When Too $hort, the Oakland legend who started hustling tapes way back in 1983, first performed in New York City, he was almost booed off the stage. Things done changed, of course, and these days $hort classics like “Burn Rubber” and “Blow the Whistle” get play on the... More >>

Thursday, May 2 Johnny Marr @ Irving Plaza With the release of Johnny Marr’s first true solo album, The Messenger, the alt-rock guitar icon sounds as though he’s finally rediscovered his interest in the jangly, dynamic passion plays he pioneered with the Smiths. And while the record... More >>

Math rock with prog overtones is this Sacramento trio's forte, and they succeed where many of their contemporaries don't in part because they figured out that ever-shifting time signatures and sublime dynamics mean nothing if the tunes aren't there. On one release after another, its melodic... More >>

The BMF of the “Alan Braxe and Friends” featured in the classic french house album The Upper Cuts, Fred Falke’s most known filter art is with his other half. In addition to original work, the duo are deft remixers, accentuating a song’s strengths and turning them into... More >>

This magnificent Tunisian singer performs the Tunisian court music known as mulaf, Arabic classical music, and songs based on the poetry of Tunisia’s Aboulkacem Chebbi, Spain's Gabriel Garcia Lorca, Turkey's Nâzim Hikmet, and France's Jacques Prévert. Philadelphia's Al-Bustan... More >>

For the past four decades, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet has highlighted works by contemporary classical composers. Tonight, as part of Carnegie Hall’s My Time, My Music program, it’s performing the world premiere of You Know Me From Here, a piece by Brooklyn composer Missy... More >>

In what is becoming a nice complement to Record Store Day at the city’s music shops each April, the semiannual Brooklyn Flea Record Fair returns today to East River State Park (at North 7th Street) with a diverse array of vendors and exclusive releases for music obsessives. Labels like... More >>

After the huge success of Michael Musto’s ’70s Disco Extravaganza in the basement of Studio 54 a few months ago, we knew no one would let him get away without an encore performance. And sure enough, he’s back tonight with fabulous sidekicks Snooky and Tish and the groovy... More >>

Brooklyn positioned themselves as jokesters from the outset, with a venue name that comments directly on independent electronic promoters’ tendency to withhold venue information until the day of show. TBA, meanwhile, remains on an burgeoning stretch of Wythe Avenue, and despite the... More >>

Amid the avalanche of shows brought by Red Bull Music Academy and their generous tentacles of corporate sponsorship, the Bunker stands out for programming a night that traverses the electronic music spectrum from severe to whimsical. Andy Stott and Objekt handle the dark stuff without... More >>

A longtime student of the late Pandit Ravi Shankar and Ustad Ali Akhbar Khan, sitarist Krishna Bhatt is a brilliant virtuoso of Hindustani music who blends the gayaki (vocal) and tantrakari (instrumental) styles. He has also appeared on crossover albums with saxophonist George Brooks and... More >>

Call it the Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle that never quite was: Post-Pixies art-rock wrecking crew strikes cultural gold on second try then unravels into relative, willful obscurity. That the original Breeders' lineup is anniversary touring 1993 alt-touchstone Last Splash offers... More >>

Even though goth archetypes Bauhaus officially went the way of Bela Lugosi after a short-lived reunion five years ago, their frontman Peter Murphy is determined to keep the funeral pyre burning. Tonight, he and his solo band are performing a program entitled “Mr. Moonlight: Celebrating 35... More >>

Two questions worth posing during the next few weeks, the period when, after 12 years away, the annual Red Bull Music Academy returns to the city: Of all the great upcoming shows and lectures, which ones should I make a point of catching, and what does it mean that so much independent and... More >>

Though the music of Little Boots easily sits alongside the likes of Kylie Minogue and Katy Perry, her '80s jams are also delivered both a bit more earnestly and with a bit more complexity. In other words, she's the dancefloor version of the girl-next-door, hashing out her heartbreaks and... More >>

Laurie Anderson curates the third edition of "Synthesizer Nights," which this evening pairs Georgia-born, London-based Ebe Oke with New Yorker Annie Gosfield. Oke, a romantic experimentalist, performs selections from his new Valor, adding cello, violin, and laptop to his own vocals, piano, and... More >>

This October marks the 25th anniversary of the release of one of grunge’s benchmark releases, Mudhoney’s guitar-damaged declaration of disgust, Touch Me I’m Sick, but rather than celebrate the past, the Seattle iconoclasts are touring in support of their excellent new... More >>

The London-based electronic musician has taken the old saw about sophomore albums being inspired by life on the road literally. Half of Where You Live consists of fluttery, haunted, dystopic, yet often lovely portraits of cities in Brazil, China, England, and Japan. The voice of a weary local... More >>

Three decades ago, Huey Lewis and the News were as ubiquitous as Cabbage Patch Kids, thanks to upbeat, no-frills-rock singles like “Heart and Soul,” “I Want a New Drug,” and “If This Is It.” They had a sort of family-friendly optimism and their big sax solos... More >>

Although Marissa Nadler’s sparse acoustic folk doesn’t seem like a natural fit for the confines of Brooklyn’s bona-fide metal lair Saint Vitus, she espouses a sort of dark, nightmarish quality, teleported from the backroom some Black Lodge in David Lynch’s imagination,... More >>

The guitarist-founder of Richmond, Virginia, slipstream jazz combo Fight the Big Bull has morphed into a '70s channeling blue-eyed soul singer—a bearish, white Barry White, if you will. His solo debut was one of last year's best, and his nine-piece group stirs together gospel, reggae, and... More >>

Sam Beam has long lingered in the current folk landscape as an example of an artist who is doing it right, drawing on the rich legacy of the genre's past while using softly sung poetics to explore his own subconscious and fight his own demons. On his past two albums, Beam has expanded his... More >>

From Hot Fuss on, the Killers have explored sounds in massively unique waves more than most bands dare to. The dance-y electropop of their debut somehow bled into the Americana vibe of Sam’s Town before traversing the Bowie space fantasy of Day & Age. In their 2012, appropriately titled... More >>

The Social Network meets Carmen in “Two Boys,” composer Nico Muhly's Metropolitan Opera debut, which premieres in October 2013 following a several year development process. A true crime story set against a minimalist backdrop in the tradition of Einstein on the Beach, the plot... More >>

Not that long ago they’d have needed no introduction. Perhaps they do now: She’s Mabel Mercer and he’s Bobby Short; together and separately they presided over Manhattan cabaret let it be known with their joint appearance in this room 45 years back. Pay tribute, Mercer-Short... More >>