Time passes so quickly. At the turn of the millennium, White Cowbell Oklahoma existed only in fever dreams and country-fried nightmares. Now, the rag-tag bunch of Jägermeister-sponsored country rockers is celebrating a decade of ridiculousness with a stop at Dickens Pub on Friday, February 19. Past tours have featured chainsaws, devil worship and staged protests outside the venue; if the band is still pulling out all the stops, this year’s show could be the stuff of legend.

But if legends aren’t your thing — or if you prefer your southern music sans rock — there’s always Gurf Morlix and Sam Baker at Southwood United Church, also on Friday. If you want to know what that’s all about, see the article we ran last week.

Saturday, February 20 sees The Lovebullies hit the stage at The Unicorn for a night of gloriously ’50s- and ’60s-inspired pop. It’s not just doo-wop and girl-group harmonies, though — these bullies have room in their sound for country licks, B-52s attitude and more. So much more that it could only be contained on two slabs of delicious vinyl — and they’ll surely be selling their double-opus, Swang Swang Swang, at the show.

A few weeks back, Fast Forward Weekly put a spotlight on the Dry Branch Fire Squad, a bluegrass outfit that’d been spreading sweet gospel harmonies for three-and-a-half decades. None of the members of The Abrams Brothers (two brothers and a cousin, really) have been alive even half that long, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know their genre. Their take on Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” is a bit of a bluegrass novelty, but there’s a reason the trio is the youngest group of Canadians to play the Grand Ol’ Opry. Catch them at the Ironwood on Sunday, February 21.

Rounding things off, next Thursday, February 25 sees Woodhands, Canada’s favourite electro-geek duo, bring its brand of laptop pop and sweat-stained intensity to Broken City. It’ll be joined by the considerably more organic pop of B.C. sextet Brasstronaut, whose debut EP only hinted at the stride hit by its upcoming full-length debut. Seriously, this one is bound to be impressive.