The Rolling Stones are on tour again. Can you believe it? These notorious bad boys are well into their 60s, and yet they are embarking on another cash-infused circuit around the country. Once again, Mick Jagger will strut around a stage, his lips still puffy from those childhood bee stings, and regale the audience with "Jumpin' Jack Flash" for the one hundred millionth time. Their musical inspiration may have languished somewhat in recent decades, but their unflagging stamina and determination defies all logic. There is only one conclusion to draw:

They are the Undead.

Every time I go to a Mr. Goodcents—about once a month, usually—I get to hear what is currently falling under the rubric of classic rock. That's the thing about Mr. Goodcents. They play classic rock. And it's not just this particular sub franchise, either, because I worked at a Subway store one long-ago summer and they played classic rock, too. Anyone who attempted to change the official station was promptly chewed out by the mullet-sporting manager, the same manager who often quizzed me on the artists and song titles until I knew them by heart. It was the same songs over and over again, beginning with Journey and ending with more Journey. The only selections I ever liked on the lineup were by Pink Floyd, although they always played "Money," the one song of theirs I can't tolerate.

A new production at the Russian Bolshoi Theatre is igniting controversy in certain circles. It's an opera called "Rosenthal's Children" (with libretto by postmodernist writer Vladimir Sorokin), and it's about a scientist who clones five classical composers—Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Mussorgsky, and Wagner. When the scientist dies, the musicians end up on the street. Mozart ends up falling love with a prostitute, and the other geniuses turn to alcohol to cope with their new life, for which they are woefully unprepared. Some members of the Russian Parliament have deemed the work pornographic, mostly because of the street language and the depiction of revered composers as drunks and junkies. (After seeing the film Amadeus, this behavior doesn't seem like much of a stretch, at least for Mozart.)

Needless to say, I wish I'd written the thing.

For a while now, I've been seeing lots of red plaid pants, black sweaters with safety pins, and mass-produced handbags with the Sex Pistols logo emblazoned on them. I hate to say it, but punkness has become trendy. Suddenly, everyone is a fan of the Ramones and the Clash. Black Flag bumper stickers have re-emerged with a vengeance, and everyone can sing at least one line from "God Save the Queen" (although it's usually the titular line). So how come no one seems interested in new punk music? There are a number of groups around who feature punk elements: the Donnas, Green Day, the Ataris, Mars Volta, etc. (Sorry, kids, I don't count Mediocre Charlotte—they're a bit overproduced for my taste.) And for every one I can think of, there are thousands I don't know about, floating around in local clubs and cranking out great energetic music without commercial acclaim. In my book, even Wesley Willis could fall into this category. But no one seems interested in these guys as ambassadors of punk. Maybe it's because they don't really know or care what punk is about.

So I guess Elvis would have celebrated his 70th birthday last Saturday. He was born in 1935, and were he still alive, his appearance would now be approximately how he was portrayed in . Over the weekend, a whole onslaught of fans descended on Graceland for the occasion (or just outside, since they weren't permitted on the grounds). They sangs songs and cut a 'Happy Birthday' cake, which the celebrant couldn't enjoy because he was dead.

I'm sitting in the coffee shop, working on some piece or another, when Johnny Cash's cover of "Solitary Man" (penned by Neil Diamond) pipes through the speakers, warm and gravelly, sounding almost as if he's in the room. This was always his strength, I think—the intimacy of his voice, and how it seems private and personal, even from a crowd of thousands, even from the grooves of a vinyl disc. This coincides with my reading of his biography which, although written with a professional author, sounds like it came right from the horse's mouth. And I think, nobody has ever had a voice like that. No one will ever have a voice like that again.

It's official. They'll make a Broadway musical about anything. I have recently learned that The Last Starfighter—that campy, outrageously bad 1984 film—has been converted to a musical and will debut on Broadway within the next few months. It's a shame Robert Preston is dead, because he's the only one of the original cast who actually could have reprised his role from the original.

My friends and I went to see David Byrne—formerly of the Talking Heads—at the Uptown Theatre last Wednesday. The evening started off as a challenge. One thing I hate about Westport is that parking is a disaster. Everything is either privately owned (with tow trucks idling nearby, just waiting to haul away offenders), or charging exorbitant sums for a spot that is barely wide enough to squeeze in a Mini Cooper. Plus, whenever you manage to find a place, you will inevitably have to walk the gauntlet of panhandlers to get to your destination. (One told me he was trying to raise a down payment for a cheeseburger.) We finally arrived at the designated pub, ate a mediocre pre-show dinner, and then made our way to the theatre.

There was a buzz of excitement—and other evidence of onomatopoeia—as we located our seats. We were restless. We asked each other over and over again what we thought he would play. But no bets were placed. If there's one consistent thing about David Byrne, it's that you never know what he's going to do.

A year after the fact, I finally feel I am brave enough to tell the story of Lollapalooza 2003, Bonner Springs stop. The show was held at the amphitheater formerly known as Sandstone, and the musical line-up included the Donnas, Incubus, Jurassic Five, Audioslave, and Jane's Addiction. I was excited about the Donnas, but my raison d'etre that day was to hear Audioslave (I loved their musical ancestors, Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine) and Jane's Addiction (I've been crazy about them for more than half my life).

There is no shade at the amphitheater formerly known as Sandstone. No shade at all. The structure is built at the bottom of a hill, so there is no breeze either. What there is—and in great abundance—is profiteering. Cheap t-shirts were selling for $50. Hats were going for even more. Most spectacularly, bottles of water were $4, and if you wanted a cup of ice, you had to pay an additional $4 (the price of a soda). Keep in mind that this was all occurring on a hundred-degree day in July, and that the bands started playing at noon.

Neutral Milk Hotel is a now-defunct psychedelic folk band composed of Jeff Mangum, Julian Koster, Jeremy Barnes, and Scott Spillane. I've been immersing myself in their In the Aeroplane over the Sea CD, and it's too good not to share. Here's a mnemonic acronym to help you remember much they rock.

The time has come for me to put my foot down. I was not raised to be a doormat, and I will no longer tolerate the duality of your affections. It is time for you to make a decision. Will it be me, a living-breathing woman with love in her heart, or will it be the King, who has been dead for nigh upon 30 years? You will notice I have nailed this to our door, as Martin Luther did with his 95 theses, and I will not be darkening the doorway again until I have heard your answer. You will be lonesome tonight, for I am staying at the Heartbreak Hotel.

What is going on with Bob Dylan these days? First, he was in that freaky Victoria’s Secret commercial (he’s NEVER done commercials before), and now I hear that he’s going to be a guest judge for American Idol. What happened to Mr. Antiestablishment? I confess, I feel hurt and betrayed. I feel like shouting "Judas!" just like at that Manchester concert where Dylan switched to electric guitar, and his gentle folk fans were driven into a foaming, self-righteous rage.

To a large extent, the success of any given band can be deduced from the reaction of the crowd. For some reason, most concerts in Lawrence are painfully low-key—people just stand around with their arms crossed, as if they're too cool to move, as if they didn't actually come to hear the band at all but were merely on their way to the kitchen to fix a broken dishwasher or something. Very little dancing occurs, and when it does, it's usually a lone hippie, undulating in a rotary fashion so that her dreadlocks swirl into the air like little Medusa serpents. (Then again, this could be DTs.) But either way, it's nothing like the crowd response I witnessed at the good Reverend's revival last Saturday night at the Bottleneck. People were jumping up and down, throwing their bodies around, and crowd surfing. There was a genuine mosh pit. Remember: this is a rockabilly band we're talking about, but there was just so much drive to the music, so much punk energy, that it was physically impossible to keep still.

A little old man with white hair was doing the twist.