Saturday is Center Street Daze in Riverwest, and I'm taking one for the neighborhood by sitting in the dunk tank at 4:20 p.m. So consider this an informal invite to throw a few balls and -- if you can -- soak the bejeezus out of me.

(Actually, come to think of it, tomorrow's an entire day of throwing things -- with the Spanish-tomato fight taking place at the Tomato Romp near Beans & Barley earlier in the afternoon.)

Center Street Daze is, aptly, on Center Street between Humboldt and Pierce Streets. It runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. with the DIY cart races starting at high noon. This is an awesome event to bring the kiddos to -- but be prepared for spontaneous street fire, keggers doubling as pushcarts and rowdy Riverwesterners.

See you there.
 

The last time Ani DiFranco gigged in Wisconsin was in Madison and she was five months' pregnant. Last night, she played a knock-out show at The Riverside, but waited until halfway through the performance to bring up her 8-month-old daughter, Petah Lucia, whom she delivered in her Buffalo, N.Y. home last January.

"You may have heard, I had myself a baby," she said with a huge smile, inspiring a raucous ovation from the audience.

Clearly, motherhood transformed the almost 37-year-old (her birthday is on Sunday), who arguably redefined folk music in the early '90s with edgy lyrics and a signature staccato style of guitar pickin'.

Last evening, DiFranco appeared happier and prettier than ever before with naturally curly shoulder-length hair instead of her usual punkrockish 'dos, and practical black shoes instead of fat platforms. 

But don't get me wrong, Mister DiFranco didn't coo "Kum Ba Yah" in a pair of "mom jeans." No, the original righteous babe appeared lean and strong in a black tank top and a pair of cargo pants, ripping it up from the moment she opened with "Knuckle Down."

And Difranco never lost steam during the 90-minute performance, playing a variety of new and newer songs, while still tossing out old-favorite flavored bones like "Napoleon," "Fuel," "Fire Door" (probably my all-time favorite DiFranco tune, for whatever it's worth) and a killer encore of "Little Plastic Castles" featuring amazing opener, Melissa Ferrick, on trumpet.

Many of DiFranco's quips centered around environmental politics and her new mom-dom. She commented on the challenge of showering with a new baby by joking to the audience, "Maybe you're all fine and fancy and fresh, but keep that to yourself," and later confessed she was trying to write happier songs.

"It's f-cking hard, but it's my new mission."

And indeed, most of her material is more hopeful, definitely inspired by baby Petah, but also by the resilience of her new community in New Orleans where …

Devendra Banhart performed for more than two hours on The Pabst Theater stage on Sunday night for a small-but-devoted audience. It was the first time Banhart played in Milwaukee, and most of his material was from the yet-to-be-released "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyo" which comes out later this month on XL Recordings.

Banhart's music has been dubbed indie folk, freak folk and psych folk, but it's nearly impossible to label the 26-year-old musician's style. Born in Texas and raised in Venezuela, Banhart draws from a variety of genres including folk, rock, jazz and the spirit of Tropicalism, a Brazilian style of art and music from the '60s and '70s. His voice ranges from a quivering Nick Drake to a much deeper Nick Cave or Jim Morrison. At times he appeared to be almost channeling the Lizard King, especially when grasping the mic with both hands and belting out lyrics in a mucho sexy yet tortured sort of way.

Banhart -- although clearly loving the limelight of center stage -- plugged his band mate's individual projects and turned over the mic a few times. For last night's show, the band went by the "Spiritual Boner(z)" -- the "z" is silent, Banhart explained -- but the group has a new name with just about every venue, including the Tennessee Cops, Hairy Fairy, Deep Fried Hummingbird and Brain Taint.

The loosy-goosy name changing is in step with the rest of Banhart's style. Clearly, he  had a partial set-list, breaking into "Chinese Children" per the request of someone in the audience, and later, he invited a random audience member on stage to play a half-finished, original tune. For the last number, he invited the entire audience on stage for a "dance party" which resulted in close to 100 people getting down with the band, including a maraca-shaking Banhart.

The freewheelin' spirit is mirrored in his lyrics, too. At one point he sang the gorgeous, smoky "Freely" featuring the line "There's only one way to shine/It's trying to live freely." ("Not to be …

Bay View's the place to be this weekend, thanks to the Bay View Bash on Saturday and the Global Union Festival -- presented by Alverno College -- on Saturday and Sunday from noon until 7 p.m. in Humboldt Park.

Eight bands will travel from all over the globe -- including Germany, Nigeria, Vietnam and Iran -- to meet in Milwaukee for this free music festival.

Last year's debut event received incredible reviews and tons of praise from the community. Hence, Alverno College's David Ravel knew this was going to be a successful annual gig.

"We were blown away by the response to last year's festival," says Ravel. "Let's face it -- first year out, and understandably, nobody quite knows who we are.  Still, we had a county sheriff estimate of over 6,000 attending over that weekend.  And now that we're more of a known quantity and the buzz is out there, we're getting ready for a really big show."

"World Music" has the connotation of having a specific sound, but in the case of this festival, the term is used to describe boundary-less music from many different genres originating in places all over the map.

To get an idea of what to expect, here's a brief description of the bands.

17 Hippies, a band from Germany, opens the festival with its eclectic mix of Eastern melodies, Balkan rhythms, French chanson, Anglo song writing and Cajun tunes. Vietnam's Huong Thanh & Nguyen Le Quartet play traditional Vietnamese music. Lekan Babalola from Nigeria delivers vibrant jazz, and Zemog El Gallo Bueno plays modern Latin music.

Haale, a female musician from Iran whose style is described as "Psychedelic Sufi Trance Rock," will start off on Sunday with her signature sound that evokes both the spiritual and traditional culture of her parents' homeland of Iran, as well as the energy of psychedelic rock and roll from New York City, where she was born.

Also on deck for Sunday is Turkish clarinet virtuoso Ismail Lumanovski and The NY Gypsy All-Stars from Macedonia, Cuba…