Lana Del Ray gave the capacity crowd in DC all they came for and more on a frigid night. Rick Harris was there to witness.

Soul Understated was a swizzle stick of jazz, funk, pop with a dash of Radiohead in the delightful DC cocktail.

The rise of punk in our nation’s capital gets chronicled in Salad Days.

Was Led Zeppelin’s 1969 show at the Wheaton Youth Center in rural Maryland an urban legend, or just the smallest and worst prompted show of their career? Carl F Gauze discovers the truth is not that easy.

The Quality Companion stockpiles an embarrassment of riches for the serious comics fan.

Finally, a DVD release of the seminal Bon Scott-fronted AC/DC concert film Let There Be Rock.

The four issues collected in Twomorrows latest Jack Kirby Collector are packed with interviews, pseudo-scholarly/analytical pieces, and metric tons of artwork from comics’ favorite “working-class kid from the Bronx.”

An online review of a book of people talking about people talking about comics online. Carl F Gauze slams into a postmodern wall.

The inside skinny on collectors of original comic book art and Carl F Gauze’s take on the guys who dig pictures of men who wear their underwear outside their pants.

If Gorilla Grodd , Captain Cold , the Pied Piper , and Captain Boomerang live on your bookshelf, you’ll be wanting this in-depth history of The Flash , from historians and the people who created him.

Bruce Phillips gets his fingertips all inky poring over the latest Rough Stuff.

Hey kid! Wanna write comics? Carl F Gauze suggests you read Danny Fingeroth’s collection of interviews and articles from Write Now!, a magazine for Super Hero cartoonists, first.

Who was the Blue Beetle? Matthew Moyer finds that the back story for this overlooked superhero contains more mystery and intrigue than Charles Foster Kane’s. Rosebud? Scarab?

The talent of comics artist Kevin Maguire is nothing to bwa-ha-ha about. Shaun Corley gives us the rundown on the latest edition of the Modern Masters series, which runs down Maguire’s career.

Somewhere between comic fandom and pop culture research lives this exhaustive (but not exhausting) look at the first superhero club, the Justice Society of America. Matthew Moyer ponders the membership.

It’s just a comic, right? Wrong. Matthew Moyer examines this anthology from the celebrated fanzine Alter Ego, full of comics passion, knowledge and treasures.

It’s easy to appreciate a comic artist’s craft. But what goes on behind the scenes? How does a Great One get to be… well, Great? Matthew Moyer gets the scoop on Walter Simonson in the latest installment of TwoMorrow’s Modern Masters series.

Artist and editor Dick Giordano headed DC Comics’ editorial department through the ’80s. By a strange coincidence, that happens to have been the decade of Ben Varkentine’s “golden age” as a fan, so he’s here to get filled in on all the details.

Erik Truffaz at La Maison Francaise in Washington, DC on April 29, 2002. Concert review by Bill Campbell.

Herbie Hancock at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC on March 28, 2002. Concert review by Bill Campbell.