Lowry has entered the summer of '08 with a record deal under their belts, a new album in the can, and a booking at the All Points West festival this weekend--which has them sharing a bill with some heavy hitters. The Brooklyn band won't have to travel far to get to the big stage, but they've been down many roads to get to where they are now. If you are heading to the festival, be......

Not only are Staten Island and Belmar, NJ using their feud to fuel the publicity machine, but now bands are getting some ink over it as well! The Staten Island Advance reports that Joe Pecora, singer of the SI indie band Happy Anarchy, has invited the "guido-bashing Ken Pringle up from the Jersey Shore for a few drinks." Pecora wants the Belmar mayor to join in on a song or two with the band, as......

The highly idiosyncratic yet surprisingly catchy experimental rock band Deerhoof has been called "one of the most original rock bands to have come along in the last decade." And that's not coming from some dude's blog, that's the New York Times talking. Yet though they've been around since the early '90s, describing their music is still vexing, so we'll kindly refer you to their website, where YouTube clips abound. It's also in your best......

Channeling Yoko Ono's yelps of yesteryear, Ponytail's Molly Siegel leads the band into a frenzied sonic psychedlia. In their glowing review of their album, Ice Cream Spiritual, Pitchfork noted: "It's hard to know how Siegel's approach might work if she were in another kind of band, but in Ponytail her voice fits perfectly." The band has thrived in the DIY scene in New York, but their roots lay in Baltimore. They took a few moments......

Since he began his fruitful collaboration with Walter Becker back at Bard College in 1968, Grammy award-winning musician Donald Fagen has steadily distinguished himself as one of the smartest and most imaginative contemporary songwriters. As Steely Dan, the innovative duo lays claim to an impressive catalog of hit singles that somehow manage to stay fresh despite their everlasting ubiquity on classic rock stations across America. For whatever reason, people still can't help cranking up the......

Since 2000, Anathallo has been traveling the world, delivering tunes to many a diverse audience. Band dynamics and direction have shifted over the course of their career, accurate since their name means to renew or bloom again, but their aesthetic has maintained a powerful balance of light and dark throughout. This time around they return with a new album under their belts, called Canopy Glow, and like good troubadours, they're back on the road (even......

All signs, and weathervanes, point towards the upcoming outdoor summer concert season, which is just around the corner. The River to River Festival is kicking things off with a nod to the past, featuring Wire at the Seaport Music Festival stage. Why should you care? Unlike other 70s bands that have been over-saturating the concert circuit, these guys haven't taken a stage in the U.S. in quite some time; their last show was in Spain......

Photos via Copyranter Atlanta band The Black Lips better tell their street team the correct date of their upcoming Bowery Ballroom show. The above posters were spotted around the East Village (a clever guerrilla marketing campaign), but some of the dates are wrong! Copyranter calls out the "lazy hipsters" for the inconsistency, but in the end it's a nice way to be a little "green" while promoting shows. P.S. - The Bowery Ballroom show......

One Ring Zero is an unusual Brooklyn band headed up by Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp, with a troupe of musicians and lyricists filling out their ever-morphing sonic tribe. Their lyrics have been written by some familiar names: Jonathan Lethem, Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster and Dave Eggers are amongst them. This year they enter their 10th year of making music, and this Friday they'll be at Joe's Pub celebrating on stage. Join in on the......

DRINK: The raucous and ribald cabaret duo Kiki & Herb may be on semi-hiatus, but they’re resurfacing tonight for a very special ‘Eclectic Salon’ event at Bottlerocket, the “dog and child friendly” wine shop in the Flatiron district. It's not exactly clear what kind of performance is planned tonight, but the boozy surroundings are sure to provide ample inspiration. Playfully dubbed “The Year of Magical Drinking,” the evening features free wine tastings to wash......

Be Your Own Pet Smacks Around Mercury Lounge There’s usually not much mystery to a Be Your Own Pet show. You get about a half-hour of nonstop, rapid-fire post-adolescent punk, with lots of shouting and shimmying from Jemina Pearl. There are far worse ways to spend an early evening in February. This Wednesday, however, things went down a bit different. About halfway through the set, some older creep started talking back to the charismatic young......

EVENT: The Greenwich Village Antiquarian Book Sale is going on all weekend, so now is the time to go searching for that first edition you've been wanting on your bookshelf. You'll also find out of print books, maps and much more! Friday through Sunday // P.S. 3 [490 Hudson St] // Three-day pass $12 ART: Monday's interviewee, James Top, shows off his work tonight at the opening of his first solo NYC show, titled......

Brooklyn-based quintet The National have spent the last nine years slowly and steadily evolving from bar-band hobby to indie rock royalty, a success built out of old fashioned techniques like laborious songwriting, tireless gigging and the organic cultivation of their own distinct sound: a bruised, moody elegance that swells and crashes under the dreamy baritone of front man Matt Berninger. Their fourth and most recent album, Boxer, was a usual suspect on critical top ten......

ART: Come help open up the new Chelsea gallery, Honey Space, tonight. Check out their inaugural exhibition whilst you nosh on fondue. The space is unique in that it will present "regular programming of site-specific installations and special events...and during normal daytime hours, the space will be open to the public, and unmonitored." Suggested attire for the evening is red (well that's not very creative!). 6pm to midnight // Honey Space [148 11th Ave]......

Listening to Philadelphia duo Pattern is Movement for the first time can perhaps best be described as taking a ride through Disney's "It's a Small World After All", with each country representing a different period of music. It's a lot to take in, as sounds of the past are layered upon each other to create modern arrangements unlike anything you've heard before, while somehow remaining distantly familiar. The band will bring their unique sound to......

EVENT: For book lovers and the broken hearted, head over to the Knitting Factory after work for the book release party for "How Not to Date." The series of vignettes will make you feel better as they focus on nightmare dates, relationships and every sordid detail in between. Author Judy McGuire says, "There'll be snacks, a cash bar with happy hour prices, book giveaways, and some surprises (which may or may not include interpretive......

In 1965 The Beatles performed at Shea Stadium (video), beginning a tradition of rock on the ball field. Sadly, they won't be around to bookend the life of the stadium, which opened its doors on April 17th, 1964 and gets torn down after the 2008 season. Helping them close up shop are Billy Joel and his piano. On July 16th Joel will make "The Last Play at Shea," and later in the year The Mets......

Blind item! What downtown venue was behind screwing over yet another band? We never did like blind items, so we'll just tell you through part of this letter we received from the disgruntled band behind the latest booking botch-up:We had a really bad experience at the Annex, on Orchard St. last night. Basically we showed up for a 5:00 load in to find out that our show had been canceled. The two other bands on......

MOVIE: Every national election year reminds us of that part in The Dark Crystal where the hideous Skeksis systematically drain the Gelfling’s “essence” and drink it to increase their power. If you don’t know the scene we’re talking about, you need to go see it on the big screen tonight – a regular-sized TV monitor just doesn’t do Jim Henson’s creepy masterpiece justice. The one-night-only screening will be introduced by one of the film’s puppet......

Where, like last year, we recap the biggest stories from the New York music scene of the year. Album of the Year: The National - Boxer What this album did better than any other coming out of New York all year was create images. It tells stories worth listening to. The opener, "Fake Empire," sets the tone for the rest of the record...slow and moody, yet brash and almost apologetic. Every song sounds like it......

Salt & Samovar are a Brooklyn band that sound more like they're just visiting here from Upstate...or a Coen brothers film. Their live shows are described as "pentecostal revival-like performances that evoke the musical and spiritual heirlooms of a cherished American past." A simpler and simply transporting sound that'll have you pining for the past. Come check out their revival-rock this Friday at Mercury Lounge -- get your tickets here. Where did your band name......

The Lion's Den, which has hosted everyone from Ben Folds to jamband fan-faves Disco Biscuits since they opened in 1990 -- will be shutting their doors at the end of the year. And come January 2nd, they'll reopen...as a 345 capacity venue called Sullivan Hall. (Fear not explorers, the secret passageway to The Sullivan Room will most likely still be intact.) Why change the name? Maybe they want to leave their dank past behind,......

Last year we "oohed" and "ahhed" at Prospect Park in Lights, and as of last night -- the seasonal luminescence is back. And this year, even the pink lights are "green":Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg tonight flipped the switch on a holiday lighting installation at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park. LEDs, energy-efficient and long-lasting lights that are environmentally friendly, are being used to illuminate the Bailey Fountain and a tree underneath the Sailors and......

Six years ago musician Gail Silverman, tired of watching her fellow female rockers sitting on the sidelines, started her own record label, Revolutionary Records and a concert series called Girls Rock and Girls Rule (GRGR). What started out as just a one gig event has grown into a sort of small-scale hard rock Lilith Fair, with a rotating line-up of local musicians joining a roster of headliners whose tour this year has taken them through......

EVENT: This is pretty...interesting. The Sprinkle Brigade "unveils the future of Urban Beautification. Their upcoming show entitled, 'EQUIPPED' at the Riveria Gallery, focuses on the cutting edge in dog poo decoration." The brigade say the "art form" came about after spending "several years of experience wandering the streets of New York, decorating what most people consider to be the enemy." The opening is tonight and the show runs through the 23rd. Leave the pooper scooper......

Jay-Z Around Town With a new, critically acclaimed album out and a refocused approach to his craft, Jay-Z took the stage twice this week in the Big Apple. For the relatively intimate events at Hammerstein and The Apollo, there was no shortage of friends and guests out to show support for Hov's return to form. Diddy, Nas, Lil Wayne and...Lebron James (?!?) all made appearances between the two shows. Lebron skipped a game to attend......

You know you’ve finally arrived when your name appears in an Onion headline. The satirical paper of record paid that respect to the decades-spanning indie-rock phenomenon Yo La Tengo some years back with an article titled “37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster.” Since 1984 the band, started by husband and wife duo Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan, has been blazing an independent trail of restlessly inventive guitar rock. Their most......

Mr. Brownstone is reuniting this weekend with a show at Bowery Ballroom. The Guns n' Roses cover band is led by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah drummer Sean Greenhalgh (who makes for a pretty good Axl!) and touts themselves as the World's Drunkest Tribute to G n' R. We asked them to give us their Top 5 all-time best reunions list to commemorate the event. THE FIVE GREATEST REUNIONS by Mr. Brownstone, the World's Drunkest......

Matthew Houck is the man behind Phosphorescent -- and the Brooklyn-by-way-of-Athens, Georgia musician just put out his third release, Pride, to many eager ears and much fanfare. Playing every instrument on the atmospherock avant-pop album, he also recruited some friends to help along the way, such as the Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth. On the periphery you can hear Bob Dylan, Neil Young and Will Oldham -- but the modern day folkie has a sound all......

EVENT: In the book Love & Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships David Levy goes where no man has gone before. Hopefully. From the book's description: "Love, marriage, and sex with robots? Not in a million years? Maybe a whole lot sooner.From a leading expert in artificial intelligence comes an eye-opening, superbly argued book that explores a new level of human intimacy and relationships—with robots." We're not even ready to see Lars and......