Sounds to check out for this week.

Many critics have called Joanna Newsom’s triple-length album, Have One on Me, her most ambitious recording to date — and also her most accessible. But what’s changed? Her songs are still epic yarns: the title track alone clocks in at a hefty 11:02, and that is to say nothing of the triple-album presentation. With her latest album, Newsom expands her fairy-tale menagerie, introducing fables starring daddy long legs, jackrabbits, and kingfishers. And then there…

Singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom has the kind of voice music fans either adore or abhor. But on her latest, three-disc release, Have One on Me, she’s been garnering even more praise for having developed a richer, more complex sound. Live Nation invites you to check out Newsom’s brand new songs for yourself with a pair of free tickets to one of her upcoming performances at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.

MONDAY >> A year ago, Rolling Stone called The Whigs one of ten bands to watch and “the best unsigned band in America.” The Athens, GA trio has since been taking their pure rock-and-roll on the road in support of Give ‘Em All a Big Fat Lip, winning comparisons to the Replacements, the Strokes, REM, and the Drive-By Truckers along the way. The break hasn’t come yet, but we’ve got a feeling it could…

> > Gerald Ford, remembered. [WTOP] >> The Metropolitan Police Department alerts us that the FBI will be doing a “fly over” above Washington, DC tonight until midnight. No, we don’t have the slightest idea what this means either, but why take chances? Tonight, conduct your illicit activity from the safety of your own domicile, where, as the courts seem to agree, you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. >> Of course, as far as…

One could be excused for missing Joanna Newsom’s opening act, the forgettable and largely annoying P.G. Six, who seemed determined to fuse the 70’s hard-jam sensibilities of Neil Young with the more jazzy leanings of Tom Verlaine and Television. They largely failed to approach either of those heights, and for an audience that was primed for an evening of nouveau folk harp and sweet melodies, it was a mismatch to begin with. As it turned…

FRIDAY: >> George Washington University’s surprisingly excellent improv/sketch comedy troupe, Recess, will hold their monthly midnight show tonight in the Ballroom Center . They assure fans that dress-up clothes are not necessary, “but you must have showered in the last 72 hours.” For just three bucks, let the campus legacy-holders make you laugh, and likely piss you off. They’re willing to take that risk. (Erin Zimmer) >> There’s a little band called The Ambitions playing…