Courtesy photo

Magic Twig Community

Courtesy Alligator Records

Guitar Shorty

Music and the arts will be inescapable in Roanoke this weekend, and a young, eclectic group of musicians is right in the thick of it.

The Magic Twig Community, a Roanoke-based musical collective with overlapping musical personnel and artistic motives, leads off the Roanoke Art Festival's tuneage with the Super Friends Fest on Saturday morning at Elmwood Park.

Magic Twig bands The Young Sinclairs, The Sad Cobras, SUNKING! and Turbo P have invited fellow Roanoke acts The Bastards of Fate and Rootstone onto the show. Out-of-town bands Sound Houses (Athens, Ga.), Hot Lava (Richmond) and Reading Rainbow (Philadelphia) are on the bill, too.

"These are all friends of the whole Magic Twig, and they've influenced us musically," said Daniel "Indianface" Cundiff, who plays in a couple of the Magic Twig bands. "And we've influenced them, too."

At 2 p.m. Saturday, The Young Sinclairs head to the new Taubman Museum of Art to help kick off the public opening with an acoustic set of their 1960s-influenced rock music. The Sinclairs are one of 10 acts playing the opening. Others include: New River Valley Christian rockers DecembeRadio; champion flatpicker Scott Fore's band Hillbilly Hot Club; singer/guitarist/teacher Cheryl Lunsford, with her daughter, Erin; and popular music cover band Monkey Fuzz.

It's been nearly a year since the Magic Twig bands, as well as The Bastards of Fate and another Roanoke group, The Situationist, lost their rehearsal space and a lot of equipment in a fire at the former Ideal Laundry Building on Church Avenue Southeast. The Situationist and The Bastards of Fate shared a rehearsal room in that converted warehouse, and together lost about $50,000 worth of gear.

Smoke and water affected Magic Twig gear, too, but the bands got together and cleaned it all. Benefit concerts shortly after the fire raised about $2,000 to help all of the acts that had lost gear.

Later, The Situationist and The Bastards of Fate joined Magic Twig in the search for a new rehearsal/recording spot. They found one, said Cundiff, who declined to publicly reveal its location, saying he is worried that it might be burglarized or robbed.

"We drove around, tried to find a new space we could play the music in and find a new environment," he said. "There's tons of spaces, but you need an environment."

You can hear lots of other music in lots of other spaces this weekend. Here's the music rundown for the Roanoke Arts Festival:

Saturday

> Magic Twig Community Super Friends Fest

Details: 11 a.m. Saturday, Elmwood Park. Free. myspace.com/themagictwigcommunitysound

> Taubman Museum of Art Public Opening

Details: 11 a.m., Winds of the Blue Ridge; Noon, Cheryl and Erin Lunsford; 1 p.m., The Hillbilly Hot Club; 2 p.m., The Young Sinclairs; 3 p.m., Dave Eakin and Steve Hoke; 4 p.m., Ruth; 5 p.m., William "Cloudy" Haskins; 6 p.m., Sevenglory; 7 p.m., DecembeRadio; 9 p.m., Monkey Fuzz. Free tickets available at the museum starting at 9 a.m. Saturday. taubmanmuseum.org

> Guitar Shorty with The Fat Daddy Band

Details: Shorty can flat tear up the six strings, and what a pedigree. He played with T-Bone Walker, Little Milton and Lowell Fulson, and even became a mentor to Jimi Hendrix. Shorty, aka David Kearney, was married to Hendrix's stepsister. Hear a podcast we did with Shorty before his appearance at the old Taste of the Blue Ridge Blues & Jazz Festival at roanoke.com/entertainment/insideout/podcasts/wb/81528. Show starts at 9 p.m. at Blue 5 Restaurant, 312 2nd St. SW. $10 in advance; $15 at the show. 904-5338, roanokeartsfest.org, blue5restaurant.com, guitarshorty.org, thefatdaddyband.net.

> The William Penn Quartet

Details: Longtime Roanoke jazz favorites do it up. 3 p.m. at Dumas Center, 108 Henry St. N.W. $10.

> James Piano Quartet

Details: Top-flight classical players-in-residence at Sweet Briar College premiere "Udolpho," by Kent Holliday, Virginia Tech associate professor of music theory and composition. 7 p.m. at Greene Memorial United Methodist Church, 402 2nd St. S.W. $20 for adults; $10 for children 12 and younger; $15 for students. roanokeartsfest.org, www.gmumc.org, jamespianoquartet.com

Sunday

> FiddleFest Lite

Details: Great mandolinist Herschel Sizemore, from Roanoke by way of the cotton fields of Alabama, is on the bill. So is Mike Conner and Sandy Ridge. You can hear jam sessions and join in on teaching workshops. This show is a joint production of the Roanoke Arts Festival and the Taubman Museum of Art. 1 p.m., Taubman Museum of Art, 100 Salem Ave. S.E. $40. 342-5760, taubmanmuseum.org, herschelsizemore.com.

> Roanoke Symphony Orchestra -- "Spirit Over Oppression/Triumphant Expression"

Details: Performances of Mozart's "Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364" and Dmitri Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 5, Op. 47" 3 p.m. (also 8 p.m. Monday), Jefferson Center's Shaftman Hall, 541 Luck Ave., Roanoke. $19; $31; $39; $47; students $7. jeffcenter.org, rso.com.