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Like UndergroundHipHop.com, the on-line rap music mecca that has a storefront at 234 Huntington Ave, local music blog Ryan's Smashing Life will transcend e-existence. They're hosting a show tomorrow at the Middle East Upstairs featuring Boston indie trio Static of the Gods. Afterwards, Static of the Gods will be getting in an appropriately-sized vehicle and heading west for a string of shows in Texas and beyond. To celebrate, they've given Ryan's Smashing Life an exclusive......

"I know people from Vermont are here," Nico Muhly declared. "I can just smell it." In fact, the performers' families had come down from the 802 area code to watch Sam Amidon, Thomas "Doveman" Bartlett, and Muhly play together on Sunday evening. The three of them did not perform three distinct sets, instead performing their own songs and their collaborations in overlapping clusters, working out the set list as they went along, casually swapping......

Lowell Folk Festival Various Locations, Downtown Lowell July 25-27 Free More information These days, the phrase "free folk" can carry a host of connotations, but the Lowell Folk Festival sticks with the one that has the broadest appeal: "free" as in beer, not as in freaky. This year's festival marks the 22nd year of free folk music in downtown Lowell, if you count the three years that Lowell hosted the touring National Folk Festival, and......

"I lived in Boston for four years and I was never here. Call it what you will. But I'm glad tonight is the first night." On Friday night, Josh Ritter began his set in Boston's most esteemed concert hall (lined with statuary of "huge, intimidating, partially-clad figures") by singing about his native Midwest: "Idaho," Illinois in "Best for the Best," and the whole region as "story we made up to erase" in "Other Side." Ritter......

EdgeFest: Amanda Palmer Collaboration with the Boston Pops Symphony Hall 8 p.m. tonight Ticket information If you are passing by Symphony Hall tonight - or attending Palmer's EdgeFest collaboration with the Boston Pops - you will be able to see how Palmer's 2008 style fuses with the original plans hatched by Symphony Hall architects McKim, Mead, and White back in 1900. The Boston-based musician, who will close her two-night Pops partnership this evening, has long......

Cryptacize's songs are puzzle boxes, suitable for storing something small and probably evil. Catchy, nostalgic pop elements are shifted just off-kilter enough to be eerie, embellished frequently by guitarist Chris Cohen's TV-commercial jingles for a minor-key alternative universe. Both Cohen and Nedelle Torrisi sing on their album, Dig That Treasure, but Wednesday evening's rather brief performance at the Middle East Upstairs emphasized Torrisi's disarmingly pristine satin voice.......

It is easy to understand why musicians on the road feel the need to deliver not just a concert, but an event. Ticket prices have climbed and the ability to transport ornate stage setups and special effects - combined with healthy performer gravitas, a typical summer concert in 2008 consists of equal parts sonic experience and eyecandy. The Raconteurs' stop at the Bank of America Pavilion on Tuesday night, however, was two times the throwback......

When we arrived at the Middle East on Saturday night, Brad Caetano was on stage alone, with borrowed equipment, drumming up a storm over his looped guitar. Throughout AM/PM's opening set, which was later fleshed out with bass and saxophone, Bostonist could hear the usual Downstairs conversations roaring in the back of the room but, up front, the mood was that of a seance, interrupted only by appreciative mid-song applause. We, too, found ourselves......

Giuseppe Verdi's rapidly complicated, frequently histrionic, infrequently performed opera Ernani plays like a telenovela on fast-forward with the volume turned up. Opera Boston's production, which opened Friday night at the Majestic Theatre, is exactly what you think opera looks like: there's candelabra, and wigs, or hair carefully styled to look like wigs, and more red velvet than David Lynch could shake a stick at. The labyrinthine plot—a story of imperial intrigue overshadowed by a......

The Boston Pops announced today that Symphony Hall will, on June 27, play host to a show that could very well be one of the highlights of the summer concert season here in Boston. Josh Ritter, singer-songwriter and Bostonist favorite, will grace the Symphony Hall stage for a special creative partnership with the Pops. It's the latest in a series of innovative collaborations for the Pops, who will team up with Natalie Cole, Natalie Merchant,......

Much as the Dropkick Murphys are part of the Boston fabric, much like the marathon and the Red Sox, they might have stretched themselves a tad too far with their latest adventure. Red Sox Monster noted that they opened a sports bar today--McGreevy's 3rd Base Saloon at 911 Boylston. Fine and dandy. The Dropkick Murphys love the Sox, but the language of the release is remarkably Planet Hollywood: "The result is an unmatched Irish Pub......

Well, Bostonist was thinking Bon Jovi, but Fenway Park delivered something quite different, smooth crooner Neil Diamond. Of course people will be thrilled to see Mr. Diamond on August 23 since his song "Sweet Caroline" is the icing on the cake at every Red Sox game. So good, so good ... Diamond even unveiled the news in a taped announcement at the home opener. But what is going to happen when he sings something other......

A Bostonist was in the thick of the action at the Bang Camaro show, and she was properly rocked.......

In Mozart's delightfully farcical opera Così fan tutte, everyone is culpable. The title—roughly, "They're all like that"—refers to the fickleness of Woman, the hypothetical Fiordiligi and Dorabella in particular (sung by Leah Sapko and Kristina Reagle in Thursday's performance) but their fiancés Ferrando and Guglielmo (David Vogel and Jonathan Nussman) likewise prove themselves to be utter cads in the course of their very complicated attempt to prove the sisters' fidelity. The Boston Conservatory production, set......

Bostonist couldn't help but get misty-eyed when we read on Boston.com of how Newton teen Nathan Alden Robinson was posthumously honored during NBC's mini-marathon of "The Office" on Thursday night. Robinson, 15, died in March of of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, pneumonia, and influenza; the youth was a budding piano talent and a huge fan of the NBC television show. As the Globe noted in its obituary, Robinson learned the show's theme song a few weeks......

After months of "will they, won't they" rumors and days of "wow, they will" anticipation, the New Kids on the Block announced on the TODAY show this morning that they are officially reuniting. A new album and new tour are in the works, and the band's first live performance will take place on May 16, at New York's Rockefeller Plaza. The local media has been abuzz with ideas about what this could mean for NKOTB's......

Boredoms, the long-running Japanese noise and experimental music group, have always had a strange popularity. They are probably the only band who prefaced a career on Warner Bros. Records by releasing an EP called Anal by Anal. (They have since moved to the indie label Thrill Jockey.) But Bostonist was still taken by surprise when we learned that their Saturday show at the Paradise Rock Club had sold out. People have listened to this......

The music festival where unsigned bands from around the world mingle with underground heroes, cult faves, and superstars. Since this Bostonist still hasn't made the pilgrimage to South By Southwest, a trip through the Internet tubes gave us an idea how our local bands fared. It's a mind-blowing proposition for the rabid music fan who wants to maximize quality or quantity, even before it swelled to its current size. What started as a laid-back......

If you didn't get enough of the Dropkick Murphys over St. Patrick's Day (and we freely admit that you may have overdosed), Activision has made a pack for Guitar Hero III so you can play along to the Dropkick Murphys to your hearts content, which we first heard about at HubArts. The Globe says you can download it from XBox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Store. While that's all well and good, can we get......

Consistency is an underrated virtue in these challenging and changing times. Just as you can count on the stock market to recklessly bounce up and down like a fat kid on a trampoline, for years Boston has been able to count on the reliable Emergency Music to deliver the goods for the able ear. Delegates of pop perfection, old Emergency will headline an increasingly rare appearance this Saturday at T.T. the Bears. Bostonist caught......

Juventas New Music Ensemble & OperaHub present Tramps, Emails & Hemlock Seully Hall, Boston Conservatory, 8 The Fenway March 18, 19, and 22 at 8 p.m., $6-$24 (20% discount if purchased through the Juventas web site) J. Jacob Krause was demanding something unusual of some singers leaning over some unusual props: more salivation directed at the laptops, please. Bostonist had slipped into Seully Hall in the midst of a dress rehearsal, where OperaHub and Juventas......

Mountain Goat chief songwriter John Darnielle may not have much control over his instruments, but he certainly has power over the audience. Throughout the band's Saturday night show at the Middle East, Darnielle had issues with tuning and at one point lost an earplug in his pocket. The audience so did not care. Darnielle could have gone onstage and tripped over a cord. The audience still would have loved it. When he emerged onto......

Missy Higgins Acoustic Borders Downtown Crossing Tomorrow, 1:00 pm, Free Usually, when a show is sold out, Bostonist says "Do what you must." Go to craigslist, go to StubHub, work your connections or plead at the door. Well, we don't need to say that for Missy Higgins, whose show in Boston tomorrow night is sold out. You can still see her perform at a free lunchtime gig. Even if you haven't heard her but work......

Music Hometown keytar heroes Freezepop have returned from touring the world (okay, Florida, and the Rust Belt) to once again rock Cambridge, with the help of the The Information, The Main Drag, and Michael Hensley. Middle East Downstairs, 8 pm, 18+, $14. Beer Harpoon will hold its St. Patrick's Festival at the brewery on 306 Northern Avenue. Wear galoshes because the floor may well be slick with beer. Harpoon Brewery, 5:30 to 11:00 pm,......

Books Sarah Boxer bravely prowled through the blogosphere to share its treasures with us in Ultimate Blogs. Of course, Go Fug Yourself makes the list. Brattle Theatre (via Harvard Book Store), 6:00 pm, $5. Edit: Event has been moved to Harvard Book Store --If you've been reading Bostonist for a while, you might know how we feel about the potential of wind power. A while ago, we read this barnburner of a book about......

We’ve always had this weird love/hate relationship with instrumental music and the bands who play it. One the one hand, instrumentals are transcendentally personal, evoking a different image or concept in every listener. What’s sad to one person might be peaceful to another. There’s no singer telling us exactly what the piece is about. Also, instrumentals require a certain technical mastery on the part of the musicians that songs with vocalists can slide on, less......

Books Is it possible to be saved by the Sex Pistols? The answer to that is a resounding yes. Michael Patrick MacDonald will be reading from Easter Rising, an account of his youth in the Boston punk scene, at Brookline Booksmith. Bostonist had the opportunity to hear him read from the book when he spoke at UMass-Boston, and we say with great emphasis that this is a must-see, not just for those who love......

Music and Cryptozoology A set of local organizations--Cloud City (aka Ben Sisto), The Footlight Club, and the Milky Way--are throwing a fund-raiser for 826 Boston. In a match made in heaven, the bookish Harry & the Potters will be the main event, and the openers will be Pants Yell! If you're nice, Bigfoot might show up in the shadows. Be observant. The Footlight Club, 7A Eliot Street, Jamaica Plain, 5:30 doors, 6:30 show, $12.......

Music Annie Clark went to Berklee, paid her indie-cred dues in Sufjan Stevens' touring band and the Polyphonic Spree, and named her solo project St. Vincent after a church where which she fell in love and the hospital where Dylan Thomas died. Her songs are chamber pop clad in synthesizers and charm. Middle East Downstairs, 8 pm, 18+, $12. Carnal Carnival Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys know how to throw a......