Rock Band

It's not every day you see the lead singer of a rock band apply ice to his privates on stage (through his shorts) after a bit of a microphone mishap while singing "99 Red Balloons" midway through the third set. But it's not every day - wait, in the summer, it is practically every day - that you can see legendary cover band Mr. Greengenes and its comically exuberant front man Bryen O'Boyle playing songs you know ("Hey, I know this song!") in a bar near a beach near you. Where else would it make perfect sense to segue from Green Day ("I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies!"

There are a handful of incarnations of the indie rock band Eels, a decades-long project led by Mark Oliver Everett. Over the course of 10 studio albums, the band has been quiet and introspective, aggressive and defiant, witty and sweet, and a spectrum in between. Live shows have likewise covered the gamut, from full string orchestra to rock band to solo Everett and his guitar. This time around, Eels is an all-out rock band. Five men, wearing dark sunglasses and clad in black Adidas track suits, took the stage Saturday night at World Cafe Live.

Benjamin Orr, who cofounded the '80s rock band the Cars and sang on several of the group's hits, died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer. News reports gave his age variously as 45 and 53. Mr. Orr died at his Atlanta home, said Billy Johnson, manager of the musician's current band, Big People. Mr. Orr was diagnosed with the disease in May. Mr. Orr, born Benjamin Orzechowski in Cleveland, formed the Cars in Boston in 1976 with fellow Ohio native Ric Ocasek. He played bass and sang lead vocals on several of the band's hits, including "Drive" and "Just What I Needed.

It's the season for football, falling leaves, and new video-game releases. And though all of us are feeling the pockets pinch a bit, there is no doubt we will dig deep for at least a couple of titles to keep us company through winter. Publishers are fully aware of our unquenchable thirst for gaming, and there are some recent price cuts for gaming consoles that, combined, could boost game sales that have sagged this year. While a couple of big titles won't meet their original release dates this year (Bioshock 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, Ghost Recon 4, Starcraft 2)

I never thought I'd know what it felt like to be John Lennon, standing in front of 55,000 screaming teenagers at Shea Stadium in 1965, singing "Eight Days a Week. " Truth be told, I still don't. But I do know what it's like to pretend to be John Lennon - and Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr - at Shea in '65, now that I've played The Beatles: Rock Band. The much-hyped video game puts the Fab Four's music literally in your hands. So what's it like? Kind of hokey, and not nearly as dazzling as one might have hoped, though the candy-colored "dreamscapes" are amusingly trippy.

On any given night, at any club in town, there's a chance you'll find a rock band bashing out the music with abandon. Maybe a woman leads the band. That happens, but it's rare. Even rarer is a club night dedicated exclusively to women who rock. So far, there's one night a month devoted to the cause, and it's called Sugar Town. The idea came from two women - where else? - with an obsession for music. Music writer Sara Sherr and booking agent and musician Lisa Cohen saw the gap and decided to fill it with local and national bands they respect.

This is so cool, I had to put it first. For us old heads, Tron will forever be one of the greatest movie/video combinations ever. When Tron: Legacy hits theaters around the winter holidays, it will be a great time for Tron geeks to take their kids to see what the hype is/was all about. Suppose money is no object with regard to your Tron mania. Suppose you want to be the alpha dog when it comes to Tron culture. I may have just the thing for you. Forget all of the new toys, video games, and other Tron items hitting store shelves ahead of the film because nestled in Melbourne, Fla., is a custom cycle shop named Parker Brothers Choppers that claims to be able to make street-legal . . . Tron Light Cycles?

The Rolling Stones are the best band in the history of rock music. I submit that this can be proven with mathematical rigor and now propose to do so. Follow this closely. Sartwell's First Law: The quality of a rock band is inversely proportional to its pretentiousness. Corollary to Sartwell's First Law: The pretentiousness of a rock band can be expressed as a ratio of its artistic ambition to its artistic accomplishment. For example, on a scale of 1 to 10, the artistic ambition of the band Yes equals 9, its artistic accomplishment 1. This yields a pretentiousness ratio of 9:1, one of the very worst in rock history.

Over-acted, poorly directed and cliche-ridden. Cardboard characters, inane dialogue and vapid situations. When Variety magazine reviewed "Hot Rods to Hell" in 1967, it spared no adjectives in harpooning what it labeled a "dullsville meller. " But in spite of the highbrow dis, Jay Schwartz, reelhead in charge of the Secret Cinema, knows choice shlock when he sees it. "This movie's just really funny and bad, but it's a totally entertaining movie," Schwartz said. "It's the last of the juvenile delinquent movies.

For the second time since they began their North American tour a month ago, Guns N' Roses angered fans by failing to show for their performance - this time it was in South Philly. Once it became clear last night that the rock band was not going to show for its scheduled gig at the First Union Center, fans began yelling and cursing, throwing bottles, chairs and ceiling tiles, and overturning trash cans and equipment. Several fights broke out, and paramedics reported transporting five people to area hospitals.