For the past two years, the Southern Comfort Cocktail Tour has offered regular tours for guests to "drink in" the local dining and drinking culture. On Thursday and Friday, the tour expands in scope to become the second annual TALES OF THE COCKTAIL. The Hotel Monteleone (214 Royal St., 523-3341) serves as home base for the event, and kicks off the festivities with a cocktail hour (or two) on Thursday evening from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Come for a meet-and-greet with authors of cocktail- and dining-related books, including local favorites Kerri McCaffey (Obituary Cocktail), John DeMers (Wining and Dining in New Orleans) and Bev Church (The Joys of Entertaining). Celebrity bartenders will be serving up drinks, while chefs from across the city will conduct cooking demonstrations, creating classic New Orleans dishes, but with the twist of using Southern Comfort in every recipe. Participating chefs are Tommy DeGiovanni (Arnaud's), Duke LoCicero (Cafe Giovanni), Tom Wolfe (Wolfe's of New Orleans) and Tenney Flynn (G.W. Fins/Zydeque). Free admission. To make the required RSVP call 588-1820 or email ann@sponsorone.net. A variety of Spirited Dinners follow at 8 p.m. Thursday. Held at landmark French Quarter restaurants, the dinners feature chefs pairing their menu to cocktails or wines selected by various authors. Participating restaurants are Antoine's, Arnaud's, Brennan's, Broussard's, Cafe Giovanni, French Quarter Restaurant Bar, Galatoire's, Girod's Bistro, the Hunt Room at Hotel Monteleone, Louis XVI, Muriel's and Tujague's. Menus can be downloaded at www.talesofthecocktail.com/spiriteddinners. For lunch on Friday, Brennan's (417 Royal St.) hosts "Dine & Design: An Entertaining Lunch Lesson." Church joins Los Angeles Times food writer Jessica Strand and photographer/writer Mittie Hellmich to give tips for party planning and entertaining. The menu is: Bloody Marys or milk punch, turtle soup or Jackson Salad, Trout Nancy or blackened chicken salad, and bananas Foster. Chardonnay will be served throughout the luncheon. The cost is $35, all-inclusive. Call 558-1820 to RSVP. On Saturday starting at 4 p.m., guests are invited to stroll the Southern Comfort Cocktail Tour led by guide Joe Gendusa and author McCaffety. Call 569-1401 to RSVP or more info. For more details and a complete schedule, visit www.talesofthecocktail.com. -- Frank Etheridge

Jolie Holland 10 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 18 The Parish at House of Blues, 229 Decatur St., 310-4999 Jolie Holland brings her Texas folk rock to The Parish at House of Blues on Wednesday. On Escondida (Anti), Jolie Holland pulls off the rare feat of sounding understated and theatrical at the same time. Once a member of Canadian folk rockers the Be-Good Tanyas, Holland's solo career has been characterized by bluesy folk -- she learned to fingerpick listening to Mississippi John Hurt records -- and sensual, codeine-phrased vocals that have earned comparisons to Tom Waits. She comes by her sense of drama honestly, having spent much of the late 1990s bumming around the South, particularly between Houston and New Orleans, as part of a circus troupe. She found her way to Vancouver where the Be-Good Tanyas formed by traveling with puppeteers. Her tales of love and loss don't read like much on the page, but with a gentle swing, a muted trumpet and hushed vocals, they sound more like private musings than songs meant to be turned loose in the world. Tickets $8-$10. -- Alex Rawls

David Garza 10 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 19 The Parish at House of Blues, 229 Decatur St., 310-4999 Austin, Texas' David Garza calls to mind Guided By Voices' Robert Pollard in his prolific, low- and mid-fi recorded output, but the comparison ends there. As the new four-disc set, A Strange Mess of Flowers (Wide Open) documents, Garza's more musically varied, with Latin dance tracks, pop, folk -- his dominant mode -- with occasional detours in punk and odd, taped madness. He plays all the instruments on many tracks, but if that all sounds like an exercise in cleverness, think again. Garza is unafraid of direct, clear romance, unlike Pollard, and he can sing a line like 'You've got me now for keeps' and a song like 'How Much Does Your Heart Beat for Me' with utter sincerity. Still, he does follow his own idiosyncratic muse. He puts out self-made CDs and cassettes when he feels like it, and many of these songs come from the 20 he released in the last 15 years. Tickets $8. -- Rawls

Andre Williams 10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Aug. 20-21 Lounge Lizards, 200 Decatur St., 598-1500 New Orleans is a city that honors soulful eccentrics from French colonial aristocrat Bernard de Marigny to Ernie K-Doe. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Black Godfather himself, Andre Williams, makes frequent trips here to put on wild and raucous gigs. One of the great, unsung figures in rhythm and blues music, Williams has followed his own unique muse for more than 40 years as a singer, writer and producer in Detroit, Los Angeles, and Chicago -- from the great 1950s single 'Bacon Fat' to working with Motown and Ike Turner. In recent years, Williams has gotten some well-deserved kudos by recording with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and putting out great records such as Silky and Bait and Switch. Live, anything can happen as Williams' knowing leer and sexy charm combine with his no-holds-barred singing and borderline obscene stage talk to leave any and all witnesses juiced up, turned on and revved high. $10 cover. -- David Kunian

Rotary Downs, Big Blue Marble, Chef Menteur 10 p.m. Friday, Aug. 20 Howlin' Wolf, 828 S. Peters St., 522-WOLF Rotary Downs headlines this night of New Orleans indie pop. On Quitters' EP (Rookery), the band shows a debt to Pavement, particularly on 'Vulgar Ways,' which recalls Steven Malkmus' ambivalent vocal passes at pretty melodies before testing those melodies with harsh guitar lines that emerge them. There's a more subversive edge to Rotary Downs, with phrases like 'psychedelics involved' and 'the masters of the universe / can go f--k themselves raw' emerging from the murk. Singer James Marler, like Big Blue Marble's Dave Fera, is funnier than his earnest voice suggests, so the pairing of bands makes a lot of sense. Big Blue Marble's melodies sound rooted in the 1960s West Coast acoustic music of Neil Young and Love, but there's also a strong, early-90s indie sensibility undercutting the predictability and sheen associated with Los Angeles. Chef Menteur opens, and Vive la France! (Independent) demonstrates its adeptness at slow, attractively textured space rock. Potpie frequently joins the band on theremin, to add a little sci-fi to the mix. -- Rawls

Wine & Roses 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21 The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Ballroom, 917 Canal St., 455-5194 In 1966, Truman Capote hosted the Black and White Ball at New York City's Plaza Hotel, a gala modeled after the Ascot scene in My Fair Lady. Capote restricted guests' attire to black tie for men, and black or white dresses for women, with all required to wear masks. This Saturday, the Louisiana Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation hopes to recapture the spirit of Capote's famously fun event and benefit its charitable outreach with its second annual Wine & Roses fundraiser gala. Guests are asked to dress in black and white, and enjoy an evening of South African wines paired to creations by some of the city's finest chefs, such as Rene Bajeaux, John Besh and Tom Wolfe, among others. Rumboogie will provide the music, and auction packages of dinners, travel and art will be sold. Tickets are $175 per person, with patron party tickets $250 per person. -- Etheridge

The Paddle for the Presidency's Big River Boo-Ya! 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21 The Howlin' Wolf, 828 S. Peters St., 522-WOLF The Paddle for the Presidency's 2,552-mile journey ends in New Orleans Saturday with a celebration perfect for its final destination. A group of nearly 20 young people spent their summers paddling down the Mississippi River, holding rallies and events along the way in an effort to engage the underrepresented 18-to-24 demographic in the democratic process. In this its final hurrah, the voter-awareness and registration campaign presents what some might deem the best kind of political party: Performances by Big Sam's Funky Nation, Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes, Bionik Brown and DJ Quickie Mart, and M.U.G.A.B.E.E. with Troy 'Trombone Shorty' Andrews and Jonathan Batiste leading a quartet of NOCCA students will be interspersed with a number of political speakers addressing the importance of approaching the ballot box. Representatives from Rock the Vote and Headcount will also be on hand to help register voters. Tickets are $8, $5 if attendees register to vote or have a valid student ID. Don't just read the headlines &138; change them. -- Shala Carlson

Dexter Romweber 10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21 Mermaid Lounge, 1100 Constance St., 524-4747 Long before the White Stripes' Jack White was even a twinkle in the public eye, mad scientist and underground icon Dexter Romweber was attacking the blues as half of the seminal guitar-drums duo, the Flat Duo Jets. Long on rock attitude, short on the cutesy hairdos of earlier pop-rockabilly revivalists like the Stray Cats, their savage, twisted take on '50s rock 'n' roll produced some of the most innovative gems to come out of the moody, grunge-saturated '90s. Romweber's third solo album, Blues That Defy My Soul (Yep Roc), is produced by Southern Culture on the Skids' Rick Miller. It's a thoroughly satisfying trick bag of creepy, fuzzed-out blues, damaged roots rock and lunatic surf sounds that sounds like he cooked it up over a Bunsen burner in the basement. Call club for cover. -- Alison Fensterstock

Drive-By Truckers 10:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21 Tipitina's, 501 Napoleon Ave., 891-8477 The Drive-By Truckers continue exploring The Dirty South on Saturday at Tipitina's. The Drive-By Truckers' last two albums speak of human choices and the mythology of the modern South while dealing with very real individuals who have to live and die amongst those ideas. The new record, The Dirty South (New West), focuses on working-class folk facing hard -- sometimes illegal -- choices about how to feed their families and stay alive. As someone said, 'It's like Paul Westerberg fronting Lynyrd Skynyrd,' and like Westerberg, serious and fun aren't mutually exclusive for the DBT. Whether it's the three guitars, pedal-to-the-metal rock 'n' roll of their live show or the excellent, nuanced songwriting, they put every bit of their soul and talent into their music without apology and pretension. In addition, the band loves playing in New Orleans, and it has come across in their previous three-hour shows at Tip's. All in all, they could be the best band in these whole United States. Tickets $10. -- Kunian

Papa John Gros 10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21 Carrollton Station, 8140 Willow St., 865-9190 On Day's End (Funky Krewe), released earlier this year, John Gros indulges the sides of his musical personality not expressed as a member of Papa Grows Funk. His solo piano take on 'Keep On Gwine' shows Gros a student of the New Orleans' piano greats, a side he'd show periodically at his solo gigs at the Tropical Isle and the Bulldog. In Mulebone, he played organ and guitar, sharing songwriting duties with trombonist Mark Mullins, and songs like the bluesy 'What's the Matter? Part 2, #25' and his cover of Van Morrison's 'When That Evening Sun Goes Down' pick up the roots rock threads from that band. There are also folk ballads like 'The Ground,' featuring BeauSoleil's David Doucet, showing a side not previously seen live or on record. Joining him for the occasion will be Continental Drifter Robert Mach&233; on guitar. Tickets $8. -- Rawls

Spencer Bohren 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 21 Martine's, 2347 Metairie Road, 289-6529 This long-time New Orleanian treats America's roots music with the love, respect and care of a museum curator, and that talent has earned him a regular spot as a musical guest on Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion. On his 2004 album, Southern Cross (Valve), Bohren plays all the instruments, prominently featuring his lap steel. On 'People Get Ready,' he plays it so slowly and eloquently, it's the electrified sound of hope in the face of loss and almost renders his vocals unnecessary. Bohren's enough of a student of the folk and blues traditions that his original compositions fit seamlessly into a set of classics, and enough of a stylist to pull gospel, murder ballads and Hank Williams together into a coherent set. The set is the first of a series of shows scheduled in the intimate Martine's, and solo shows with Pat McLaughlin and Kim Carson take place in the following weeks. Tickets $12. -- Rawls

Can This Southern Heat 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 22 St. Vincent's Guest House, 1507 Magazine St., 523-3411 The staff of St. Vincent's Guest House is hosting a poolside dinner dance to benefit God's Vineyard, the St. Thomas House Hot Sauce Project, a program to build hope on the grounds of the former housing project in the form of a community garden of peppers to be made into hot sauce. The night includes a tour of Garden District landmarks, a buffet dinner provided by area restaurants such as Sugar Magnolia, Juan's Flying Burrito, Slice and Emeril's Delmonico. The party features live music with Schatazy at 6 p.m., followed by OTEL at 9 p.m., plus a pool volleyball game, horseshoes, screening of local films, a midnight bar crawl and more. The party will have a cash bar, and is BYOB as well. The cost is $11 per person, or free with an overnight stay at St. Vincent's. A babysitter service is provided for an additional fee. -- Etheridge

Still Lives and Fantasy: Paintings by Jacques Soulas Through August Sylvia Schmidt Gallery, 400-A Julia St., 522-2000 Long known for his landscape paintings, with special emphasis on the environs around Bayou St. John, where he lives and where his business (Cafe Degas) is located, Jacques Soulas serves up some flavorful still lifes this time around. He remains a realist, at least in technique, but content is another matter. His dreamlike compositions of decorous objects, flora and botanical miscellany crackle with intrigue as toy knights and mischievous geckos act out their colorful secret lives while no one (except, apparently, the painter) is looking. It's Soulas' update of the old Dutch still-life tradition in which shadowy critters such as moths and toads carried on their own mortal struggles amid the flowers or veggies on the canvas in a kind of shadow play of the lives of the ordinary mortals beyond the frame. -- D. Eric Bookhardt