2. Enjoy some fantastic acoustic music on Friday at Slainte in Portland, with Connecticut’s Kwesi Kankam, Portland’s own Samuel James (pictured), and Isaiah Bennett; also on Friday, it’s  Lyle Divinsky and the Velvet Vagabonds with the Nat Osborn Band and Alice and the Glass Lake at the Big Easy, the Heritage Blues Quartet at One Longfellow Square, and Eric Bettencourt at the St. Lawrence Arts. Hip hop star Andre Nicketina is set for Port City Music Hall on Saturday, as well as Iron & Wine and the Secret Sisters, who are slated for the State Theatre on Saturday night. Also on Saturday, there’s a double shot of soul at the Big Easy with Kenya Hall and Kristina Kentigian, there’s the Jerks of Grass at the St. Lawrence Arts, and there’s a Saturday night burlesque show at the Oak and the Ax in Biddeford. Wrap it up on Sunday with Putnam Smith at One Longfellow Square, and J.R. Jones and Maleana Cadiz at the Oak and the Ax.

3. Billy’s Tavern in Thomaston is quickly becoming one of the go-to live music venues in the Midcoast; this Friday they feature roots band Poor Old Shine (pictured), as well as wood-fired pizza from Uproot Pie Co. Also on Friday along the Midcoast, there’s Blind Albert Blues at Rock City Coffee in Rockland, and Eric Green acoustic solo at the Brick House in Searsport. Saturday brings Putnam Smith and Gabriel Zacchai at Rock City, Trisha Mason at Myrtle Street Tavern in Rockland, and a special 8 p.m. screening of Dave Grohl’s rock doc “Sound City” at the Strand Theatre. On the other side of the bay, on Friday there’s songwriter Chris Smither at the Grand Theatre in Ellsworth, and on Saturday the Portland alt-folk band If and It will play at the Lompoc Cafe in Bar Harbor. But wait, there’s more: on Saturday beloved Hancock County songwriter Chris Ross plays an all-request show at Chummies in Ellsworth, and at Sips in Southwest Harbor, there’s the Crown Vics. On Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m., there’s a kickoff party for the eventual construction of Knowlton Community Park on State Street in downtown Ellsworth, with free barbecue and ice cream, and music from Flash in the Pans.

4. “Around the World in 80 Days” opens this weekend at the Penobscot Theatre; the madcap adventure is set for 8 p.m. Friday, 5 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at the Bangor Opera House. Also this weekend is the Robinson Ballet’s Brick Church Series II, featuring original works by company members, reprised, set for 7 p.m. Saturday at the Union Street Brick Church in Bangor. In Portland, in addition to the main stage play “Wittenberg” all weekend, Portland Stage hosts its Little Festival of the Unexpected on Saturday; three new American plays, including “Lake Untersee” by Joe Waechter, “Veils” by Tom Coach, and “The Vikings of Munjoy Hill” by Ian MacAllister-McDonald will be performed at 12:30, 3:30 and 7:30 p.m, respectively, at Portland Stage’s Studio Theatre on Forest Avenue. Cold Comfort Theater – a.k.a. the artists formerly known as the Belfast Maskers – perform John Cariani’s “Almost, Maine” at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Emerson Hall in Castine.

5. What better way to enjoy these earliest days of warm weather than by strolling around the still-quiet Mt. Desert Island, and enjoy the annual Taste of Bar Harbor event, a food festival featuring local restaurants and chefs. On Friday, there’s a pub tour from 5 to 9 p.m., where for just $20 you get samples of drinks at ten bars around town. On Saturday, there are four five-course prix fixe dinners served at four area restaurants, which will be revealed to participants at a 5 p.m. reception at Fiore Olive Oil; tickets are $75. Then, on Sunday, there are speciality brunches all over town. For more information, visit the Taste of Bar Harbor website. 

Even more tantalizingly, chef Matthew Kenney, a Searsport native and part-time Belfast resident who is internationally renowned for his take on raw and vegan food, will be the one opening The Gothic – named for the old coffee shop that was located at 108 Main St. until the mid-2000s. Kenney, who owns two restaurants in Santa Monica, CA and Miami, and who has written ten cookbooks, will offer a mix of raw foods, vegan and non-vegan dishes, and artisanal cocktails at his new eatery.

“The cuisine at The Gothic will be inspired by local ingredients and prepared with modern techniques,” said spokesperson Juliana Sobral, in an email on Tuesday. “The cuisine at all of our restaurants has always had a strong respect for the seasonality and abundance that Maine offers, and we believe that The Gothic is a perfect partner for our style of food preparation.”

Preparations are already underway for the early June opening, and Sobral said people can expect to see an initial menu closer to the opening. The website will be launched in about one week at www.gothicrestaurant.com, they are currently on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thegothicrestaurant, and they are currently taking reservations at 2070-338-GOTH.

As for The Lost Kitchen, speculation has been rampant as to whether or not the restaurant would stay open, after it abruptly closed in April. French got her start hosting private supper clubs in the upstairs room of the building at 108 Main St, and in Oct. 2011 began serving locally sourced food year-round, quickly becoming one of the most talked-about new restaurants in the state. Chef and owner Erin French left a message on The Lost Kitchen Tumblr page on May 1, in which she alluded to some personal problems she had been having, but suggested she would be reopening sometime this summer. With the confirmation that The Gothic will be moving into The Lost Kitchen’s space, it appears that is no longer the case. It remains to be seen whether French’s dinner at the James Beard House, set for 7 p.m. this Friday, May 17, is still on as scheduled.

EDIT: The James Beard House dinner on May 17 in New York City is happening as scheduled, but it is sold out.

Left to right, top row: Jay Grant, Michael Fournier, Mike Powers. Bottom right: Tim Berrigan.

Neither, as it turns out. Dead Trend, the band at the center of UMaine graduate and current western Massachusetts resident Michael Fournier’s 2012 book “Hidden Wheel,” certainly started out as fiction. But it evolved to be a real band, with real people in it - specifically, Fournier on drums, Tim Berrigan and Mike Powers of Portland bands Leaves Leaves and Great Western Plain on bass and guitar, and lead singer Jay Grant. The band in the book is now the band on the album – though the music the band makes comes straight from the hardcore punk of the 80s.

“The mythos in the book is that Dead Trend is the biggest export from this town called Freedom Springs,” said Fournier. “In the book they go through like six lineup changes. They end up playing Buddhist rap metal towards the end. When I was finishing the book I was trying to figure out how to promote it. I didn’t want to do a book tour. I wanted to play with these guys for a summer.”

Fournier met Berrigan, Powers and Grant while all four were at the University of Maine between 2008 and 2011 – Berrigan in the English graduate program with Fournier, Powers getting a masters in education, and Grant as station manager at WMEB 91.9 FM, the campus radio station. In late 2011, Fournier held a Kickstarter campaign to fund the book release for “Hidden Wheel,” and the subsequent book tour was held in May 2012, on which the now-actual Dead Trend performed.

Not wanting to let the project die after the book tour was completed, Dead Trend kept playing shows intermittently through 2012. On January 12, 2013, the four assembled at producer Mike Cunnane’s studio in Portland, and between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. – with an hour off for lunch – recorded “False Positive,” which came out officially last week.

Though no one is playing a “character” during a Dead Trend show, the band members do adopt stage names from the book. Fournier is Seth Stina, Powers is Mike Roft, Berrigan is Marty Harratt, and Grant is lead singer Gil Falcone, who when he’s onstage does appear to adopt a lot of the look and movements of 80s hardcore punk – shirtless and screaming, like Henry Rollins in Black Flag or Jello Biafra in the Dead Kennedys.

“Nobody plays a character, but the songs we do are always two and a half minutes long. It’s always about to enter 1988, and we’re always singing about Reagan and all the things people sang about then,” said Fournier.

Fournier’s no stranger to punk rock, considering he wrote a book on it – an entry into the 33 1/3 series of short books about various albums, published by Bloomsbury about the iconic Minutemen album, “Double Nickels on the Dime.” He also maintains a small poetry and fiction journal, Cabildo Quarterly, and continues to write. The band plays short bursts of shows every few months, since a Dead Trend show is loud, fast, sweaty and crams 25 songs into a half hour. Berrigan and Powers already play in two Portland bands, and, despite his punk rock track record, Fournier is still a relative newcomer to playing in a band. Dead Trend is his outlet for his less literary side.

“I didn’t learn how to play drums until I was 35,” said Fournier. “I guess I’m a weekend warrior. But it’s incredibly fun, and it’s a really fun hook for this project, to be this weird, meta, fictional band.”

You can stream or download “False Postive” on Dead Trend’s Bandcamp and Facebook pages.

Both Careys are now in the pizza business, as his son Ryan Carey’s Portland-based Pizza Pie on the Fly – also a mobile wood-fired oven – has been visiting the Bangor Waterfront for events like the American Folk Festival and the KahBang Festival for two years now.

“I retired last year after 36 years with Sears, and my wife retired after the same amount of time in the hotel business,” said the elder Carey, who owns Pompeii with his wife, Dawn. “I could go back to the retail biz, but this sounded more appealing. I like pizza. I like people. That’s really what drove it.”

Carey’s Facebook page for Pompeii Pizza shows lots of pictures of his shiny metal mobile oven affixed with a trailer hitch, which he will stock with wood in order to make an array of crispy, thin-crust pies with gourmet toppings. Pizza will also be available during all the Waterfront Concerts at the Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion. Pies will be 10 inches each and priced at $8. For now, Pompeii will only take cash, though they expect to be taking credit and debit in the coming weeks.

“I grew up in the area and the Waterfront is such a change from back then,” said Carey. “We love it. We’re so glad to be here.”

2. There’s a dirty punk show at Geno’s on Friday in Portland – fuzz blues with Meantone, garage punk with Thee Icepicks and rock with Antiseptic. There’s also some electronic-influenced indie rock Friday at the St. Lawrence Arts with Sha Sha Sha and Old Soul, a CD release for Billy Wylder with special guest Sorcha out at the Oak and the Ax in Biddeford, and a night of heavy rock with Starlight Cicada, Beach the Whale and Dustin Saucier and the Sad Bastards at Slainte. Oh, and Station 85, Ginlab and Hutch Heelan at the Big Easy. Friday is definitely THE night. But don’t worry – on Saturday there’s the Bob Charest Band at the Big Easy, there’s Danger I Reckon, Old Hat and the Woulds at Geno’s, and at One Longfellow Square there’s a CD release party for the bluegrass dudes the Tricky Britches, with guests Tall Heights and Ghost of Paul Revere (pictured).

3. Mt. Desert Island and surrounding environs are coming back to life in a big way already – the Lompoc Cafe in Bar Harbor plays host to folk band Lisa/Liza and Mass Wasting on Friday, at Sips in Southwest Harbor on Saturday there’s Banned From Eden, and on Sunday at 5 p.m. at College of the Atlantic’s Gates Center there’s a one time only concert featuring The Darol Anger, Joe Walsh, Grant Gordy, and Corey DiMario Quartet, an all-star lineup. In Ellsworth at Chummie’s there’s Skyscraper on Friday and Juicebox on Saturday, and don’t forget the party rockers The Larks at Mainely Meat on Main in Ellsworth on Sunday afternoon. Across the bay, on Friday night the Mallett Brothers Band (pictured) make their long-awaited appearance at Billy’s Tavern in Thomaston and at Rock City Coffee in Rockland there’s songwriter Tom Albury. Saturday brings an Irish session at Rock City, the Yankee Wailers at the Myrtle Street Tavern in Rockland, and at Bell the Cat in Belfast there’s the Leaky Boot Jug Band.

4. And just like that, it’s blockbuster season. Last weekend saw the release of the wildly entertaining “Iron Man 3,” and this weekend sees the opening of “The Great Gatsby,” Baz Luhrmann’s already divisive 3D treatment of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic. For indie film fans, Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville hosts Robert Redford’s “The Company You Keep,” a biopic of the painter “Renoir” and Terrence Malick’s new film, “To The Wonder,” the latter of which is also at the Strand Theatre in Rockland. At Reel Pizza in Bar Harbor, “Gatsby” opens alongside “Gimme The Loot,” a graffiti-themed indie caper flick. River City Cinema in Bangor screens the U.S. education system documentary “The Revisionaries,” set for 7 p.m. Friday at the Brewer Performing Arts Center, and the Skip Baker Film Festival continues at the Grand Theatre in Ellsworth, featuring Gary Cooper’s “High Noon” at 2 and 7 p.m. Friday and “Cinema Paradiso” and 2 and 7 p.m. on Saturday.

5. Sunday is Mother’s Day, and if you’re looking for something special to do for dear ol’ Mom, might I suggest any of the following? There’s some gorgeous Mother’s Day Brunches statewide, all of which require reservations – try the Harraseeket in Freeport for elegance, the Fiddlehead Restaurant in Bangor for high-end comfort food, Fromviandoux in Camden for high tea, or Mediterranean creativity at Cleonice in Ellsworth. There’s also the annual Sweet Weekend – a celebration of sweet baked treats – at bakeries all over Portland from Friday through Sunday. Got other suggestions? Post them in the comments.

“We look forward to the continued collaboration with the City of Portland, the downtown Arts District and our neighbors along Congress Street,” said Crothers, who also owners the music venue Higher Ground in Burlington, Vermont.  “Portland’s continuing progressive attitude toward the arts is well-known around the country and we’re excited to play a small role here.”

Port City Music Hall has already been offering State Theatre Presents shows for some time, with some upcoming shows including songwriter Melissa Ferrick on May 16, rapper Andre Nickatina on May 18 and indie rockers Ra Ra Riot on May 24. The venue will finish out its current lineup of shows and then close for two weeks in July for some minor renovations, after which Crothers and general manager Lauren Wayne plan to offer more than 120 shows per year, as well as rentals.

“We’ll have some fresh updates and improvements to reveal this summer once there’s an opportunity to shut down for a few weeks,”  Wayne said. “It’s important to us that we not disrupt or cancel any of the existing concerts on the schedule.”

Crothers and Bowery purchased the State Theatre in 2010 after it had been closed for four years, and after $1.5 million repairs reopened the venue in October 2010. It has since played host to a wide array of bands including the Avett Brothers, Skrillex, the Pixies, Elvis Costello and fun; some upcoming shows include indie folksinger Iron & Wine on May 18, guitarist Tommy Emmanuel on May 29, and British rockers Bloc Party on June 4. The 529-capacity Port City Music Hall opened four years ago at 509 Congress St., boasting hardwood floors, clear sightlines for audience members and a spacious bar.

For a full lineup of Port City Music Hall and the State Theatre’s shows, visit statetheatreportland.com.

The methodology behind the choices for each state are stated on the website – organizers said that rather than only choose one officially designated state food for each state, they opted for selecting foods that had an origin, official designation, or significant production in each state. The winners will be announced at the annual Congressional Baseball Game in Washington DC on Thursday, June 13. The competition is sponsored by the National Restaurant Association and America’s Beer Distributors.

Those idyllic days set the stage for what the three friends would do later in life, as adults, playing in the Portland-based Americana band The Ghost of Paul Revere – though they didn’t know it at the time, of course.

“We’ve known each other for a little over two decades,” said McCarthy, bassist for the five-piece, who will perform with When Particles Collide at Nocturnem Drafthaus in Bangor on May 9. “We were definitely imaginative little kids. There was a lot of make believe. I think we’ve always had a pretty strong connection to each other. We played music together in high school. We could always sing harmonies really well together.”

The Ghost of Paul Revere formed two years ago, with Sherry on vocals and guitar, Davis on banjo and vocals and McCarthy on bass, after the three friends reconnected after college and joined up with multi-instrumentalists Matt Young and Matt Baker. In high school, the three played a kind of acoustic folk-pop. As adults, they gravitated towards blues, folk and indie rock, like traditional southern acoustic blues, John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Nickel Creek and the acoustic side of Led Zeppelin. They were harmony singers first, though, so they not only love bluegrass harmonies – they also love Motown vocals and soul and r&b.

“We all have certain musical obsessions. I think that, along with our rural background, really informs everything we play,” said McCarthy. “We also really put a lot of energy into our live show. We really try to put everything we can into our shows. That’s why we call it ‘holler folk.’”

Holler folk is the term the band came up with to describe their sound – folk music, but with a big, brash, passionate vocal edge. Live, they feel more like a bluegrass version of the Arcade Fire, throwing themselves into the music and singing their hearts out. A taste of that energy can be found on the band’s six-song EP “North,” which came out last year; the band plans to enter the studio this summer to record a full-length which will hopefully come out in the fall.

“We like to create a community with each show,” said Davis. “It’s less about us being on stage and the audience being separate. We want to bring it all in together. We try to orchestrate a moment with them.”

The name for the band came from a dream that Griffin Sherry had a few years back, in which he says he encountered what he believed was the ghost of Paul Revere. Those old American personalities, Revolutionary War or otherwise, haunt everything, not just the music that the five band members make. The past hangs around, whether it was something that occurred centuries ago, or a fond childhood memory of running around in the woods.

“There’s a power in playing live music. There’s energy, and it’s coming from somewhere, and it’s not just the people in the room, said McCarthy. “There’s ghosts of some sort all around us.”

The Ghost of Paul Revere will play at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 9 at Nocturnem Drafthaus in Bangor, and with Tricky Britches and Tall Heights at One Longfellow Square in Portland on Saturday, May 11.

Kelly was the only nominee from Maine this year; other Maine James Beard Award-winning chefs include Mark Gaier and Clark Frasier of Arrows in Ogunquit, Rob Evans of Hugo’s and Sam Hayward of Fore Street, both in Portland.

Primo opened 14 years ago in an old Victorian mansion on South Main Street in Rockland, and has since become one of the vanguard farm-to-table restaurants in the nation. Kelly’s Italian-inspired cuisine utilizes ingredients grown right in town, on the restaurant’s 4-acre property – from fresh herbs and produce to chicken, ducks and their heritage pigs, which are butchered on site. She has been nominated for Best Chef Northeast for Primo multiple times. The restaurant opens for the season next Tuesday, May 14.

The other finalists in the Best Chef category were: Jamie Bissonnette of Coppa in Boston, Joanne Chang of Flour Bakery and Cafe in Boston, Gerry Hayden of the North Fork Table &  Inn in Southold, N.Y., and Barry Maiden of Hungry Mother in Cambridge.

The event will expand upon last year’s event, with more breweries and a bigger location, as well as three different “sessions” which beer fans can sign up for at either noon to 3 p.m. or 5 to 8 p.m., with a VIP session from 4 to 5 p.m. Breweries set to be included in the festival are national and international labels including Sierra Nevada (California), Samuel Adams (Massachusetts), Unibroue (Quebec), and Smuttynose (New Hampshire). Maine brewers include Allagash (Portland), Baxter (Lewiston), Rising Tide (Portland), Black Bear (Orono), the Sea Dog (Bangor), Penobscot Bay (Winterport), Sebago, Gritty’s, Honeymaker Mead and Urban Farm Fermentory (all out of Portland).

Brew Fest ticket holders are invited to attend lectures throughout the day from brewing experts. Including special guest speaker John Palmer, author and self publisher of “How to Brew” in the guest speaker tent. Home brewing and equipment demos will also be held on site throughout each Brew Fest session, and will be open to the public.

Also at the Brew Fest, Central Street Farmhouse will be announcing the 3^rd annual Maine Homebrewers Competition finalists. Winners get a chance to brew with local brewmasters and one grand prize winner will have their recipe brewed professionally. Submissions for the competition will be accepted from July 5-July 19. Official rules and more details available at centralstreetfarmhouse.com.

KahBang’s event is entirely separate from the Bangor Convention and Visitor’s Bureau’s own beer event, set for June 22 on the Waterfront and featuring only Maine breweries. The Bangor CVB event is also the same weekend as The Festival 2013, set for June 21-22 at the Portland Yacht Services Building, and featuring more than 70 brewers from all over the world, including some rare Belgian, German and French beers and an array of American craft breweries. In other words: it’s an amazing summer for beer in Maine.