MONDAY >>Satisfy your cheese cravings as former American Idol star (and Richmond, VA native) Elliot Yamin plays the 9:30 Club, with the Last Goodnight and Josh Hoge. $25, Doors at 7 p.m. >>Australian pop singer Ben Lee -- he of the short-lived Bens and "Catch My Disease" moderate fame -- comes to Alexandria's Del Ray neighborhood to play the Birchmere. Joining him is are Cary Brothers. $19.50, 7:30 p.m. TUESDAY >>Dinosaur Jr. just can't stop......

Their debut album has been out for almost two years and somehow the outside world is only just getting to know them as that band that has that backward music video on YouTube. However you know them, Mute Math (or TBTHTBMVOYT, for... short?) is hitting up Sonar in Baltimore tonight for an evening of art rock/post rock/electro rock/whatever the hell music snobs and critics want to label it as. The band has come a long......

The early part of the week is looking a little light for shows, but after the Fourth things really get rolling through Sunday night. MONDAY >> After coming down with a case of "David Letterman throat" last week, Morrissey was forced to reschedule three shows, including his gig at Madison Square Garden in NYC. Right now it looks like NYC's loss is our gain, as we just recieved an email from the staff at Wolf......

MONDAY >> Joseph Arthur & the Lonely Astronauts return to D.C., and this time they're playing at a larger, more Metro-accessible venue. While critics don't exactly love the new album, Let's Just Be, Arthur puts on a great live show. Check him out at the 9:30 Club with Stars of Track and Field opening. 7:30 p.m. $15. TUESDAY >> Local upstarts Le Loup, fresh off signing with Hardly Art, are opening for The Rosebuds, the......

>> Ward 1 council member Jim Graham hopes the residents of Ward 5 won't mind if he moves some strip clubs displaced by the new Nationals stadium into their neighborhood. Here's a tip to make sure there's no local resistance: Ward 5 residents get in for free! [Examiner] >> Don't miss Tamara Jones and Roxanne Roberts' merciless ribbing of President Bush for almost accidentally suggesting Queen Elizabeth II was over 200 years old. The......

Attending Saturday's White House Correspondents dinner continues to get less and less appealing. First, it was announced that Rich Little, a comedian whose popularity peaked in the 1970s, would host. Compared to Stephen Colbert's able hosting last year, we weren't terribly excited about seeing Little's famous Richard Nixon impression. Now it turns out that American Idol's latest cast-off, the adorable yet dubiously talented Sanjaya Malakar, will be there too. In an apparent coup by People......

Run for your lives, Washington. Rats have taken over our fair city, and there is no hope of escaping their evil, rat-like ways. We shall flee to the suburbs and their clean, plastic, rat-free lifestyle. But wait! Inside Edition, long-time bastion of quality broadcast news, is here to save us. Thank God for Inside Edition's Rat Patrol. Let me start out by saying that Inside Edition is possibly the greatest news show on television. Not......

Start singing the blues D.C., just don't do it in front of a panel of judges hostile to you and a nation with their fingers literally on the button of your career. Last night Catholic University student Antonella Barba was dismissed from American Idol in a cut that chose the final 12 contestants. While the judges were shocked when voters gave Jason "Sundance" Head the boot, they seemed content to let Barba go. Much of......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor is spending......

Good news, Washington: our vicarious American Idol dreams live on! Despite a performance of "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" that prompted criticism even from Paula Abdul, D.C. resident Antonella Barba has made it through the show's first round of voting. Nice as this is to hear, it's not unexpected. DialIdol.com, a site that provides autodialing software and analyzes the incidence of busy signals to gauge voting volume, predicted that Barba would finish safely......

Though we can't all claim to be following this season of American Idol ourselves, the show's ratings tell us that at least a few of you probably are. So what do we care? Well, one of our own has made it to the top 24 this season, the show's fifth. Antonella Barba isn't a D.C. native -- she's originally from Point Pleasant, NJ, but she's been calling this city home for the past few years.......

As 2006 ends and 2007 begins, the -ists look back not at the past week, but at the past year. So here it is, your Best of 2006 Spectacular. And from all of us at the -ists, happy New Year! Austinist was all about controversy as new construction to increase urban density ran rampant in 2006, as did threats to the city's image from gigantic corporations looking to set up shop in town, leading......

Torontoist visits the site of a new Frank Gehry structure, stalks "the elusive Bahamas streetcar", and watches Tom Green get surgery. Phillyist rejoices in the Phillies' wild card chances, mourns the injuries sustained by Eagles defensive end Jevon Kearse, and goes pirate on our asses. SFist notes that Guns and Roses were in town, that San Franciscans are taking over reality TV, and that the San Francisco Chronicle's skills of original nomenclature could use some......

And a happy Friday morning to you, Washington. Heads up: Metro's Yellow Line from King Street to Mt. Vernon Square will not be running this weekend due to track maintenance starting tonight at 10 p.m. Folks will be forced off at King Street, and those going between Mt. Vernon Square and L'Enfant Plaza will be forced to ride the Green Line. Things are expected to be running back on schedule by Monday morning. Large Part......

TUESDAY >> Not too much going on this Tuesday, but the one-hit-wonder who can thank American Idol for his claim to fame, will be at 9:30 Club tonight with Holly Brook and Mozella. For $20 a ticket it might make more sense to just go buy Daniel Powter's single “Bad Day” on iTunes and save yourself the other 19 bucks and a headache from the mob of screeching AI fans guaranteed to be in attendance.......

San Francisco is proud host of a new reality show called "How to Get the Guy" that's unfortunately not a descendant of Will and Grace, Queer Eye, The L Word, American Idol etc. Also a biodefence lab is coming to the East Bay and SFist teaches wine pairing. Getting on the wrong train sucks. Getting on the wrong train and becoming the victim of what will later be described as a "stabbing spree" really sucks.......

If today's PETA protest left you wishing for more skin with your politics, then Universal Gear up for more. Whitman-Walker Clinic's yearly gay pride festival, Capital Pride, is back for another year, and—with all the new venues and expanded events—it is bulging at the seams. While it actually kicked off last weekend with a contest for Mr. CapitalPride Leather and a panel on "Building Bridges without Destroying Identities," the festivities and other related events run......

The weeks starts out right when a sucker punch on the field lands Chicagoist in the middle of a Sox/Cubs throwdown and the fists continue to fly in the comments. Despite suburban resident Ms. Pinney's best little try no books will be banned anytime soon and the El is really really gross. Houstonist is there to start compiling the punditry when when the guilty, guilty Enron verdict comes down. This guy seems to be able......

So by now you’ve probably seen this year’s HFStival line-up and either you weren’t very impressed, or you have some serious decisions to make. Mr. West or Mr. Jones? Are you "Insane in the Membrane" or “Hands Down” ready for a band that epitomizes emo. You’re a big fan of unnecessary punctuation usage and have heard Panic! At the Disco are the new Killers, but no Brandon Flowers wanna-be can stir up a DAR crowd......

6:30 p.m. Man, it's been a long day. We've been shuffling to and from meetings with members of the council, trying to convince that it's now or never with this stadium lease. Cropp's working her heart out, but it seems like an uphill battle with Barry, Gray, and Brown. And every chance he gets, Fenty goes on and on about MLB's greed. I could really use a cigaratte, a beer, and a good meal. Well,......

Let's face it: after four seasons of scouring the nation for talent, American Idol is beginning to scrape the bottom of the bucket. There are only so many people out there who can hold a decent note, after all. So the burning question in the mind of every Washingtonian was not who could deliver the most stirring rendition of "Lady Marmalade" for the 100,000th time, but who would rise from obscurity to replace the voice......

Today we've received word that we're a step closer to a new, more lively voice for Metro. The 10 finalists are being recorded today, the winner will be chosen next week, and the new voice will debut next month. The finalists will be asked to record the following messages, which will ultimately help decide whether they go on to a life of fame and fortune or trudge off to that great big graveyard of failed......

Sarah Kryscio (pronounced "Krissy-O") is a Wisconsin transplant to the D.C. area. When this DCist asked her if she had any voice training, she meekly answered "some." Perhaps she was embarrassed, but 'some' would be an understatement. You could even tell that at her gig opening for Mike Holden at Revolution Records, where she impressed the intimate (no mics) crowd with her singing chops, her note-holding chops, and her lung-capacity chops. That's a lot......

A pair of sold-out Wilco shows and a Teenbeat reunion highlight our picks for this week. MONDAY: >> Rambunctious retro power pop group The Futureheads, at right, play the 9:30 Club, with Shout Out Louds & The High Speed Scene opening. $12. Stream their video for "Hounds of Love" here. TUESDAY: >> Feminist electro-popsters Le Tigre, fronted by ex-Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna, are at the 9:30 Club this evening. Unfortunately, local band Measles Mumps......

This week, Fox and the "American Idol" crew are in town to audition thousands of contestants at the Washington Conevention Center. Rising Idols from near and far, optimistic of their prospects for fame and fortune, were probably a bit peeved if they read the Post's take on the starsearch process. The way they see it, they are all destined for Hollywood, and they are all traveling under God's wing. They are all hopeful, and they......

The Post warns us that traffic around the Washington Convention Center could be clogged all week ... not because of a GOP fundraising dinner or a huge AIPAC conference ... but because of "American Idol." Thousands of would be American Idols will be auditioning this week which means that countless stage mothers in minivans will be driving around Mount Vernon Square getting confused by all the one-way streets and no left turn regulations. (Watch......