I wouldn't try to rank Stephin Merritt's importance among American songwriters, but I will say that none of the great ones have seemed to do it so aloofly as he. In the film Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields (opening this week at Film Forum), we get a long look at the man behind the detachment (if not the man behind that man). Strange Powers, a documentary 11 years in the making, lays out Merritt's early years, his songwriting creed, his small notorieties and the platonic love he shares with his closest cohort. more

The Music Hall of Williamsburg was packed last fall with maturing music fans who had just cheered their way through the performance of They Might Be Giants, a group many in attendance remembered as an up-and-coming indie band in late-’80s Williamsburg. Nada Surf, another band that grew out of Brooklyn more than 10 years ago, was up next and took its place on the stage. As so many in Brooklyn seem to be these days, the show was a benefit concert. Dubbed “Raise the Roof,” it aimed to support efforts to create Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center. A joint project between Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG) and The People’s Firehouse, the community space in Williamsburg will be the new home for both organizations, which advocate for their neighbors in areas of community planning, tenant rights and other grassroots education efforts. more

THE AIR IN the cell was warm with evaporated piss and sweat, so eventually I took off the leather jacket I’d been wearing. Someone sitting on the bench—a young, coffee-colored guy with fat red lips tattooed on his neck—jabbed the guy beside him and pointed at me.Well, it’s about time, I thought. more

So many artists have this contradicting dual fixation: On the one hand, they want to believe in the precious perfect purity of their art and resent the distorting lens of media hype. Their thoughts are too ambient and sensual for the parallel march of type. On the other, they have this terrible desire for recognition and must admit that they need exposure. Interviewing one of these people is a drag. more

Those of us born since the late 1970s have to wince when well-meaning journalists make pronouncements about who we are. Articles published in USA Today or The Wall Street Journal and directed primarily at middle managers, themselves fiercely curious about the character of their livestock, say we are entitled, impatient and self-aggrandizing. more

Any dutifully bored music writer knows that his handiest weapon is the cross-band comparison—it’s like Joy Division with bongos! Dearer still is the combination: Deerhunter meets Fleet Foxes meets Grizzly Eyes meets Frog Bear. Whatever. It suggests a certain conformity, doesn’t it? In this respect, record label Luaka Bop is a constant frustration. more

A lazy-eyed, dark-skinned server walks by in black latex tights that she appears to be injected into. I avert my eyes.Vulgar thoughts must be driven from the mind—not because they’re sinful but because, in this environment, they’re unseemly. more

When I first arrived at Milk Gallery for the Accompanied Literary Society's Art War II, the crowd was sparse and bombshell founder Brooke Geahan, wearing a wee red miniskirt, was being photographed in front of each installation like it was a hot rod. "She's the head of an art society?" asked a New York magazine intern. "A literary society," I corrected. "I need to start joining more literary societies." more

It's one thing when an artist is milling around his own show, teetering a wine glass and trying to overhear what guests will say about his work. It's another for the audience to investigate his base more

At first I didn’t see it.There was Jonathan Toubin behind the turntables, chest hair sprawling, Dr. Strangelove hair hanging over his right brow, wearing that perpetual smile like, Man you’ve gotta hear this joke. His partner Ian Svenonius, radical rhetorician and former frontman of The Make-Up, who described his first band, Nation of Ulysses, as “a political party,” was off to the side chatting with Jared Leto. How did this fit with his agenda for musical anarchy? What was so radical about being Cake Shop’s guest DJ? more