KIM DEAL HAS spent more time in New York lately than some people who actually live here.While she calls Dayton, Ohio, home, Deal has been in town with The Breeders, for her role in The Long Count at BAM and now shes around for a threenight series of shows from the band that made her famous, Pixies.The group, made up of Charles Thompson (AKA Black Francis or Frank Black) Read more Read it in print

A week before Girls, the much-talked-about band from San Francisco, kicked off its tour with a show at Maxwell’s, the band was still putting together its live act. “We haven’t had a full rehearsal, we’re still teaching [new band members] songs—we have a week to teach 15 to 20 songs,” explained JR White who writes music and plays bass for the band. “The last tour we were playing new songs and not playing some songs from the album. We haven’t been playing ‘Lauren Marie’ because it hasn’t been working live.” Read more

There was a time when concert photography was an art. Someone with a good camera, a trained eye and a passion for music would crawl to the front of a stage and plant himself there, waiting to capture something about a performer that would make for a moving portrait. Indeed, rock photography was an art form. And while today there are still top-notch photographers following bands—despite many of them being shuffled out of the pit in front of the stage after a measly three songs—what’s far more prevalent is the obnoxious glow of cell phone screens as fans spend entire concerts snapping their own photos to upload to Facebook, Flickr or a surplus of other sites. Read more Read it in print

There’s always been something inexplicably fun about The Citizen’s Band. While we’re generally bored of burlesque, this musical theater troop has had enough chutzpah and crazy-ass ou Read more

THIRTY YEARS AFTER the release of Cut, the seminal dub-punk record that made The Slits famous, singer Ari Up is still perfectly pissed off.This week the band released Trapped Animal, its first fulllength in 25 years, and Up talked to New York Press about being ignored, her band’s new line-up and what exactly is keeping Mariah Carey down. Read more Read it in print

“PRETTY SOON, BANDS will be doing the Charleston,” Jim Sykes, drummer for Brooklyn’s Grooms, says with a laugh. Bassist Emily Ambruso, sitting in an old wheelchair— purely decorative—across the room, laughs and shuffles her feet. “I’m cool with that!” she says. Read more Read it in print

Jemina Pearl should have no problem winning people over.The 22-year-old singerwho spent six years fronting the raucous Nashville rock band Be Your Own Pet before it broke up last yearis quick to smile, easy to talk to and has in her possession one of the most arresting voices in rock music today. Read more Read it in print

STEPHEN ELLIOTT HAS written about a lot of things: growing up in group homes (Happy Baby), BDSM (My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up) and the American electoral process (Looking Forward to It). Read more Read it in print

For a quintessentially Brooklyn writer, Jonathan Ames sounds awfully L.A. When we caught up with Ames, whose new HBO show Bored to Death premiered on Sunday, he was driving to a rental car depot to renew his wheels. Still, he managed to find some time for the paper he used to toil at to talk about Craigslist, Russian baths and the secrets of his success. Read more

Shudder to Think broke up in 1998, but has been sporadically reforming for almost three years now. On Sept. 2, the band will get back together once again for a show at Bowery Ballroom to celebrate the release of Live From Home, a 21-song compilation of live tracks from last year’s limited set of reunion dates. Craig Wedren, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, recently ditched New York for the Worst Coast, but was kind enough to brief us on revisiting old projects, his new solo work and the possibility that the band might actually stay together this time. Read more