MUSIC

To call the Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble a mere “battle of the bands” would be like referring to the Olympics as a glorified “field day.” The annual throwdown for sonic supremacy is both mutual lovefest and all-out war, and to the victor go the spoils — namely, bragging rights worth a neckful of gold medals. Sponsored by WZLX’s Boston Emissions, the 35th annual Rumble’s 24-band bill is stacked with local talent, including indie fixtures Guillermo Sexo, free-wheelin’ Americana jammers Tigerman WOAH, jangly guitar-driven rockers Airport and many more. As usual, it all goes down in this area’s unofficial music capital, Central Square, at T.T. the Bear’s. It kicks off with the first of six preliminary rounds on April 6 and rages on all month. Let’s get ready to rumble.

New Orleans-bred, Juilliard-trained pianist and vocalist Jon Batiste serves as the artistic director at large for Harlem’s National Jazz Museum, but that isn’t his only outlet for musical outreach. With his band, Stay Human, Batiste brings jazz to the  streets and subways of New York, staging impromptu performances they call “Love Riots.” The goal: to encourage deeper appreciation of music and connection with one another. That same spirit drives their first full-length album, Social Music. Join the revolution when their tour in support of that album hits the Sinclair on April 8.

BOOKS

He’s like a next-level Martha Stewart— if Martha was a buzzed-about Norwegian dude covered in ink. Prop stylist extraordinaire Paul Lowe found fame when he expanded his Internet portfolio into the food/craft blog and online magazine Sweet Paul. Six years later, Lowe’s cooked up his first book, Sweet Paul Eat & Make: Charming Recipes and Kitchen Crafts You Will Love. The book features well-crafted recipes (a highlight is breakfast polenta with hazelnuts, pears and honey) alongside easy-to-follow home projects (such as bent-fork bookends and vegetable-dyed tablecloths) that don’t require a culinary degree or art fellowship to master. Gastronomy meets glitter glue on April 10 at Brookline Booksmith.

FILM

Even in the Eternal City, living “la dolce vita” has to come to an end. Such is the case for onetime novelist and serial playboy Jep Gambardella in The Great Beauty. The Roman hedonist’s life of excess starts to crumble when Gambardella learns about the death of an old girlfriend on his 65th birthday, prompting him to reflect on his debaucherous party years. The most recent winner of Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars and Golden Globes, The Great Beauty juxtaposes pulsating dance scenes against the city’s ancient ruins. Catch it in a double feature with the film that inspired it, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, on April 13 at the Brattle Theatre.

THEATER

There’s a reason bread is referred to as the “staff of life.” A culinary staple in virtually every culture, bread has long been a familiar staff upon which all can lean. Not by Bread Alone plays upon that theme in a performance that features 11 deaf-blind actors from the Tel Aviv-based Nalaga’at Theater Deaf-Blind Acting Ensemble, who bake bread on stage while recounting stories of lives spent in darkness and silence through movement, spoken word and surtitled sign language. At the end of the show, audience members are invited to sample the bread, which serves to represent the commonality shared by the actors , the audience and people everywhere. Come see—and taste —this unique theater experience at the Paramount Mainstage through April 6.

ART

There were no classrooms or teachers at the New York School, and it issued no degrees. An avant-garde movement that made the Big Apple an international art powerhouse in the 1950s, the New York School was made up of artists who refused to paint by numbers, rejecting traditional styles in favor of abstract, messy, expressive strokes. Manhattan’s James Gallery, directed by artist James Gahagan, was among the first to feature the modern movement. The space closed its doors in 1962, but now the Artists of the James Gallery exhibit has brought its works, including Gahagan’s own Jubilant Harvest (pictured here), to Boston. Find your inner bohemian at ACME Fine Art through April 26.