Sound Notes Pick o’ the Week

April is “Daycare Month” at ZZZ Records. Drop your children — ages 3-9 — off at the record store any time during business hours for complimentary daycare all day long. Children will be provided with meals and a free LP of their choice.

The Des Moines Civic Center has announced that it is expanding its Youth Academy program to include music beyond the classics. In an effort to reach a wider audience, director of marketing Sophia Ahmad said that the Youth Academy will now offer classes in dubstep, numetal and basic freestyle rap. For more information, or to enroll your aspiring students now, check out www.civiccenter.org.

Taking a page from the WWE pay-per-view schedule, the Des Moines Music Coalition is expanding its stable of music festivals from three a year to one every month. In order to better highlight specific bands, the DMMC is doing away with Gross Domestic Product, 80/35 and Little BIG Fest starting in 2014, and each of the year’s 12 new festivals will spotlight a different local band. Due to the annually changing nature of a dozen band-specific festivals, the DMMC has decided that all festival names will be pun-based, and it’s already announced “Lesbi-JAN Poetry,” “Mr. Baber’s MAY-bers,” and the horribly unfortunately named “Christopher the C-OCTOBER” for the coming year.

House of Bricks is changing its booking policy beginning in June of this year. Tired of having the bar stereotyped as being just “a metal bar,” owner J.T. Wilson, has decided to stop booking metal acts altogether. Beginning with a June 5 concert with Kenny G, Bricks will officially become Des Moines’ hottest place for Adult Contemporary, Easy Listening and Soft Jazz performances. Wilson said he is “overjoyed” at the opportunity to take the venue in a new direction.

If you missed Tone Loc’s performance over St. Paddy’s weekend, you’ll still have plenty of opportunity to see him around town. Reportedly enamored with the hospitality he was shown while in town, Loc has permanently rented out the “Tiny Tim Suite” at the Hotel Fort Des Moines.

On Thursday, March 28, Vaudeville Mews has former Foreigner drummer Dennis Elliott performing a one-man percussion and spoken-word extravaganza, starting at 5 p.m. The event is all-ages and is $5 at the door.

Gas Lamp is the place to be on Friday, March 29, as the bar hosts Yo Gabba Gabba Live. The event kicks off at 10 p.m. and is all ages. To accommodate the younger crowd, no alcohol will be served in the venue on this night.

Then on Saturday, March 30, The Snacks perform at the Underground starting at 9 p.m. No cover.

Sound Notes Pick o’ the Week: On Sunday, March 31, you can check out the Dead Kennedy’s Reunion Tour. The show starts at 9:30 p.m. and is free. The Melvins and Social Distortion open.

Monday, April 1 is the day to head up to the Greenwood Lounge to check out delta blues legend Hambone Jenkins. There’s no cover, and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. Mahalo. APRIL FOOLS