BlackBook Magazine

This Week's Highlights: Quirky and multi-talented songstress Kate Nash is porcelain-perfect on Wednesday 5/14; The Joshua Tree Music Festival hits the desert with acts ranging from Ghostland Observatory to Lynx 5/16 -5/18. For details, check our complete Los Angeles events calendar after the jump. Got an event worth listing? Let us know at .

This Week's Highlights: Swedish angular hairstyle rule at the Robyn show on Friday 5/16; witness the birth of cool at the Oakland museum of California on Saturday 5/17. For details, check our complete San Francisco events calendar after the jump. Got an event worth listing? Let us know at .

This Week's Highlights: Brit rockers Clinic bring their sterile act to The Empty Bottle on Monday 5/12; non-traditional bluegrass is showcased at the House of Blues with The Avett Brothers on 5/14. For details, check our complete Chicago events calendar after the jump. Got an event worth listing? Let us know at .

This Week's Highlights:MacArthur Grant-recipient Aleksander Hemon reads from his novel The Lazarus Project on Tuesday 5/13; Katt Williams pimps his funny on Thursday 5/15. For details, check our complete Miami events calendar after the jump. Got an event worth listing? Let us know at .

This Week's Highlights: It's you! It's them! It's dancing! Los Campesinos shuffles your feet on Thursday 5/15; discuss the rise of the image and the fall of the word at the New York Photo Festival from 5/15-5/18. For details, check our complete New York events calendar after the jump. Got an event worth listing? Let us know at .

It’s always a little strange -- even jarring -- to attend a gala at the New York Public Library. First, literary types with money seem like an oxymoron. And second, you walk though the hallowed echoey halls filled with intimate lives bound in leather covers, only enter the party and have some lady with glasses (‘cause she reads a lot) and Louboutins step on your foot and spill her pinot noir on you. But a couple of nights ago at the NYPL, there was no wine-spilling and no drunken recitations of Proust (which, frankly, was a bit of a disappointment).

Despite having crashed his Testarossa back in 1986, Parisian deejay Kavinsky (Vincent Belorgey) came back from the dead this past weekend to infuse Toronto and Brooklyn with his brand of futuristic '80s electronic music. With projected graphics reminiscent of Tron and remixed tracks by everyone from Chromeo to the Klaxons, things felt a little more like a joyride in Doc Brown’s DeLorean than a head-on in a Ferrari. Watch for Kavinsky at Coachella on Saturday, April 26.

Photos of the Kavinsky show at Circa in Toronto courtesy of Zach Slootsky at Take More Photos.

Liz McGrath triptych.

Starting tomorrow (and ending the next day), "Heroes & Villains" at Culver City's Corey Helford Gallery celebrates the personalities who have influenced outsider art from graffiti to alt-comic book illustration. With 50-ish prints on display, photographers Tatiana Willis and Roman Cho shed light on a group often left in the dark (to their own devices. And manga).

Music fans should hang on to their horn-rims, because tomorrow brings excitement to rival the day they lost their virginity (still waiting? hang in there!). It's Record Store Day, when over 300 independently-owned music stores nationwide join together in an attempt to thwart their creeping irrelevance. Organizers are luring fans out with in-store performances, goodie bags, and so much more. Björk premiers a 3-D version of her single "Wanderlust" off the Grammy-nominated album Volta, and both Stephen Malkmus and Vampire Weekend get in on the act by releasing limited-edition vinyl with exclusive tracks. If you're in New York, Regina Spektor performs an in-store at Sound Fix, while Sam Fogarino (of Interpol) spins some tunes at Other Music. If you're anywhere else, you can check the official site for events in your area. As Henry Rollins says, "If we lose the independent record store, we lose big." Don't argue with Henry.

Last night, BlackBook partnered with SKYY to celebrate the release of our high-octane May Design Issue featuring cover girl Christina Ricci. Nestled within Manhattan’s newest hideaway, 1Oak, hundreds of imbibers brought out their best jazz-hands for inimitable deejay duo Andrew Andrew.