BlackBook Magazine

We Are Scientists have been embraced by U.K. critics who know better. But is it too late to win our musical darlings back? Below, a dissection.

In 2005, We Are Scientists emerged as punk-funk debutantes equipped with fully-crafted, danceable hits and a persona that seamlessly mixed scholarship with stupidity. On their first album, With Love and Squalor, the Booklyn-based then-trio of frontman Keith Murray, bassist Chris Cane, and drummer Michael Tapper flirted with their fans stateside, kicked up some feet, and sent ripples through the music press—all the while having good hair.

In a self-deprecating plea at the Tribeca Film Festival "Breaking the Band" concert at Webster Hall Friday night, Bad Veins singer Benjamin Davis asked the crowd to stick around, because the rest of the acts of the night -- The Republic Tigers, The Virgins, and The Hold Steady -- promised to be better if the crowd didn’t like what the Veins bled. “Well, I guess we’re gonna start now,” he said. “Please don’t leave.” The recipients of the first ever Target Music Maker Award, Bad Veins (Davis, drummer Sebastien Schultz, and a 1973 reel-to-reel named Irene) have learned to be cautious. They’ve performed in New York over 10 times, they were called the “breakout band” of the CMJ music festival, and A&R executives love them. And yet, they can’t seem to get signed.

This Week's Highlights: The Art of Vision puts it own spin on visual art on Wednesday 5/7; Alice Cooper and Slash help musicians down on their luck at the MusiCares concert on 5/9. 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: Robert Adler's burlesque photographs show everything at the Hyde St. Gallery; Tapes 'n Tapes play real live instruments on Saturday 5/10. 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: The foursome Tokyo Police Club are fast and frantic on Monday 5/5; Discuss the attractiveness of art at Richard Laurent's Charm and Strangeness exhibit at the Finestra Art Space on Friday 5/9. For details, check our complete Chicago events calendar after the jump. Got an event worth listing? Let us know at .

This Week's Highlights: Augusten Burroughs further skewers his family at a reading of his new novel, A Wolf at the Table on Monday, 5/5; Lurk inside the bizarre mind of Count Dimitri Tolstoï with his photography exhibit at the Art Rouge gallery all week. 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 the last week to catch the Dave Eggers-curated art show Lots of Things Like This featuring works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Cohen, Kurt Vonnegut and much more; New Zealand's lovable digi-folk paradists Flight of the Choncords take on Town Hall Tuesday 5/6 and Wednesday 5/7. 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).

There’s been crazy hype surrounding Oxford math rockers Foals and their new album Antidotes, which is unusual for an electro-pop band given the current ubiquity of the genre. But last Thursday at Bowery Ballroom, the good words were justified given the frenetic performance of scrappy but deadpan frontman Yannis Philippakis. He clutched his guitar close, elbow crooked, and manically pigeon-bobbed his neck to the beat. He banged the hell out of his drum during “Electric Bloom,” then hopped off stage and plowed through the dancing crowd like an Energizer bunny with drumsticks in hand, his wisp of art-school bangs flopping in his face.

Last night, the stage of the Nokia Theatre was transformed into a grunge-era wet dream. Out for the Road Recovery benefit concert were Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello (as his folk alter-ego The Nightwatchman), Jerry Cantrell, Wayne Kramer of the MC5, Jakob Dylan, Perry Ferrell, and the only man today that can pull of a top-hat and lady-silhouette forearm tattoo: Slash. Road Recovery, a nonprofit that mentors young recovering addicts, is comprised of entertainment industry professionals whose lives have also been touched by addiction.