Agenda

Shopping Spree

Saxophonist Ellery Eskelin has his share of ongoing projects, but his primary mission seems to be constantly seeking out new contexts for his wiry, inventive tenor. This decade and its impressively persistent '80s obsession have to come to an end sometime. How's January 2010 sound? Heavy with guitar fuzz, manic energy and raw grit, Jay Reatard's music is the kind you want to listen to at a dangerous volume. Following a few more wanly received, instrumentally fleshier intervening releases, Doughty's agreeably glib Sad Man Happy Man oughtta perk up a few neglectful ears. Technically Sam Brooker and Ruby Amanfu are not sweethearts, but you can't tell that from the songs they write together or the dreamy-soft close harmonies. Last time he was here, Ted Leo was fronting a bunch of Philly punks in TV Casualty, a just-for-Halloween Misfits tribute act. (Yes, they played "Mother," too.) The latest album is The Life of the World to Come and it's as beautiful a musical and lyrical statement as Darnielle has made in all his 20 years at the mic.

Reading Anne Carson's poems is like searching through a box of someone else's trinkets. I'd love to decorate my place with ornate Marcel Wanders pieces. In Philadelphia playwright Alex Dreman's The :nv:s:ble Play, Existential Publishing Co. workers are lit­erally vanishing. To Tom Judd, nothing is more fascinating than someone else's life. Two years ago, artist and former skater Victor Perez had a lightbulb moment and decided to collide his two passions.