If you’re looking for belly laughs, beer-fuelled fun and cover songs to holler along to this weekend, Broken City hosts the 12th annual Moustache Rock event on Friday, May 15 and Saturday, May 16. The first night’s lineup features Beija Flor, the Brenda Vaqueros, Blood Alley, Outlaws of Ravenhurst, Afterthought and The Hours, while Saturday will find the Cripple Creek Fairies, Ramblin’ Ambassadors, Woodpigeon, Spastic Panthers (members of Sheglank’d Shoulders) and Miesha and the Spanks all murdering the classics. For a full article on Moustache Rock, visit ffwdweekly.com.

Also on Friday, May 15, the Palomino hosts a fairly diverse four-band bill with Edmonton’s gravelly voiced garage rocker Eamon McGrath and his Replacements-inspired tour-mates The City Streets. They’re joined by Calgary’s Desert Boots for their CD release and Winnipeg cutie-pie pop act Paper Moon.

Your third option this Friday is 2007 Polaris Prize winners Patrick Watson and the Wooden Arms. Their music has been described as “science-fiction folk,” “cracked-mirror pop” and “cabaret folk pop,” so decide for yourself when the Montreal quartet spin by the Grand Theatre. We’ve got a full article on Patrick Watson at ffwdweekly.com as well.

For a different kind of musical hybrid, the popular Video Games Live event returns to the Jack Singer on Friday, May 15 and Saturday, May 16. However, if you feel like listening to video game tunes in a more intimate setting (that’s not your basement), Toronto’s Runaway Five offer up their jazz arrangements of the Super Mario 64 theme, “Bob-omb Battlefield” and other Nintendo-fan favourites at the Beat Niq on May 16 as well.

Finally, Calgary ambient/drone artist Myke Atkinson (a.k.a. Beneath These Idle Tides) is set to unveil his latest creation on Wednesday, May 20 at the Cantos Museum. Taking the Flaming Lips’ Zaireeka several steps sideways, Atkinson has recorded eight CDs of material in the same key and tempo to be played simultaneously on separate stereos with random and repeat settings. “Basically, the end result is that the music composes itself, giving the listeners (and myself) something new all the time,” Atkinson explains. “Slow changing drones abound.”