Former Talking Head David Byrne had a crosseyed and painful bike ride home the other evening – and briefly ended up in the hospital. According to Byrne’s own blog, he’d spent the night drinking and dining with his special lady friend and artist David Shrigley. While cycling home, the Grammy-winning artist’s bike tire “slipped on the cobblestones of West 14th St.” Even sober, that uneven surface can be treacherous, and the tipsy Byrne went down......

Actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his downtown Manhattan apartment by the police. Some reports say he died from an overdose. UPDATE 5:00PM :According to the NYPD spokesman, Ledger, who was living in an apartment at Broome street, "had an appointment for a massage...The housekeeper who went to let Ledger know the masseuse was there, and found him dead at 3:26 p.m" with "pills strewn all around him." The housekeeper and masseuse tried......

Did contemporary art and music come together for the first time in New York? The holy (or unholy -- if you're not a Velvet Underground fan) union can be traced back to, where else, Andy Warhol's Factory scene. So why is the Sympathy for the Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967 exhibit being housed all the way in Chicago? The NY Times takes a look at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) show,......

Blender has a list of 100 Days That Changed Music, and not surprisingly a good amount of them took place in New York. Here are a few, see any missing? 99. December 11, 1965: The Velvet Underground play their first show, which was actually at a high school dance in Summit, New Jersey. The following year however, the Velvets became the house band at Warhol's Factory. 96. December 14, 1977: "Saturday Night Fever debuts in......

As the Virginia Tech story broke last Monday, cable news, as always, took the lead with their normal oversaturated speculative coverage transferring the energy and resources normally reserved for non-story stories like the Anna Nicole Smith saga into covering a real story. Some observers complained that the broadcast networks didn’t go with wall to wall coverage of the story. It is good that they did not last Monday afternoon, since all it does is......

David Byrne's foldable Montague mountain bike has been stolen. The avid city biker rode in the 5 Boro Bike Tour last year, commenting: "The organizers close the FDR drive, the BQE, the Belt Parkway and the Verrazano-Narrows bridge on one side — so we get the thrill of riding in the middle of the street, not having to stop at red lights and no worries of the ubiquitous jaywalking peds on suicide missions." This past......

MUSIC: Of course we suggest you come hang out with us tonight at our 4th Birthday Party, and 11th Movable Hype show. The show starts at 7:30pm, here are the details and some mp3s: 10:30pm - The World Without Magic (Never Begun.mp3) 9:30pm - White Rabbits (The Plot.mp3) 8:30pm - Ford & Fitzroy (The Weatherman's Refrain.mp3) 7:30pm - Hayes Peebles (Gone Grey.mp3) Adira Amram is hosting, and there will be gift bags with candy and......

In the weeks after 9/11, when Operation Infinite Justice (later re-branded Enduring Freedom) readied vengeance for peasants in Afghanistan, there were several writers who immediately stood out by simply noting the truth amidst an avalanche of jingoism. One that springs readily to mind is Arundhati Roy, who wrote in an article on September 29, 2001: “Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they're waiting to be killed.” On......

Doesn't it seem like you no sooner put down the fork at the Thanksgiving table and the Christmas themed movies have flooded the theaters? If you're ready to start ho ho hoing your way to the cineplex, the new slapstick family comedy Deck The Halls starring Danny DeVito, Matthew Broderick and Kristen Davis is out this weekend. Hopefully all of these jokes about covering your house in light effects makes more sense in the suburbs.......

After what seems like decades of dragging its feet, it really is going to happen. After tonight's performance by Patti Smith, CBGB's will close its doors on the Bowery for the last time. CBGB's & OMFUG (Country, BlueGrass, Blues & Other Music for Urban Gormandizers) opened its doors to the Bowery back when the Bowery was the last place on earth most people would go voluntarily. Since then it helped usher in some truly......

Seattlest saw a house party get senselessly attacked with a shotgun and end in seven dead. A local senator is debated and their version of the big dig is investigated. To truly get to the bottom of it they interview the writer Jonathan Raban. Bostonist has its first birthday party and investigates how to attach more gambling dollars to the Red Sox. Benjamin Franklin is celebrated and Johnny Damon is not. Image by Ethan Bagley......

Call it shameless self promotion if you want, but the place to be tonight (Monday) is Knitting Factory for Gothamist's own Movable Hype 3.0 show featuring some of the hottest bands from NYC and Austin. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah just self-released their debut self-titled album and its quickly become one of our favorite listens of the year (read the Gothamist interview). Fans of Talking Heads and the Arcade Fire should take note (MP3s......

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah...

Last year, when everyone else was reading The Fortress of Solitude, we picked up Motherless Brooklyn, Jonathan Lethem’s previous novel, about a South Brooklyn detective with Tourette’s. Given our general suspicion of It-books and buzzy fiction, we were pleased to find that it was good—really good, in fact, intelligent and true, more entertaining and earnest and linguistically acrobatic than anything we had read in ages. Even more surprising was the way strangers would approach us......

We're all guilty of watching VH1's "outrageous" "specials", featuring people who probably don't know Britney Spears talking for one hour about "Why Britney is SO OUTRAGEOUS", or whatever. Fifteen minutes on why she eats cheetos, FIFTEEN. You know you watch these specials, it's okay, so do we. Gothamist will be checking out Marc Spitz's new play on this whole tv genre entitled The Name Of This Play Is Talking Heads*. Spitz is an expert, as......

The new hit off-Broadway production by the New Group of Hurlyburly is reportedly transfering to Broadway, we are especially glad that we had the chance a few nights ago to see it at the intimate Acorn Theatre at 42nd Street's Theatre Row complex. The David Rabe-penned Tony-winning play was originally a big hit back in 1984, when some brilliant casting director came up with the dream ensemble of Christopher Walken, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Judith......

Our friends at Broadway's The Good Body, the Eve Ensler one-woman show, have alerted us to an enticing series of talkbacks that started Wednesday night. An interesting and eclectic mix of talking heads, feminists, movie stars, and so forth have been booked to give their takes on the show. Gothamist really dug this show and wants to go back and hear Gloria Steinem's take on this piece on feminine body image and the challenge of......

Pooh-poohing the idea that being in a blue state meant their votes wouldn't count, New Yorkers were determined to vote yesterday, Washington > New York: Strong Showing at Polls Catches City's Old System Off Guard" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/03/politics/03ballots.html">overwhelming voting centers and frustrating many. Our readers reported both frustrating and easy voting experiences yesterday, which makes us realize a couple things: 1) Voting on the way to work may make you late to work; 2) Voting at......

This summer has been one docu after another in the art house theaters. If you've seen enough talking heads, soft money and political intrigue to last you until the next election cycle, might we recommend a documentary on a topic near and dear to the Gothamist heart: New York restaurants. The documentary Eat This New York (2003), detailing the opening of a Brooklyn eatery by Billy Phelps and John McCormick over the course of year,......

As we enjoy these last dog days of summer, savvy New Yorkers know that it's not too early to think about ordering tickets for some of the cool shows arriving on the fall theater scene, just around the corner. Playwrights Horizons, one of Gothamist�s favorite non-profit theater companies, has announced the opening production of their new season. People Be Heard, a new comedy with songs, will have its world premiere there, with previews starting Tuesday,......

Music critic Sasha Frere–Jones gives a rounduop of the best music DVDs and box sets for Slate. He mentioned Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime, Tenacious D's The Complete Masterworks, a DVD from German band Can, a Sun Ra film called "Space is The Place," and the Coldplay Live DVD, but the DVDs we're most interested in are the Directors Label collections of music videos from Chris Cunningham, Spike Jonze, and Michel Gondry. Michel Gondry's......