Naked Guy at Ted Leo Concert It's a tad early for year end awards, but this story is making a strong, late push for the greatest live moment of 2007. At the Ted Leo show at The Music Hall of Williamsburg Wednesday night, some dude from Jersey took off his shirt and threw it on the stage. Not satisfied with merely being topless in a crowd on that snowy night, he eventually followed the shirt......

THEATER: The fall theater season gets curiouser and curiouser with the start of The Alice in Wonderland Puppet Festival at HERE. (The festival, which is not recommended for children under twelve, will feature a tea party after every show.) Tonight curiouser & curiouser fuses text from Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll’s diary entries and his muse Alice Liddell’s memoirs to try to decipher what destroyed their unique friendship. - John Del......

MOVIE: In the unlikeliest of scenarios, rapper (and jeweler) Paul Wall, his grills, Reggaetón king Tego Calderón and Wu-Tang's Raekwon traveled to Sierra Leone. The outcome is an informative documentary called Bling: A Planet Rock which focuses on "the flashy world of commercial hip-hop jewelry played a significant role in the ten-year civil war" in West Africa. 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm // BAM Rose Cinemas [30 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn] // $12 ART: Photographs by Lisette Model,......

This really is turning out to be the year of the venue -- with more openings, closings, re-brandings, re-namings and articles written about the places we go see music than ever before. Now with the latest Bowery Presents venue (The Music Hall of Williamsburg) opening next week, there's another article in The Times. The piece starts out describing the complex acoustic design that one might "expect to see in a multimillion-dollar concert hall in Berlin......

In their quest to take over New York, Bowery Presents is opening yet another venue! Ask just about anyone (and we have) and they'll say that the Bowery Ballroom is their favorite place to see and/or play music - so who better to open even more spaces than the creators of that one? The latest establishment will be in Midtown and is called Terminal 5 (the old Club Exit). Currently there are no photos, but......

North 6th Street has been quiet with music venue Northsix shutting its door in January, and with Galapagos pretty much closing its doors this summer. However, after murmurings of the upcoming Music Hall of Williamsburg opening, not opening, having problems opening...for months, there's finally a date to mark on the calendar for the venue, which has been slowly taking over the Northsix space (and thensome?). The Music Hall of Williamsburg will be run by the......

There have been murmurs of Galapagos moving from its current space for a while now. The Burg even did an entire episode about saving it. From that show: "Galapagos is many ways is the heart of Williamsburg, the oldest consistently operating bar in the area, it's been around for seven years - it's historic. And now I hear Clear Channel's trying to buy it." "I hate Clear Channel, first McCarren Park Pool and now this!"......

Recently at our show in Austin, the mayor of that city discussed the importance of keeping live music (and the venues it is played in) alive by supporting it (over, say, sports). You can watch his speech here. With that in mind, it seems New York has been losing venues left and right as of late. The latest word is that Mercury Lounge may be closing, though it's unconfirmed - and we're really hoping......

The Brooklyn Record points us to an article in the Brooklyn Downtown Star reporting there may be some hiccups in getting this whole Music Hall of Williamsburg thing off the ground: "Combined with the Galapagos Art Space next door, which also serves alcohol to guests, the two venues would offer roughly 12,000 square feet of bar on a block zoned for residential as well as commercial use. The Music Hall of Williamsburg - 8,000 square......

SIGNING: Child Magazine honored Julie Andrews with a Lifetime Achievement Award at their 6th Annual Best Children's Book Awards. Today you can meet her and other winning authors at a celebratory book signing. 5 to 6:30pm // Books of Wonder [18 W 18th St] // Free MOVIE: Screening Liberally is showing Hannibal Rising tonight (prior to its release). The movie brings us to Hannibal Lecter's formative years, during World War II at the medieval castle......

THEATER: Survey: Do women actually, um, enjoy Playgirl magazine? It’s a timeless question, and one that - according to former editor Ronnie Koenig - even haunted the boss herself. Her multimedia play Dirty Girl, now in previews, is about her “quest to find a woman who actually likes the beefcakes in the magazine.” The cast has been blogging and a book deal is in the works. (Brace yourself for The Devil Wears Nothing.) - John......

During CMJ, everything becomes a venue - from a living room to an abandoned storefront. During the rest of the year, Todd P keeps that sort of thing going on. And in the more "legit" world of venues, new ones are popping up everywhere. Maybe some clubs can't make it in the city, but others are thriving. The New York Times reports that in the next few months as many as five new spaces will......