Item World: Local news and views

Ahead of his class After he finishes the American Idols Live tour this summer, reigning "Idol" Scotty McCreery's to-do list includes finishing his debut country album (with songs by established Nashville songwriters and none of his own), booking a winter tour as an opener for a big-name country star and figuring out what to do about his senior year of high school. His priorities include attending prom, pitching for the baseball team and marching in graduation ceremonies. He doesn't plan to skimp on the academics, but he just isn't sure how he'll tackle his course work. One possible solution, he told I.W. before the Idols Live concert Wednesday, is Mom. "She's a certified K-12 teacher."

JON BREAM

Shower the people I.W. is excited to add a newcomer, Glamorama headliner Bruno Mars, to our list of pop music's top 10 greatest sweaters. He joins, in no particular order, prodigious perspirers James Brown, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Ozzy Osbourne, Luther Vandross, Darius Rucker, Jon Bon Jovi, Angus Young (of AC/DC) and Meat Loaf. When told by I.W. that he made the list on the strength of his Twin Cities debut in May, Mars sounded proud. "I'm a rainforest," he said. "Please bring sponges, towels and a chamois."

JON BREAM

Outside the lines The exact origins of the living-room music collective Coloring Time are hard to trace, but Peter Pisano can pinpoint the first public gig by the new all-star, all-improv group, which plays Thursday at the Cedar Cultural Center (7 p.m., $5-$10). The Peter Wolf Crier frontman had just sat down at Pizza Lucé last February with Joe Horton, singer/rapper of No Bird Sing, when he got a call about a gig that night at the XYandZ Gallery. "I had totally forgotten about it," Pisano admitted. "It was three hours before showtime, and I said, 'Joe, you want to do this with me?' " Thursday's Cedar gig will involve a little more notice and a lot more musicians, but not more musical preparation. Among the 20 musicians committed are Martin Dosh, JT Bates, Jeremy Ylvisaker, Jacob Hanson, Michael Rossetto, Ben Ramsey, David Huckfelt, Chastity Brown, Christopher Keller and Alexei Casselle. Let this serve as a reminder to the aforementioned that you have a gig Thursday night.

CHRIS RIEMENSCHNEIDER

Saying 'Hey' Almost three months after he was hastily kicked off "The Voice," Minneapolis pop-rocker Tim Mahoney has bounced back with a bouncy song about his experience on the hit NBC talent-search show. It's titled "Hey Adam Levine," and lest you think it is some kind of a kiss-off to the Maroon 5 singer -- who dumped the veteran Mahoney from the show in favor of an 18-year-old beauty -- it's actually a pretty fun, lighthearted tribute to the whole whirlwind. Most notably, Mahoney riffs on Levine mistaking him for a female singer, which happened when he had his back turned to the stage during the show's auditions. We can't print the key lyric because it needs to be censored as much as "Voice" coach Cee-Lo Green's most famous song, but you can watch the Mahoney video at www.startribune.com/artcetera.

Composed kid When 20-year-old Michael Holloway reports for the 2012 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute in January, the other participants -- graduate and doctoral students from East Coast music conservatories -- might say: Who's this guy? Holloway, an undergrad at McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul, was one of six chosen in a national search for the program in which Minnesota Orchestra musicians play pieces by early-career composers. "As a composer, you spend many months alone with a pencil and paper, working on a piece of this length," Holloway said in a news release, "and you may never hear your work realized." Thanks to the institute program, Holloway will hear his composition, called "Rhythm: Theta Beta Theta." By the way, it's not inspired by a frat-boy dance troupe but is actually a reference to brain waves.

JESSICA BAKEMAN

Wise angles Having finished construction of its new galleries, the University of Minnesota's Weisman Art Museum is hanging art and prepping for its Oct. 2 reopening. The $14 million addition includes three new galleries, plus a creative-collaboration studio that overlooks a snazzy, canopied walkway linked to the upper level of the Washington Avenue Bridge. I.W. was impressed during a recent peek at the museum's interior, which has new wood floors, more skylights and lots of really interesting angles. Architect Frank Gehry's design for the original Weisman was explosive on the outside but pretty rectilinear inside. His new galleries flow seamlessly from the old spaces, but have few, if any, right-angled walls, which means that the building's interior seems a much better reflection of the exterior. One thing is missing: a 1925 Marsden Hartley painting that new U President Eric Kaler is borrowing to hang in Eastcliff, the official presidential residence. Nice perk.