FNX has been on a roll lately, hosting two of the biggest indie bands on the scene right now, Band of Horses and Vampire Weekend. Both bands have a reputation for appealing to a hipster crowd, and while tight jeans, ironic T-shirts, and beards (oh-so many beards) were indeed prevalent at both shows, the main focus has been on the unique sound of both acts. Band of Horses was one of the recently affected......

--Preliminaries: Wednesday, October 10, Comedy Connection, Faneuil Hall, 7:00 and 9:00 pm --Semi-Finals: Thursday, October 11, Nick's Comedy Stop (Upstairs), 8:30 pm --Semi-Finals: Friday, October 12, Nick's Comedy Stop (Upstairs), 8:30 pm --Finals: Saturday, October 13, Cutler Majestic, 8:15 pm Here's last night's winners, and find out who Bostonist thinks got robbed after the jump. Preliminary Round Five The Winners: Paul D'Angelo and David Powell In the fifth round, the brainiacs represented. D'Angelo, a former......

This week, Boston Magazine blog spread the word that the Globe had hired Veronica Chao, editor of the Improper Bostonian to helm the Globe's Sunday City Weekly section. The City Weekly section is intended to be a fizzy cultural spread about the region, but a recent story on how Peter, Bjorn & John's "Young Folks" started a whistling frenzy amongst the hipsters might have been a bit much. Gawker seized on the story as if......

The Apples in Stereo will be at the Middle East Downstairs tonight at 8:00 pm. It's hard not to smile when you hear the music of the Apples in Stereo. The band's music is relentlessly sunny and irony-free. Yet Robert Schneider and company have managed to win over skeptical hipsters with sheer joy. The Apples in Stereo are already stars in the Ist-a-Verse - check out SFist's interview with bassist Eric Allen and DCist's concert......

Protest over national vs. regional chains, the never-ending debate over the place of cars and bicycles in our metropolises, professional sports scandals, remembering a solemn day, and being issued a search warrant - it all happened across our sites this week! Another banner week at Chicagoist started off with daily reports from food writer Lisa Shames on her attempt to eat only locally grown and raised foodstuffs all week as part of a farmers market......

Happy first weekend of September - and happy Labor Day weekend, too, for our American cities! Let's take a look at what's been happening around the Ist-a-verse. The deaths of two firefighters shook Bostonist this week. Boston's firefighters bent over backwards all week long - first, they fought flames pouring from the Boston Tea Party museum, and then a restaurant fire killed two and injured many more. Their efforts make everything else - like Tom......

Ah, the New York/Boston debate. While many point their fingers at Boston for stoking the flames on a regular basis (chants of "Yankees Suck" heard everywhere might have something to do with it), we can now point a little of the blame back to NYC. Gawker, having decided that they'd chastised Britney Spears' parenting techniques enough, shocked readers across the globe today by turning its typically New Yawk-centric eye beyond the boroughs. But, in characteristic......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......

Tuesday was a difficult day for the city of Boston. How frequently do you find yourself having to choose between the Clipse and This American Life? More importantly, how do you choose? Pusha or Dan Savage? Malice or Kori Gardner? The Reupgang or Ira's Gang? The Middle East tried to mitigate these concerns by adding a Monday Clipse show several weeks out, but it was too little, too late for those who'd already bought......

Frigid temps all week. Hot shows all week. Put them together and you've got a warm soul. Brave the cold and make it out this week, it will totally be worth it. Looking for a little inspiration while you're sitting at your desk this week? Plug in the headphones and pop on over to tourfilter to check out the HypeMachine powered mixtape. Look in the upper right corner and click mixtape, sort it by......

As the world holds its breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans......

Apparently in Cambridge it's just too hard to pop the collar on a corset. Yesterday the Harvard Crimson published an arts editorial "Preppy-Goth Is Doomed Fashion." The skull fashion is on the rise at Harvard. Hipsters and Preps alike are taking on the emblems normally associated with a gothic look. We know all about the Wal-Mart Nazi t-shirts that have been pulled from all many stores. But that was a simple case of plagiarism. They......

It comes up every now and again. The idea that somehow Boston and Bostonians want to be New York or New Yorkers invades us from the South. Sure, the big apple has it's charm but we've got our reasons for living here in Boston and we don't need it to replicate New York. The New York Times recently featured an article on Tony Goldman, a man credited with inventing SoHo, and his efforts to redevelop......

The Scissor Sisters finished their North American tour at the Orpheum Sunday night to a capacity crowd of gender bender hipsters and straight freaks alike. Less than two years ago the band was playing at TT the Bears and beginning to ride the wave created by their disco version of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." Although the single off of their sophomore album, "Ta-Dah," is getting regional airplay it was obvious that most people were there......

What's going on this week? Everyone is moving. Hipsters are swapping apartments in Allston. Scenesters are invading Cambridgeport. Undergrads and grad students are making their way into the new rental for September. The lucky ones have renewed their lease (or are keeping up with payments on the mortgage). The music you'll be hearing is blaring from the cab of the U-Haul and out of the windows of that f*ing third floor walk-up you offered......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate on......

OK Go released a video for Here it Goes Again and it changed the way hipsters everywhere look at treadmills. As fun as their video is, we prefer songs about taking a girl and going to Somerville – especially when their video production budget allows for a bike on a treadmill. OK Go used eight treadmills. Eight! That's some bucks. The new Pernice Brothers song "Somerville" is set to be released on their record due......

We at Bostonist like our Apple computers. Ok, it does distress us a little to hear that our shiny iPod might have been produced in a sweatshop. But, if we turn the volume up really loud, we forget all about it. If you want to hear the latest Apple talk from four local enthusiasts, then MassMUG is the podcast for you. We are always looking on the intarweb for Apple news and rumors. What will......

LAist is flashing a sad peace out to their editor Carolyn Kellogg with one hand and bumping knuckles with their new head typist L.A. blogger king Tony Pierce with the other. Where do ist editors go when they hang up the 'editorial we'? They take on MySpace, apparently. At least Ben Brown does. Austinist reminds of the just rewards of less savory careers this week and then they witness the Arctic Monkeys and We Are......

Got $8 bucks in your pocket and a bus transfer that will get you to Allston? Great, see you there. Tonight New York City rockers Bravo Silva play a value added show with local boys The Debutantes (formed right here in Allston in '02) and Oakland's The Cuts and The Time Flys. Call them all hipsters, call them all stoners, doesn't matter what you call them as long as you're listening - the music rocks.......

LAist has so much fun this week! They go to E3, where they overhear the timeless remark "Man, this is where nerdy girls get laid." Is that a promise? They also give us this week's best CDs and make us realize that LA is the best place to use Zillow. Ah, Houstonist. They're biking to work, that is, if they can figure out how to get there. That's right, Mapquest says "Houston had the......

There’s something about the mustache. Some folks sport it well (Tom Selleck, Alex Trebek) and can look just as dashing without it - naked for a while, but we got used to a mustache-less Trebek. Others opine in song about their desire for the ‘stache, take Jimmy Buffet's ballad for example: "I wish I had a pencil thin mustache." Fresh from a Fung Wah trip last month we overheard talk that hipsters in NYC......

Hipsters have made bad beer cool again. PBR and Schlitz are back in style. Bostonist likes to sip a good classic out of a 20 oz. can when possible – though a nice pint of a microbrew is never unwelcome. The student Mecca of Allston isn’t all kegs, we’ve been know to indulge in a few cans of beer while hanging out at a house party. Our Schlitz-uation doesn’t usually involve a SCUL-style bike or......

For those living across river (or willing to hop the Red Line or #1), Bostonist thinks there’s no better place to grab a pint, munch on some gourmet pub fare (yes, there is such a thing) and hear our favorite local band than The Plough & Stars, reopening this Friday. Last year proved to be a difficult one for the 35-year-old Cambridge bar, and after being cited for a noise complaint (Anyone remember the faithful......

It's turned a little bit colder these last few days. Bostonist takes the easy way out of the cold and takes the commute to the underground. Riding the T a little bit more frequently and we've heard a couple things we just kind of giggled to ourselves when we heard them. As always, send us those crazy mutterances you’ve heard around the Hub and we'll include them the next time we bring you "Overheard".......

If it weren’t for the type of constant touring that makes cities seem like a blur upon memory, Dr. Dog would probably have as much to say about Mark Sandman Square as many of the scenesters grabbing slices at HiFi. This corner of Brookline St and Mass. Ave in Cambridge’s Central Square has become an epicenter for hipsters, artists, belly dancers, and touring bands thanks to The Middle East and TT the Bear’s Place. In......

The Brickbottom artists' district in Somerville has become one of Bostonist’s favorite places to go for Open Studios. We don’t feel as pressured to be snooty as we do when checking out art at the SoWa guild. And a plate of cheap Brazilian fare is just around the corner so we won’t be spending the big bucks eating at the likes of the Butcher Shop. Mayor Joe Curtatone announced in November that the city would......

(Photo: Rawls' last performance in Boston, January 2005) The last time Bostonist saw Lou Rawls, he was singing the national anthem before Game 2 of the World Series last fall in his native Chicago. Not for a moment did we imagine that Lou would be gone a mere three months later. If you haven't yet heard, Rawls died of cancer last week. Rawls was best known for his soul and pop hits. His signature song,......

At the end of 2005, a rough year for the Archdiocese of Boston, Bostonist was alarmed to hear that our favorite Catholic trophy and tchotchke retailer, the Matthew F. Sheehan Company, will be closing its store in Downtown Crossing. The windows are papered over with "Going out of business in our 100th year" signs and their full array of rosaries, statues, medals, books, vestments, incense, and crucifixes marked down to 50% off. The rumor we'd......