Better Than: Hearing a drunk crowd shout "Freebird" at a concert where the annoyed band onstage did not write and will not perform said timeless classic by that name.

It would have been Ronnie Van Zant's 65th birthday had he not perished--with other members of Skynyrd and their entourage--at the age of 29 in a 1977 plane crash. But kid brother Johnny has been doing him proud since 1987, and at the Beacon Theatre last night, the sometimes-stoic singer was engagingly animated, commanding the stage and leading the band through a quite-amazing amount of classic rock radio standards.

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The Ominous Seapods.

Through a series of maybe not-so-unfortunate events, I was a teenage jam band scenester, which, when properly italicized and luridly capitalized, sounds like a sordid music-crit version of a '50s exploitation paperback. But the truth is, I wasn't seduced by drugs, sex, or anything else until college.

There was a thriving local ska circuit on Long Island, where I grew up, and I went to a clutch of gigs at church rec centers and the occasional all-ages night hosted by the local metal club, The Roxy. But ska didn't offer what I wanted. Richard Brooks, the leader of local heroes the Scofflaws, was a bus driver at our high school, and I appreciated his obvious punkness. But getting out of my hometown was a priority. Despite being a b-side collecting fan of Nirvana and, through them, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, and a few others, underground music in 1993 paradoxically seemed like something that you saw on television, not participated in yourself.

The jam band world was the first music community I had access to. As a suburban computer kid, I got online as quickly as I could, and found that Deadheads had the pre-WWW 1993-era internet well-colonized. I eventually made my way to Larry Bloch's Wetlands Preserve, the magically handmade club in pre-gentrified TriBeCa where somehow my pitiful fake high school ID that said I was 18 got me in the door. Not that I was trying to drink; I was there for the music, maaaaaaaaan. The idea of improvisation—something "new" every time—was throughly mindblowing to me, and the Grateful Dead seemed far more approachable (and fun) than, say, Miles Davis. But, inside Wetlands, I found a pretty complete world. There was a VW bus parked by the door, housing an environmental activism center (like, actual hang-off-buildings/throw-blood-on-fur-wearers activists); a wrap-around mural of a pastoral festival scene; hippie-built nooks; black lights; and a benevolently foreboding basement lounge. There was also a radically open-minded booking policy that included hardcore matinees, Allen Ginsberg readings, grrl-folk (including Ani DiFranco's first NYC appearance), and lots other surprises. Of course, I knew none of that then.

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The rumor earlier this year that CBGB, the storied Bowery punk club shuttered a few years back in order to make room for a store hawking overpriced menswear and vinyl, would be returning to the city in some form has apparently come closer to actually becoming true. Bryan Kuntz over at This Ain't The Summer Of Love (found via EV Grieve) visited the bygone venue's still-kicking official site and found an announcement for a festival—with "music, food, conference, [and] drink"—branded with the CBGB logo and scheduled for July 4-8. Other details—lineups, venues, cost, number of conference panels that will look wistfully back on The Good Old Days—are scant, but there is a link to CBGB Facebook page and another where interested bands can apply for consideration via the talent broker Sonicbids. That link elaborates a bit more on the festival's aims:

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Michael Stipe as Sludgesicle-peddling Captain Scrummy.

Like a defiant cannonball splash disturbing the tranquility of an adult swim, the Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete & Pete lives on. Over three seasons between 1993 and 1996, the show followed the adventures of two brothers each named Pete Wrigley, their parents, their friends, and the entire population of the fictitious suburban town known as Wellsville.

Barely noticed at the time, the cult of Pete & Pete has slowly gained traction in the intervening years. In tribute to that fact, the original cast reunited in Los Angeles last November for the first time since 1996. It's New York's turn on Friday, when the Bowery Ballroom hosts two shows titled "An Evening With the Cast and Crew of The Adventures of Pete & Pete."

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Via SOTC pal Will Hermes—whose new book about New York's music scene from 1973 to 1977, Love Goes To Buildings On Fire, comes out next week—here's a clip of the Ramones playing at CBGB sometime during the summer of 1974. (Hermes' blog has a ton of other archival footage from the period covered by his book.) In the grainy video they play "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement," and "Judy Is A Punk"; note, also, the glam-inspired moves Joey throws into his performance here and there. Clip below.

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Today in reissue news: Glasgow's Jesus and Mary Chain are re-releasing (or really, re-re-releasing, since they did this once in 2006) all six of their albums as double-CD, single-DVD sets. In other words, if you elect to purchase Psychocandy, their stoned, "Be My Baby"-aping debut, you'll also get, in order of appearance: six B-sides (including "Boyfriend's Dead," another girl-pop-in-hell style number), the "Upside Down"/"Vegetable Man" single that preceded the album, 11 songs recorded over three radio sessions with John Peel, nine demos, two outtakes (including the often bootlegged "Jesus Fuck") and a DVD with three music videos and six television appearances. The complete set might cost you a good portion of your next paycheck, yes, but it's also a lot cheaper than moving to Seattle or Scotland or wherever else you're going to find this much gloom.

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These riches could be yours.

1. The CBGB brand is up for auction.
Not all that surprising a development given the financial woes suffered by the company that used to hold the trademark had. But still a little sad? Especially because of the high odds that Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters wins out?

2. Nouvelle Vague's loungey cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk To Fuck" used in an alcohol-awareness campaign has been yanked from an ad campaign because of concerns that it actually encourages people to binge drink.
"Heineken's aim was to link the idea of 'relaxed consumption' of beer with music that had been 'uncharacteristically slowed down' from the original track." Maybe someone should re-record the track as "Too Drunk To Figure Out A Coherent Advertising Campaign"? Jeez.

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Back in the '80s, New York's downtown brought together lots of people, and, well, let's just let the official description of the file take over here: "Fragments of an aborted recording session at Battery Sound NYC in 1986 which brought together fledgling rapper Mark Sinclair--today better known as the actor Vin Diesel--and avant composer/dance music maven Arthur Russell in a project midwifed by Gary Lucas, who discovered Mark Sinclair rapping and break-dancing on the streets of the West Village, and greenlighted by Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records and Barry Feldman of Upside/Logarhythm records." The audio's unembeddable so you'll have to click over to SoundCloud, but it's worth it; also, that's Mark/Vin breakdancing in the above clip, in case you're wondering. (What, was I going to illustrate this post with the poster from The Pacifier?) [via SOTC lifetime pal Zach Baron]

The Beastie Boys' video for their throwbacky new single "Make Some Noise"--off Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2, which comes out May 3--picks up right as the rager chronicled in the "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)" video is letting out, with Seth Rogen, Danny McBride, and Elijah Wood playing the roles of the Boys as they stumble hung over around a soundstage approximation of old New York, throwing a garbage can through a window (a la Do The Right Thing?) and irritating everyone whose path they cross. Chloë Sevigny's turn as an irritable lost member of Vixen is pretty astounding; there is also a Will Ferrell cameo in which he plays cowbell, because, get it??? Clip after the jump.

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We are never truly alone, Tiffany.

So here's a real thing you can pay money to go see: bygone '80s teen idols Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, on one night on one stage, specifically the Canal Room's, as part of another Back to the Eighties fete also featuring an era tribute band reasonably named Rubix Kube, the spelling presumably to avoid litigation. This has apparently somehow never happened before, these two ladies joining forces onstage -- this historic event will presage their dual starring roles in the apparently real 2011 movie Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. Tickets for this thing are $20 at the door, and if you're even half-considering this already I fail to see how it couldn't be worth it. Let me also say that I'm looking forward to 30 years from now when Ke$ha and Katy Perry are making joint appearances at the Google Lounge with a period-specific tribute band called, like, Tumblrrrr or whatever. Flier below. Have fun.

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