Naked Guy at Ted Leo Concert It's a tad early for year end awards, but this story is making a strong, late push for the greatest live moment of 2007. At the Ted Leo show at The Music Hall of Williamsburg Wednesday night, some dude from Jersey took off his shirt and threw it on the stage. Not satisfied with merely being topless in a crowd on that snowy night, he eventually followed the shirt......

THEATER: The fall theater season gets curiouser and curiouser with the start of The Alice in Wonderland Puppet Festival at HERE. (The festival, which is not recommended for children under twelve, will feature a tea party after every show.) Tonight curiouser & curiouser fuses text from Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s diary entries and his muse Alice Liddell’s memoirs to try to decipher what destroyed their unique friendship. - John Del......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A perp search at Roma Road and St. George in Staten Island, an overturned car at 2nd Avenue and 36th Street in Manhattan and a shark DOA in the Rockaways. The FDNY responded to an apartment fire and found a 4-year-old child who apparently witnessed her mother's boyfriend kill her mother then himself this morning. Why won't the city fix a sinkhole in a Staten Island street? Because the......

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa. 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $12 ART: Photographs by Lisette Model,......

This really is turning out to be the year of the venue -- with more openings, closings, re-brandings, re-namings and articles written about the places we go see music than ever before. Now with the latest Bowery Presents venue (The Music Hall of Williamsburg) opening next week, there's another article in The Times. The piece starts out describing the complex acoustic design that one might "expect to see in a multimillion-dollar concert hall in Berlin......

In their quest to take over New York, Bowery Presents is opening yet another venue! Ask just about anyone (and we have) and they'll say that the Bowery Ballroom is their favorite place to see and/or play music - so who better to open even more spaces than the creators of that one? The latest establishment will be in Midtown and is called Terminal 5 (the old Club Exit). Currently there are no photos, but......

North 6th Street has been quiet with music venue Northsix shutting its door in January, and with Galapagos pretty much closing its doors this summer. However, after murmurings of the upcoming Music Hall of Williamsburg opening, not opening, having problems opening...for months, there's finally a date to mark on the calendar for the venue, which has been slowly taking over the Northsix space (and thensome?). The Music Hall of Williamsburg will be run by the......

There have been murmurs of Galapagos moving from its current space for a while now. The Burg even did an entire episode about saving it. From that show: "Galapagos is many ways is the heart of Williamsburg, the oldest consistently operating bar in the area, it's been around for seven years - it's historic. And now I hear Clear Channel's trying to buy it." "I hate Clear Channel, first McCarren Park Pool and now this!"......

SALE: Our recent interviewees at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden are having a plant sale today and tomorrow. With .50 cent plants for kids and "new and exclusive varieties [of plants] from Monrovia Growers" for adults. Tomorrow at 10am there's a "Houseplants for Sun or Shade: guided shopping trip," so that may be a good time to go! Today 9am to 7pm, Thursday 9am to Noon // Kids Free, Adults $8 FILM: "West 32nd" is one......

Recently at our show in Austin, the mayor of that city discussed the importance of keeping live music (and the venues it is played in) alive by supporting it (over, say, sports). You can watch his speech here. With that in mind, it seems New York has been losing venues left and right as of late. The latest word is that Mercury Lounge may be closing, though it's unconfirmed - and we're really hoping......

The Brooklyn Record points us to an article in the Brooklyn Downtown Star reporting there may be some hiccups in getting this whole Music Hall of Williamsburg thing off the ground: "Combined with the Galapagos Art Space next door, which also serves alcohol to guests, the two venues would offer roughly 12,000 square feet of bar on a block zoned for residential as well as commercial use. The Music Hall of Williamsburg - 8,000 square......

Peter Bjorn and John Soar, Crash in NYC debut Reports out of the first two PB&J shows this week at Union Hall and Mercury Lounge were stellar, and the expectations were at an all time high for the sold out Bowery Ballroom gig. Unfortunately the magic from the smaller gigs did not translate very well to the significantly larger venue on night three. The 600+ crowd was harder to connect with for the laid back......

SIGNING: Child Magazine honored Julie Andrews with a Lifetime Achievement Award at their 6th Annual Best Children's Book Awards. Today you can meet her and other winning authors at a celebratory book signing. 5 to 6:30pm // Books of Wonder [18 W 18th St] // Free MOVIE: Screening Liberally is showing Hannibal Rising tonight (prior to its release). The movie brings us to Hannibal Lecter's formative years, during World War II at the medieval castle......

THEATER: Survey: Do women actually, um, enjoy Playgirl magazine? It’s a timeless question, and one that - according to former editor Ronnie Koenig - even haunted the boss herself. Her multimedia play Dirty Girl, now in previews, is about her “quest to find a woman who actually likes the beefcakes in the magazine.” The cast has been blogging and a book deal is in the works. (Brace yourself for The Devil Wears Nothing.) - John......

During CMJ, everything becomes a venue - from a living room to an abandoned storefront. During the rest of the year, Todd P keeps that sort of thing going on. And in the more "legit" world of venues, new ones are popping up everywhere. Maybe some clubs can't make it in the city, but others are thriving. The New York Times reports that in the next few months as many as five new spaces will......

A Benefit for Music for Youth will bring us The Music of Bob Dylan this fall. Will Bob be there? We're hoping so. Those who are on the bill to play a song by Dylan include: Philip Glass, Rosanne Cash, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Bob Mould, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Patti Smith, Phil Lesh, Cat Power, Seal, Lee Ranaldo Project, Medeski Martin & Wood and plenty of others. Including Sandra Bernhard, we hear she......

PARTY: ABC No Rio is the 26 year old LES center for art and activism that has JUST received the title to their building. "Envisioned for the site is a multi-use community arts center with darkroom, silk-screen printing facility, small press resource center, computer center, expanded space for art, music, performance, educational and community activities, and meeting and office space." Come cheers to their big win tonight as they celebrate with cheap drinks, free snacks,......

Holy 1980s fun! Prepare to have your mind blown: "Steve Guttenberg, Olympic skater/plastic-surgery victim Bruce Jenner and The Village People star in box office bomb/career tanker/b-movie & movie musical favorite Can't Stop The Music. In this opening scene, Guttenberg, wearing white bellbottoms, rollerskates and sashays around the streets of NYC gleefully lip-syncing to a funky Village People beat. Watch closely for Village People cameos in this clip!"......

On Sundays Gothamist runs opinion pieces relevant to life in New York and reviews of recent books and performances. The judgments expressed below are entirely those of the author. As The Music Teacher begins, magnified footage of fresh-faced teenaged students in a choir and at play in an idyllic high school setting floats gauzily over curtains onstage. It effectively sets the tone of nostalgia and longing that characterizes the rest of this opera-play by Wallace......

With such strange, non-wintery weather, it can be hard to comprehend that the holiday season is upon us – or at least it would be if retailers weren’t so insistent with their decorating and constant gift idea promotions. Theater companies are doing their part, too, gearing up with a wide variety of traditional and anti-tradition productions. One of these, closer to the latter pole, is Balletto Stiletto at La MaMa. It’s loosely based on......

This weekend seems to be all about the music. Outside, in parks, on rooftops. It'll be everywhere, and here is where we would be if we were you... The Music of Nick Drake will be played at the Central Park Summerstage featuring New York musicians Josh Max and Julie James, (plus some special guests) and an orchestra led by arranger Robert Kirby, who collaborated with Drake on many of his songs. [via FreeNYC] Saturday, July......

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......

On Friday Gothamist went to check out Paul Auster and Billy Martin perform at Symphony Space in an event called My Mouth Is Tired Now (although Martin says his personal theme for the show was "The Music of Chance is Always Playing".) We walked into the space with no expectations and as we slid down in our seat, the lights dimmed and our minds opened to take in whatever we were about to see and......

As if there isn't enough to do this week we thought we'd give you some more ideas, because if there is a week that you should forego sleep it's this one. We won't supply the toothpicks to keep your eyes open but we will give you a list of things we think you should check out... CMJ starts in two days but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty to do tonight. First off (a Monday......

Just a reminder incase you didn't see this post last month: Gothamist has missed far too many sold out shows to know that buying tickets ahead of time is imperative. In that vein, every month or so we'll make it a point to update you with a list of shows we think may sell out. This way you can buy tickets ahead of time and avoid that last minute Craigslist surfing. Here is a list......