Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

THEATER: The Impact Festival and fall at the Culture Project get started in a big way with the world premiere of The Treatment, which starts previews tonight. Add together playwright Eve Ensler (of Vagina Monologues fame), stars Dylan McDermott and Portia, director Leigh Silverman, and a sharply topical play about a traumatized soldier who saw and took part in too much for his psyche to handle when he was a military interrogator, and you've got......

Damn, it's cold out there! Gothamist recently had a friend check weather.com before deciding whether to venture out of her home. News flash, folks: It's January! It's cold, finally! Put a coat on and let's rock: First up on the week's list of maybe-sees: Hard-Fi (at left) at Bowery Ballroom. What we've heard sounds interesting in a Clash-loving way, if not NME-freakout-worthy. Competent pop band Nightmare of You supports. Residencies still abound, with Richard Buckner......

What a disaster yesterday was. After prominently featuring the Cloud Cult show at Knitting Factory last week, it ends up the show was never actually happening. If you bought tickets, contact Knitting Factory and/or Ticketweb and get your money back. The good news: we wouldn't have been able to talk about Cloud Cult on Gothamist otherwise, so hopefully you discovered a great new band (still haven't listened?). It's Siren time again. Every year the Village......

The city is no longer awash in saffron, but we promise there is still a lot to do this weekend... COMEDY: The "Dark Side of the Moon" Show: Buy, Beg, Borrow or Steal starts tonight at the UCB Theater. This totally psychadelic and surreal theater experience pokes fun at the popular rumor that The Wizard of OZ syncs up perfectly with Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (it DOES. Instructions: wait for the 3rd......

Too bad Snow Patrol isn't playing this week to provide us with some poetic justice. Right on to it: Tuesday night, as you're probably aware, media baby Interpol playing with the amazing Blonde Redhead, but if you're not already there, you're probably not going. It's at Radio City, and $39.50. I'd say check out The Frames at Bowery Ballroom. Their live shows are stunning, and it's in the neighborhood. Wednesday see M. Ward @ Knitting......

Lou Barlow, the pioneer of lo-fi indie, the leader of Sebadoh, Folk Implosion and Sentridoh, former bass player for Dinosaur Jr, is returning to simplicity. Or perhaps visiting it for the first time. His new album, Emoh, is (technically) his debut DIY solo effort. Confessional "me" ballads delivered by the quintisential singer/songwriter armed with a guitar. Barlow is ever the prolific wordsmith with a punk rock heart, spinning us tales of troubled times and silver......

We'll have a full list of April and May shows coming up soon, there are A LOT to cover. We find it somehow comforting that we're already buying tickets for shows in the springtime ... we're ready to thaw! Moving on, so as not to repeat ourselves here is last month's sell outs list which has tickets that are still on sale for upcoming shows. And as for the below list we have starred the......

There are some great shows coming up that will get you from Valentine's Day to St. Patricks Day, but you're going to want to buy tickets SOON, before they sell out. Gothamist is particularly looking forward to the Thermals [pictured, reading Nabokov - hott!] @ Knitting Factory, as well as our own Movable Hype 2 at the same venue. And if you don't know who the Kaiser Chiefs are, you will, so just buy tickets......

Sam Champion is New York's musical anachronism. While most rock bands either bow down to Max's Kansas City circa 1975 or the UK in the post-punk wave of the early '80s, the finest band ever named after a local weatherman is all too happy to take its cues from the '90s. The slack trappings of Pavement are channeled through the ghost of Credence Clearwater Revival and the loping, folksy rumbles of Neil Young and......

Last night Gothamist headed over to Irving to catch the Head Set...but missed them. After watching a few songs by Gang Gang Dance (a band which Gothamist did not care for, at all, in fact it motivated us to depart Irving all together) we headed to Mercury Lounge to see if we could catch the much buzzed about band the Arcade Fire. We got there early and caught Lou Barlow's set. Barlow is known......

CMJ is here. For New Yorkers, you've probably already seen many of these bands. Everybody plays here. But the number of shows and the number of people crammed into the clubs for these shows is greater than normal. Be careful out there. - The Donnas and Dogs Die in Hot Cars play a late show tonight at the Bowery Ballroom. The show starts at 1:15am. - Earlier in the evening, the Bowery hosts The Decemberists,......

A memorial concert in the memory of Elliott Smith is set for November 3 at the Henry Fonda Theater in L.A. Performers include Beck, Beth Orton, Rilo Kiley, Future Pigeon, Alaska, Lou Barlow, Grandaddy, Radar Bros and other special guests. Unsurprisingly, tickets are already sold out. The concert will be preceded by “Strange Parallel," a documentary about Smith by Steve Hanft. Proceeds will benefit the Elliott Smith Foundation for Abused Children. More about the concert......

I saw Laurel Canyon this weekend, and besides finding it a really good (it's been getting mixed reviews, but it really drew me in and involved me...it's richly atmospheric and has great acting...some things are a little clumsy, but overall, it worked), it has a fantastic soundtrack. The songs help you sink into the neo hippie lifestyle of Laurel Canyon and the Frances McDormand character, a free-living record producer. Songs for the band in the......