The Very Best of Music

For all dates, times and locations, see the Cultural, Arts and Entertainment Listings.

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Bitch and The Exciting Conclusion and Jay Brannan sing songs of love and loss post-Valentine’s Day at the Bowery Ballroom on Feb 16. Don’t miss this exciting “double feature” featuring your favorite radical queer artists. Both Bitch and Brannan are irreverent and funny on stage, sometimes blurring the line between brilliant singer-songwriter and storyteller.

After three 2007 gigs at Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge, and a sold-out October show at Club Sol kicking off “GO Magazine’s GO For the Cure Tour ’08,” The Cliks’ fan base has grown big enough to not only support a gig at a larger venue, but to demand a solo show. So, they’re getting it! Catch this gritty rock/punk Canadian quartet at The Knitting Factory on Feb 12 and see for yourself what all of the buzz is about.

Avant-garde vocalist and virtuoso pianist Diamanda Galás returns to The Knitting Factory Feb 14 to perform her fourth annual, critically acclaimed Valentine’s Day Massacre. With this spellbinding night of tragic and homicidal love songs, the dark queen of extended techniques turns standards from jazz, blues and rembetika into her own musical genre. Sophisticated vocal weaponry combines with a driving, sometimes jaw-dropping, percussive piano style to conjure up a dazzling array of emotions, ranging from fleeting happiness to the terror brought upon by the death of love.

This year, make Rufus Wainwright your Valentine by joining him for a very special February 14th show at Radio City Music Hall, featuring Sean Lennon as the opening act. With Release the Stars, his fifth album in a decade, Wainwright artfully establishes musical intimacy with ravishing sound everywhere, yet it all serves to underscore his own performance as commentator, confessor and leading man.


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