His 30-year music career draws upon blues, bluegrass, Western swing and honky tonk, and includes performances with the likes of Nick Lowe, Emmylou Harris, Danny Gatton and Elvis Costello. After his trademark lead-guitar licks launched the 1972 Commander Cody hit “Hot Rod Lincoln” onto the Top 10 charts, Guitar Player magazine named Kirchen “a titan of the Telecaster.”

According to Nick Lowe, “He’s like a devastating culmination of the elegant and funky . . . a really sensational musician, with enormous depth.”

Last year, Kirchen released his first album in five years, Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods, and he’s celebrating with a nationwide tour.

Kirchen and his band roll into Troy for a show at the Ale House (680 River St.) at 8 PM on Sunday (March 9). Tickets are $15. For more information or to buy tickets, call the Ale House at 272-9740.

The College of Saint Rose literary series, Frequency North, awakens from a long winter’s nap with a program tonight (Thursday) featuring Darcey Steinke and Gregory Pardlo.

Novelist Steinke’s most recent book isn’t actually a novel at all. It’s the acclaimed Easter Everywhere: A Memoir, which was kindly reviewed by Entertainment Weekly. Poet Pardlo won the 2007 American Poetry Review/Honickman Prize for his collection Totem.

Frequency North will present Darcey Steinke and Gregory Pardlo today (Thursday, March 6) at 7:30 PM in the Neil Hellman Library (College of Saint Rose, 392 Western Ave., Albany). The reading is free and open to the public. For more info, call (800) 637-8556.

1776 is a musical for people who don’t like musicals. That is not to say that people who generally enjoy musicals don’t like it—they do. It has terrific songs, like “Sit Down John,” the performance of which is pictured here. But with its historical setting (the American Revolution) and political drama (the writing of the Declaration of Independence), the Peter Stone-Sherman Edwards show brings in a lot of folks who wouldn’t know Lerner from Lowe or Oscar from Hammerstein.

The New York State Theatre Institute is restaging its acclaimed production of 1776 beginning this weekend. Based on past performance, we think you might enjoy it very much.

NYSTI’s production of 1776 opens tomorrow (Friday, March 7) and continues through March 19 at Schacht Fine Arts Center (Russell Sage College, Division Street, Troy). Performances are Friday and Saturday at 8 PM, and Sunday at 2 PM. Tickets are $20, $16 students and seniors, and $10 children. For more info, call 274-3256.