If you plan to attend Sprout this weekend, be sure to get there early for musicians Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney, who are slated to play a half-hour set before the film.

Singing dust-dry ballads in a voice as spare as distressed leather, Oldham is an unassuming star of alt-country music. He has recorded since the early '90s, mostly under pseudonyms like Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Palace or the Palace Brothers. Johnny Cash gave him the honor of recording his ballad, "I See a Darkness," which helped cast Oldham as a master of morbid ballads-except that it's impossible to pin Oldham to a genre: his recent Seafarers EP featured sea shanties, and his controversial Sings Greatest Palace Music recast his best-loved songs in glossy new performances backed by Nashville session stars.

Why's Oldham even here? It's no secret that Oldham's a surfer, as well as an occasional member of the movie biz: he's appeared in several films, from tiny independents to John Sayles' Matewan. At press time, we have no idea what kind of music Oldham will be playing this weekend, except that he may start before the 8 p.m. curtain time, and the set will feature him and Sweeney on guitar, probably perched on stools. Sweeney, best known for his work in Chavez and the short-lived Billy Corgan project Zwan, has performed with Oldham on and off for years. Music writer Andy Beta, with Pitchforkmedia.com, caught a recent appearance by the two of them in New York City, and reported hearing "songs about spanking, donkeys (but not spanking donkeys), and allusions to creatures such as the 'Super Wolf' and 'Panther Girl...' and, he says, "I found it quite devotional."