on a show as well known as “The Music Man” is the fact that everybody in the audience has likely seen it before. If you’re going to make the material work, it has to be effervescent and full of energy, and Spokane Civic Theatre’s new production is both. This is the second time “The Music Man” has closed out a Civic season (it last happened in 2006), and it’s a fitting show for a grand finale. This production of the Meredith Willson classic, directed by Tia Wooley, doesn’t reinvent or repurpose the material, and in sticking to the formula it leans heavily on the show’s inherent charms. It has so many musical numbers, goofy fringe characters and an unwavering sense of romanticism that make it a pretty hard show to resist.

The corner building space at 412 W. Sprague Ave. has served as the home of one music venue or another for awhile. You may recall a time when the Casbah was there; later it was A Club and most recently (and briefly) Club 412. Since late February, though, that space has housed the Pin concert hall, the latest business endeavor of local venue owner Tom “T.C.” Chavez. Chavez has been a sort of father figure in the Spokane music scene for several years. In 2008, he opened an all-ages venue called the Cretin Hop as a place for his sons’ bands to play; it was rechristened the Hop when it moved in 2011 to its current Monroe Street location. The Hop is still in operation, but it will be closed June 7 – the building will be going up for sale – and the Pin will be Chavez’s main focus now.

The short film is an art form that usually doesn’t get a lot of attention or respect, probably because the best ones usually seem effortless. A filmmaker only has so much time to make us identify with characters and understand their situations, and a short tends to be more rewarding the more compact and concise it is. The annual Seattle Shorts Film Festival showcases this particular type of storytelling, and the Bing Crosby Theater is screening a collection of some of the best shorts that have played the fest since its inception in 2011.

R. Ring show canceled, Holy Broke record release still on

We see the best of ourselves in our dogs because they see the best in us: They don’t judge, they don’t second-guess, they love unconditionally. The fact they’re considered man’s best friend suggests the innate selfishness of man, because we need a creature who is always a loyal and affectionate companion even when we don’t really deserve one. In “Sylvia,” a talky, sometimes ribald domestic comedy now playing at Spokane Civic Theatre, a dog bounds unexpectedly into the lives of a married couple, bewitching one and alienating the other. Written by A.R. Gurney (“Love Letters,” “The Dining Room”), the play examines how the blind adulation of a canine unearths long-buried resentments in a 22-year marriage. It’s perceptive about how we relate to one another, but it’s also funny.

The Spokane String Quartet closes out its current season with a program called “Quartet Kismet,” which is more than just a reference to the 1953 Broadway musical “Kismet”; it’s also an allusion to the communication among the quartet’s current members, who have been playing together for four seasons. “Our shows have gone really well,” said cellist Helen Byrne, who has been a consistent member of the quartet since 1999. “The programs have been fairly interesting. We worked pretty hard to make sure they’ve got something a little unusual going on all the time.”