Rock Music

JOY DIVISION "Unknown Pleasures" (1979) The darkest band ever? Joy Division didn't last long. Singer Ian Curtis, second from left,who struggled with epilepsy and depression, hanged himself in 1980. But the group's influence led to goth and bands from the Cure to Interpol. The long-awaited Curtis film "Control" is due this fall. BUZZCOCKS "Singles Going Steady" (1979) No one has matched pop to punk as well, and the band helped found indie rock and its ethos. Early singles "Ever Fallen in Love?"

A dozen years into the burlesque revival and the concept has gone mainstream, what with its biggest and most polished star, Dita Von Teese, serving as the fashion world's muse and exceptionally diluted schemes such as the Pussycat Dolls (who most would argue were never quite burlesque even in earlier incarnations) given to Top 40 stylings. So it's inevitable a troupe would emerge determined to take New Burlesque back to its roots.

The eighth annual Mods & Rockers Film Festival in Hollywood has a new wrinkle this year with a free, open-air concert on Sunday that features Spencer Davis, Stephen Bishop and tribute bands playing the sounds of the 1960s. Davis, of course, lent his name to the Spencer Davis Group, the British beat band that had hits such as "Gimme Some Lovin' " and "I'm a Man," while Bishop is best known for 1970s fare such as "On and On" and "It Might Be You (Theme From 'Tootsie')."

Paul DeGeorge loves Harry Potter. Well, everybody loves Harry. But Paul DeGeorge loves him so much that he started writing songs about Harry Potter. So much that he started writing songs \o7as\f7 Harry Potter. And named his band Harry and the Potters. And dressed like Harry Potter. And, when the Norwood, Mass.-based Harry and the Potters got popular two years ago, quit his job as a chemical engineer to devote himself to the band. And Paul DeGeorge is not alone.

THE images of dead rock stars entered public consciousness quietly at first, turning up two months ago in a British giveaway magazine, as part of an ad campaign for Dr. Martens boots. In heavily retouched photo montages, Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, Ramones frontman Joey Ramone, the Clash's Joe Strummer and snarling Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious are seen perched amid roiling clouds in heaven.

Rolling Stone Keith Richards is working on a memoir, the object of a multimillion-dollar bidding war that will be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2010. Richards, the master riffer, legendary partyer and songwriting/sparring partner with Mick Jagger, received $7.3 million for the book, according to a publishing insider with knowledge of the negotiations. Currently untitled, the memoir will be written with James Fox, an old friend of Richards' and author of "White Mischief."

The album is dead. Long live the album? "People more and more are just downloading singles and individual songs, putting their iPods on shuffle," says music impresario Barry Hogan. "The whole idea of the album as an art form is kind of forgotten." But not in concert.

Watch for the official announcement today of an upstart festival in Southern California assembled with a considerable amount of female intuition. Sheryl Crow, Avril Lavigne, Fiona Apple, Colbie Caillat, Antigone Rising and Sara Bareilles will come together to launch the GirlFrenzy Festival on Oct. 27 at the Verizon Amphitheatre in Irvine.

BEIJING -- As a group that entered the music world urging a generation of alienated youths to "fight the powers that be," Public Enemy would seem to be the last band a government still shadowed by the student crackdown in Tiananmen Square would want performing in the heart of Beijing. But next week, the hip-hop group will headline an open-air concert in the Chinese capital's sprawling Chaoyang Park along with another band equally well known for its antiestablishment rage, Nine Inch Nails.

Following the success of its Mods & Rockers Film Festival in July, American Cinematheque has scheduled what it is billing as a "coda" in October: a five-day event that includes the premieres of documentaries about musical greats Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding and Nick Drake. The festival begins Oct. 5 with a screening of "A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake," about the English jazz-folk singer and songwriter who died of a prescription medication overdose in 1974 at age 26.