Wednesday, Wednesday

You see, this paper normally comes out on Thursday morning. Yet there are numerous times that we find out about a really great show that’s scheduled for a Wednesday, the day before the issue we’re about to start working on comes out. And in the issue that we happen to be shoving out the door, there’s no room; all the editorial space is filled.

OK, so here’s the deal: There’s this singer named Eleni Mandell, and she’s playing The True Love Coffeehouse at 2406 J Street on, you guessed it, Wednesday, December 3. Mandell is a singer from Los Angeles with four excellent indie albums to her credit—Wishbone, Thrill, Snakebite and Country for True Lovers—and a fifth, Afternoon, in the works for next year. If you’ve ever wondered if there exists an exquisite singer-songwriter who can evoke everyone from Patsy Cline, Lotte Lenya, Joni Mitchell and Julie London to Patti Smith, then you might want to check Mandell out. LA Weekly gave Mandell a shared Best Songwriter/Composer award for 2003; its other winner was the late Elliott Smith.

Some other stuff, most of it not about Wednesdays: On Monday and Tuesday nights, you can catch some fine dinner music by jazz-blues pianist Omar Sharriff from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Jazzmen’s Art of Pasta, 1107 Firehouse Alley in Old Sacramento.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Jackpot, whose former drummer Dave Brockman’s new band the Miles is profiled in Music, plays Old Ironsides, 1901 10th Street, on Friday, November 28, with Dave Gleason’s Wasted Days and Sarah Nelson. Perhaps Daisy Spot guitar god Mike Farrell will show up for a guest spot with Gleason?

The Joggers, a band from Portland with some nice, spiffy harmonies and a recent Star Time album, Solid Guild, which sported an album cover that was a striking homage to the 1960s classic Buffalo Springfield Again, will play the Capitol Garage on Saturday, November 29, on a bill with Electro Group and the Planet The.

Harlow’s, at 2708 J Street, has Canadian singer-songwriter Jane Siberry in on Tuesday, December 2. Siberry has been making smart records since the mid-1980s. The following night, Wednesday, December 3, an “alternative” artist named “Jonathon Richmond” is listed as playing the club. We’re assuming the club has booked Jonathan Richman, the 50-something, onetime Grass Valley resident and ur-kinderpunk artist who occasionally pops up in such Farrelly brothers movies as Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary.

And there’s hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.