If Peepshow—a party with an amped-up sex drive mingling among art installations and music, sited in a quirky venue—evokes memories of the late, great Artists & Models parties of yesteryear, that is certainly by design. Squeaky Wheel, in its great wisdom, has given us a week to recover from Valentine’s Day’s saccharine pastiches before inviting us to a more satisfying exploration of the species’ number one obsessions: love, sex and parties. Seventeen art installations will reside in rooms on the eighth floor of the fabled—and kind of spooky—Hotel Lenox. Downstairs, film and video screenings will share the banquet room with the Stripteasers and area DJs, while the lobby will host live music by David Kane, Van Taylor’s Taylor Made Jazz and the Paul Kozlowski Trio. There will be a silent auction of works from area artists and love-themed gift baskets, as well as a cash bar. Featured installation artists include Michele Beck and Jorge Calvo, whose performance piece involves a man, a woman, a suitcase, a monitor and a pair of scissors (pictured); Warren Quigley, whose work focuses on motels; and Sean Hyoung-Kim, whose video work makes use of water and umbrellas to explore female symbols. All proceeds benefit Squeaky Wheel, the city’s bastion for independent media-making.

I first encountered Byron Stripling at a speaking engagement about a year ago. A gifted singer, actor and trumpeter, Stripling’s presentation was captivating. The musician paced the aisles as he detailed the lessons learned from his inspiration, legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. His dynamic lecture was peppered with flawless imitations of “Satchmo” and his singing and trumpet playing transformed an ordinary presentation into an engaging performance. It was obvious from Stripling’s study of his idol that he had also turned into a consummate entertainer and renaissance man. So when the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra decided to celebrate Mardi Gras, it was fitting that the living embodiment of New Orleans jazz’s favorite son should join them on Kleinhans’ stage. Stripling’s two-day concert with the BPO will feature authentic New Orleans jazz and include performances of such classics as “What a Wonderful World,” “Hello Dolly” and “West End Blues.” Educated at Rochester’s Eastman School of Music, and the Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, Stripling’s successful career has included a starring turn in the musical “Satchmo,” numerous appearances on television and regular performances with the Boston Pops and New York Pops. His talent is sure to bring the spirit of Mardi Gras to Western New York.

Fans of experimental, raw hip-hop need look no further than Newark-based duo Dälek. With an edgy production style, sound lyrical content, and a strong hip-hop presence, Dälek’s sound stems from a long tradition of rough-and-tumble hip-hop – a trademark of the “Brick City.” MC Dälek, whose real name is Will Brooks, uses his rawness to define his work, and, as a result, has eschewed the gaudy norms of commercial hip-hop and traditional turntablism. A self-described “bastard child of Reaganomics posed in a b-boy stance,” Dälek uses his poetic words stratified on dark gritty beats to rhyme about what he feels has gone wrong in the world and in his personal life—an approach that has drawn the delight of some and provoked others to become, well, just plain mad. Love them or hate them, Dälek’s worth seeing live, if only to witness the audience response. On Sunday, Dälek shares the stage with Displaced and opens for Meat Beat Manifesto at The Icon.

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years since the rise of Chicago’s noted underground label Wax Trax! Records. The ground-breaking indie imprint kick-started the industrial movement and made a home for the likes of Ministry, KMFDM and Front 242. Wax Trax! also introduced the world to the hellish dance-rock of My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. With a stage show of leather, spikes and lights, Thrill Kill mainmen Buzz McCoy and Groovie Mann wrought a horny brand—“horny” in this case meaning both demonically and hormonally charged—of sleazoid, mechanized death disco with pounding dance percussion and crashing guitars. While the group will perhaps always be best known for its 1994 crossover-hit “Sex On Wheels,” the group’s steady and solid catalog of albums boasts some of industrial’s finest moments. That legacy continues on 2005’s Gay, Black and Married (Rykodisc) which delved further into MLWTTKC’s patented abyss of dangerous drumbeats and dead-end debauchery. Dirty Sanchez opens the show.