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Slim Dunlap and Linda’s Doll Hut might be the perfect marriage of performer and venue. Dunlap, the former Replacements’ guitarist, has put out two warm, homey solo albums that crank out a

loose and juicy Stones-’Mats-rockabilly mix while taking a basement-level underdog’s view of the rock ‘n’ roll life, skewering those with star-trip pretensions. The Doll Hut is just the sort

of sanctuary from glitz and phoniness that Minnesota Slim imagines in “Cozy” on his new album, “Times Like This.”

Opening is Thump, fronted by Joyride alum (and Doll Hut barkeep) Greg Antista, a master of the unpretentious rock art of Ragged-But-Right.

* Whereabouts: Exit the Santa Ana (5) Freeway at Lincoln Avenue; go west. Turn left onto Manchester. Doll Hut is on the right at first intersection.

For many people, chamber music essentially means a string quartet. Actually, the term applies to a variety of works for various instrumental combinations, ranging from three to eight or more

players. Some chamber works even include vocal soloists.

The form is extraordinarily rich and challenging to a composer who must create interest and significance out of rather modest means. Pacific Symphony players will open a new chamber music

season this weekend by playing works that combine flute, cello and piano (by Haydn); flute, viola and harp (Debussy); and violin, cello and piano (Brahms).

* Where: Saturday at the Artists’ Theatre, Laguna Beach High School, 625 Park Ave.; Sunday at Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana.

* Whereabouts: To Artists’ Theatre: Exit the San Diego (405) Freeway at Laguna Canyon Road; go south. Go left onto Coast Highway, then right onto Park Avenue. To the Bowers Museum: Exit the

Santa Ana (5) Freeway at Main Street; go south.

* Wherewithal: $18 at Laguna. $135 for a three-concert subscription at the Bowers.

Fiercely loyal to regional landscape and images of daily life, yet unable to ignore the increasing influence of European Modernist styles in the early 20th century, many artists in

California promoted a cautious, new approach to painting, using brighter colors and simplified forms.

“The California Progressives, 1910-1930” at the Laguna Art Museum showcases 55 paintings by such artists as Maynard Dixon, Selden Gile, Donna Schuster and Henrietta Shore, drawn from public

and private collections.

* When: Through Jan. 12. Gallery hours: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday.

* Where: Laguna Art Museum (a branch of the Orange County Museum of Art), 307 Cliff Drive.

* Whereabouts: Exit the San Diego Freeway on Highway 133 (Laguna Canyon Road); turn right onto South Coast Highway. Museum is one block north of Main Beach.

* Wherewithal: $5, seniors and students $4, children under 12 free.

When the Man in the Yellow Hat gets a girlfriend, the impish monkey gets a monster grudge and ends up in all kinds of scrapes (no surprise there) in “Curious George,” an hourlong show by New

York’s TheatreWorks/USA. The touring show, which was adapted from three of H.A. and Margret E. Rey’s classic “George” stories, teaches ways to cope with changes in family relationships.

* Where: La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd.

* Whereabouts: Exit the Santa Ana (5) Freeway at Beach Boulevard; go north. Turn left onto La Mirada Boulevard.