In between campaign stops for March 4th primaries, Hillary Clinton put on a happy face about the recent Saturday Night Live skits that aired during the show's return last week, adding that "it's so nice to be a fashion icon at my age" (video here). Last night the SNL troupe was at it again with an opening skit that mirrored last week's. As Clinton (Amy Poehler) faced off with Obama (Fred Armisen), it became less......

Brendan Canty is the drummer for Fugazi, the rightly revered D.C. post-punk band whose page on the Dischord Records website still states "1987 - present." The group hasn’t played together or released an album since their phenomenal seventh LP, The Argument; in 2002 they embarked on what is looking increasingly like a permanent hiatus. Like his bandmates, Canty has been consumed by various other creative projects: he’s produced albums for Ted Leo and The Thermals,......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Manu Chao Beats the Rain We never realized exactly what a force Manu Chao was live until experiencing him ourselves at Sasquatch several weeks ago. The man has the power to move people. To incite hysteria and completely dominate his entire audience. It is something any music fan should experience at least once in their life, because there is really nobody else like him performing today. Earlier this week, He did two nights at the......

Bonnaroo Has Begun While we couldn't make it down this year (a bit festivaled out between SXSW and Coachella and Sasquatch so far this year), Bonnaroo kicked off last night with a couple local favorites warming up the early arrivers. The National, Langhorne Slim and Apollo Sunshine among others took the stage for the Thursday night festivities. Much much more on the way for the rest of the week, including hometowners Sam Champion, El-P and......

Arcade Fire vs. The Venues They Choose To Play There has been much to-do about the anti-establishment efforts of The Arcade Fire at their recent Radio City concert, urging the fans to rush and outnumber the security guards keeping the aisles clear. What was overshadowed was that this is perhaps the best live band touring right now, and they were absolutely at the top of their game this week, playing each of these shows as......

The typeface that defined high modernity and thrives today as something "at once populist and authoritarian," according to graphic designer Steven McCarthy, is getting its own cinematic biography. Helvetica, the film, will survey the panorama of “typography, graphic design and global visual culture” that has evolved since Max Miedinger unveiled the bedevilingly sleek Helvetica typeface fifty years ago. New Yorkers and other city dwellers wallow in the Helvetica typeface; we encounter it many times......

THEATER: It’s Friday night, and what better way to cut loose than an evening of interactive theater – set in plague-ravaged New York City! In All Fall Down, a savage battle rages for the dwindling supplies of the vaccine, but soon a question arises: "Is the cure worse than the disease?" Theatre Recrudescence vows to explore our “post 9/11 hysteria with elements of carnival, clowning and rock and roll.” (All Fall Down is in previews,......

In September, The Wordless Music Series had their inaugural event. It featured Nels Cline from Wilco, pianist Jenny Lin and composer/multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp. At first we were a bit apprehensive of a concert without any vocals whatsoever, but we're warming up to the idea (the above video helped). Pairing classical and instrumental indie-rockers in a chamber music setting is actually pretty brilliant. Tonight we'll definitely be heading over to the second show of the......

THEATER: Mime-bashing never goes out of style, but don’t you wonder what stories an off-duty mime could tell you? In “It Goes Without Saying”, actor and mime Bill Bowers takes audiences along a hilarious and heartfelt tour from his Montana childhood (“not exactly a hotbed of mime”) to the rough and tumble life of a mime on the streets of Times Square. The 75-minute tell-all, which the Times calls “zestful and endearing”, received a “rapturous......

Gothamist is feeling a bit under the weather today, literally and figuratively, so we'll just get straight to it, if you don't mind: Monday it's singer-songwriter night at Bowery Ballroom, with Vic Chesnutt, David Bazan (of Pedro The Lion), Mark Eitzel, and Will Johnson (of Centro-Matic) all playing each other's songs together, as the Undertow Orchestra. That's a lot of emoting on one stage, folks. For the ultimate in lameness, check out INXS at Avery......

If there's one week that folks might be at a loss for things to do in the city, this is the week. You might think not a creature was stirring, but how many times do we have to tell you? This is New York. The kids are definitely not nestled all snug in their beds. What to your wondering eyes should appear this week? Take a look.... You may be done with Christmas, but Yo......

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......

Today is a red letter day in the emerging field of, um, digital secret keeping date-related cool free stuff. If you're a fan of Wilco, then please, read on. If you're not, either become one like a good little music fan or skip the next paragraph. If you throw in your copy of A Ghost Is Born and click on the enhanced material you'll be able to download the new Wilco EP starting today. And......

As we thought more about scientific allegations that today, January 24, would be a terribly dreary day for the soul, we remembered a cure: That Gothamist's former objet de stalking and now friend, Todd Barry, had a new comedy album, Falling off the Bone. Now, we're hardly partial, as we've been fans of Todd's wry observations of life for a long time, but who doesn't love a bit about watermelon yarmulke? Or how good the......

If you were like Gothamist Saturday night and stayed out too late at some bar on Ave C then you also missed the Austin City Limits that aired with Wilco and Bright Eyes. You also forgot to TiVo it. Luckily, it's airing again at midnight this Friday. So stop reading and go set your DVR's now. Wilco last played on ACL in 2000, then described as Alt country kingpins, playing: "I Got You," "Misunderstood," "Can't......

Last night Gothamist headed down the street to Pianos for the Tinkle show. We figured it was worth our 6 bucks to hear Todd Barry makes fun of blogs. So we got right up there and sat in the front row. We laughed, we drank, we even cried a little (that dude from LA was not funny.) And a few hours later we ended up with a bottle of Donald Trump cologne (smells like money!)......

Gothamist doesn't really like New Years Eve, it's overhyped and too expensive. So short of suggesting you just stay at home here's a little list of things you could do to ring in '05. We love Marc Ribot and he'll be playing at Tonic as the ball drops. There are still tickets left for Wilco, Flaming Lips and Sleater-Kinney at MSG [we know, not below 14th]. As well as for Patti Smith at Bowery. Gothamist's......

Enough about the Pixies already. No need to mention them in this column. They're awesome, they're in town, they played on Letterman last night. Enough said. There are a few Rebecca Gates fans out there, no? Any Spinanes fans? She's at the Mercury tonight with Cub Country (featuring ex-Jets to Brazil bassist Jeremy Chatelain), the Rosebergs and Johnny Hi-Fi. It's sold out, but if you can score a ticket, go see Broken Social Scene at......

Still haven't ironed out your New Years Eve plans yet? It's okay, we think that holiday is over-rated anyway. We suggest you gather some good friends, resolve in '05 to buy tickets before they sell out and get over to one or more of the following shows: *Amnesty International Firefly Project Benefit @ Pianos December 10th. The bill includes The Caulfield Sisters, The Witnesses and very special guests. Who could these special guests be?! Cough,......

Not many bands recording today have a documentary about them available on DVD, a wake of musically and lyrically genius albums, multiple books written about (or by) them and even a genre of music named (indirectly) after them. You'd imagine that a band recording today with that kind of appeal would be, sort of, the Wyld Stallions of the future, the band that brings us all together, but, alas, life is not Bill &......

For a change, the best shows aren't in the smallest clubs. Let's start with the larger rooms: The Roseland Ballroom, I hate to say it, is hosting two of the best shows this week. On Saturday, rock legends Patti Smith and Television perform. Then on Sunday, a somewhat younger band who are legends in their own day, Franz Ferdinand, return to the Roseland with The Evaporators and Blanche. Too bad Roseland blows, huh? Wilco plays......

Hani Khalil, Law Student...

Tonight the Knitting Factory and the Onion are having a listening party for Wilco's A Ghost Is Born. Of course, you could have been downloading the album off the Internet for the last three months, and the band's website was streaming the entire album well before its release. But...if you haven't heard it or just want to show up to get a handful of flyers and a free button, the event starts at 7pm. While......

We know you've been wondering, so we're here to tell you: Gothamist has moved "Coolfer's Music Picks" to the Gothamist Arts & Events section. We have to say the tip on Tribute Wars, a battle of the tribute bands (mainly heavy metal and hair) at B.B. King's, might be the most perfect thing to get drunk to. Also, Gothamist loves Coolfer's album sales wrap-up because we get to know that Wilco made the top 10......

After the Guardian released its list of top 40 American bands (still playing), information leafblower took it upon himself to compile another top 40 list - this time coming from a panel of different bloggers. Here is the top ten: 1) The Strokes 2) Queens of the Stone Age 3) The White Stripes 4) The Flaming Lips 5) The Yeah Yeah Yeahs 6) Outkast 7) Wilco 8) Spoon 9) The Shins 10) The Mountain Goats......

Fifteen year old industry, Hilary Duff, is featured in the second item of the Observer's New York World column. Why? Because her breasts are stopping men in their tracks. There is some debate about whether or not they are Duff's breasts, but the killer quote is from Elisa DeCarl: "My guess is that they are going for that all-important Humbert Humbert demographic," she said. "The audience will be 90 percent preteens and their parents,......

Newsday tells which musicians are performing at Central Park's SummerStage: Wilco and Sonic Youth June 26 and June 27 (Tickets are $30) Elvis Costello on July 11 ($50) The White Stripes on July 23 ($30) The Indigo Girls on Aug. 14 ($30; $35 day of show) Aimee Mann and Ben Folds on Aug. 20 ($40) Tickets go on sale on Saturday, 1PM, via Ticketmaster SummerStage's free concerts will be announced May 13.......

Hipsters and indie rock fans (Gothamist is not sure if these are the same people; working on the Venn diagram), rejoice: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is on DVD today. The Sam Jones directed documentary of Wilco recording Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was critically well-received. But of course, you hipsters and indie rock fans don't care and already know the documentary is good. Updated: Last summer in the Observer, Lynn Harris brilliantly dissected how......