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Everybody wants to be a honky-tonk band these days, so it only makes sense that the Nude Party is setting up shop at Sam’s Town Point for a three-day run of live recordings. The North Carolina-born septet built their own studio in the Catskills for last year’s third album, Rides On, with the LP licking the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers and a ramshackle throwback psych-folk jangle. Before striking camp at STP, the band unloads their ragged Seventies vibes and explosive live show on a daytime set at new Martindale hot spot Duett’s. – Doug Freeman

In September, UT-Austin named Darden Smith as its inaugural Songwriter in Residence, providing the musician with a nine-month stipend to lead workshops and concerts at the university. Now, Smith – a UT alum and musician of 35 years, who’s toured with the likes of Stevie Nicks and Joan Baez – debuts Western Skies, a project inspired by pandemic road trips across West Texas. Combining songs, stories, and photographs all accumulated during his travels, Smith and a fourpiece band premiere a real-deal work of musical theatre, complete with direction, lighting, and sound design from Texas Performing Arts. – Carys Anderson

Weighing in at nine members all donning red bucket hats, funk collective Grandmaster might appear to be a cult rather than a band. Its occupation of the Paramount’s Stateside Theatre for the Grandmaster Gala benefits SIMS Foundation and coincides with their debut album release. The LP’s galactic ascension combines a cruising swagger with the space glam of Electric Light Orchestra and bubblegum harmonies of the 5th Dimension. Such a journey is fitting for the historic venue, and sounds like conspiratorial cult gospel. Fellow sonic thespians Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band and Dodo open. – Laiken Neumann

Watching Jonathan Terrell dominate a stage leaves little doubt that the charismatic country-rocker swaggers as one of Austin’s next big breakouts. Until he can kick out a proper follow-up to 2020’s Westward though, Terrell’s last month quietly offered a holdover with a new EP of mostly acoustic tunes. Roughs emphasizes Terrell’s exceptional songwriting – running restless, raw-nerved, poetic highway lines through impeccable melodies and sharp hooks. Terrell locks in a weekly White Horse residency this month featuring support from Harvest Thieves and Sentimental Family Band, but starting with Arkansas’ suave country crooner Dylan Earl. – Doug Freeman