Songkick posted this chart on their blog and it confirms something I’ve known since I moved to Austin: it’s one rockin’ little city.

The biggest surprise: no New York City.

We analyzed rock shows per capita in 2010–where rock includes everything from emo to indie. We hope you’ll agree that the list is surprising. Austin really earns its title of live-music capital of the world. It’s also nice to see Denver, Seattle, Portland, and Nashville on the list, since our hunch was that they’re hotbeds of good live music. (If our lean start-up nerdery has taught us anything, it’s measure measure measure and validate assumptions… Pity the fool who doesn’t use metrics.) The average rock show ticket prices are surprising too. Who knew it was so expensive to see a rock concert in Las Vegas?
To compute the Rock Score, Songkick analyzed its database of more than 1.8 million concerts for rock artists’ 2010 tour dates, where rock includes alternative, indie, punk, classic rock, metal, emo, and rock. Songkick analyzed which cities have the most rock concerts per capita, giving the top city, Austin, a score of 100. All other cities are then ranked against this score—Madison has 78% as many rock concerts per capita as Austin, New Orleans 57%, and so on.

The ten most rocking cities in the U.S. by number of live rock shows per capita include:

• Austin, Texas – 100 Rock Score; average ticket price of $23.30

• Madison, Wisconsin – 78 Rock Score; average ticket price of $13.05

• New Orleans, Louisiana – 57 Rock Score; average ticket price of $16.89

• Las Vegas, Nevada – 51 Rock Score; average ticket price of $62.76

• Denver, Colorado – 44 Rock Score; average ticket price of $33.24

• Milwaukee, Wisconsin – 38 Rock Score; average ticket price of $17.66

• The Twin Cities Minneapolis – 36 Rock Score; average ticket price of $11.36

• Seattle, Washington – 35 Rock Score; average ticket price of $11.75

• Portland, Oregon – 35 Rock Score; average ticket price of $10.33

• Nashville, Tennessee – 34 Rock Score; average ticket price of $20.13

 
Dangerous Minds pal Alan Stuart writes:

We here at One Long House have been working hard on a new non-profit venture, Women’s Voices Now, over the summer.  In their first effort for women’s rights, the team at Women’s Voices Now (with the help of us) created Women’s Voices from the Muslim World: a short film festival, which has received hundreds of film submissions from over 50 countries—the best of which highlight and comment on the lives of Muslim women in stories that might otherwise go unheard.

If there are any filmmakers out there, which there almost certainly are, you have until November 24 to submit to the festival (one week!), for a chance to win part of the $35k being awarded.

For non-filmmakers, there are scores of films to love, hate, donate, laugh at, comment on, share, and rate.

So far my fave follows the first and only female bus driver in Tehran, in a simple documentary that sheds light on something most of us would have no idea of.  If you don’t dig that one, there are films ranging in topic from slavery, dancing, smoking in the bathroom, and racism in French class, that might just tickle your fancy.

Below,” It is Written” by Mostafa Heravi (2006) “A woman in chador passionately dances to ancient Persian music. In Iran women are not allowed to dance in public. “It is Written” shows us how it would look like if a woman was allowed to dance. Heravi emphasizes the fate of womankind and the inescapable results of freedom of action.”
 

 
Rocky Flats Gear may provide the answer to maintaining privacy and protecting the crown jewels when going thru airport security with their selection of radiation and X-ray blocking undergarments.

Rocky Flats Gear™ is the US manufacture of a revolutionary flexible, attractive, lightweight, Lead (Pb) free, radiation shielding garments for individuals. Our emphasis is on protecting the traveling public, airline, medical, and security professionals from radiation generated by security and medical imaging equipment. Our novel products can protect tissues from a broadband of ionizing and non-ionizing radiation generated by imaging equipment and natural sources. For the first time, radiological shields are attractive, durable, affordable, fun, and comfortable to wear.

Background radiation has increased over the decades from atomic weapons testing, coal power plants (thorium-40 emissions), industrial accidents, medical/security imaging, and use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions putting us all at greater cancer risk and generational DNA damage. We are bathed in radiation from a variety of sources both natural and man-made, we are trying to do our small part to improve general health and enhance dignity.

A selection of undergarments are available with radiation blocker fig leaf, flowers or hand clasps are available on the Rocky Flats Gear site.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
 

 
With thanks to Betsy Burger!
 

 
Seldom heard early recording of a recently-out-of-college Lou Reed (with some uncredited musicians performing as “The Roughnecks”) during his pre-Velvet Underground days as a staff songwriter and performer at Pickwick International Records. This and three other tracks recorded in 1964, showed up on a 1979 Velvets bootleg called “the velvet underground, etc.” Obviously that’s his voice, and it most certainly sounds like Lou on guitar, too

This particular bootleg, which came from Australia, was once a record collector holy grail, along with its companion volume, “the velvet underground & so on.” Now you can easily find both of them on audio blogs.
 

 
iTunes who?

(via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk)

 
Unemployed Man and his trusty sidekick, Plan B (who was forced out of the workplace for being too expensive to insure by his former employer) have a word with the “Hero in Chief” in a panel taken from Erich Origen and Gan Golan’s The Adventures of Unemployed Man graphic novel.

Obama better have a fuckin’ Plan B is all I can say…

 
This is nothing too profound, in fact it’s rather goofy and quite amusing to see how giddy the two Johns are around each other, but I’ve never seen this before and have no idea as to its provenance. Anybody?

 
New Threadless t-shirt called “Heartless” by Juan Carlos Bueno.

(via Laughing Squid)

 
Bob Dylan’s handwritten letter of support for John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their travails with the U.S. Immigration Dept.

JUSTICE for John & Yoko!

John and Yoko add a great voice and drive to this country’s so called ART INSTITUTION / They inspire and transcend and stimulate and by doing so, only can help others to see pure light and in doing that, put an end to this mild dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off as Artist Art by the overpowering mass-media. Hurray for John & Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe. The country’s got plenty of room and space. Let John and Yoko stay!

Bob Dylan

Via Letters of Note

 
Here’s the classic Bad Brains video culled from 4 hours of footage shot over the course of 3 nights of performances at CBGB in December of 1982. Hardcore rock/reggae doesn’t get any better than this. While most of this footage has been available in bits and pieces of varying quality on Youtube, here’s the entire video with superb sound and visuals.

You can buy this on DVD from MVD Visual here.
 

 
More badness from Bad Brains after the jump…

 
Christian Nightmares writes:

‘20 Minutes To Go’: Possibly the most amazing, disturbing, and captivating video I’ve ever seen, about nuclear war, the end of the world, the Rapture, and life in Heaven. It’s a long video, but every second is worth watching!

The creative vision on offer here is bust-a-gust funny and distressing—yet joyful—at the same time. Notions of the afterlife are always pretty silly, if you ask me, but this one rivals Xanadu for schmaltz and poor costuming choices…

 
Rutland Weekend Television was the post-Monty Python series written by Eric Idle, with music by Neil Innes (of The Bonzo Dog Band fame). While many Python-related shows have been released on DVD (Do Not Adjust Your Set, Not the 1948 Show, Ripping Yarns, and of course, Fawlty Towers) it seems incredible that Rutland Weekend Televison—it’s where The Rutles came from, for god’s sake—has never seen the light of day. (At least on a retail level, because it’s quite easy to download on the Internet and there are entire episodes out there for streaming, too.)

Legend has it that John Cleese came up with the title (meant to evoke a tiny, tiny television network) and Eric Idle bought it from him for one pound. The show’s pretense to being made on a tight budget was no pretense, as Idle and Innes had been granted the smallest of budgets by the BBC. Much of the show was shot in the same threadbare studio and jokes often revolved around how low budget the entire affair was.

Idle told the Radio Times in 1975:

“It was made on a shoestring budget, and someone else was wearing the shoe. The studio is the same size as the weather forecast studio and nearly as good. We had to bring the sets up four floors for each scene, then take them down again. While the next set was coming up, we’d change our make-up. Every minute mattered. It’s not always funny to be funny from ten in the morning until ten at night. As for ad-libbing, what ad-libbing? You don’t ad-lib when you’re working with three cameras and anyway the material goes out months after you’ve made it.”

After the second series of Rutland Weekend Television, Eric Idle, of course, went on to mostly make a bunch of really shitty movies and “Spamalot.” Neil Innes went on to the marvelous Innes Book of Records TV series (also not on DVD but easy to download), children’s television and continues to make great, funny music.

It might be heresy to say this, but I actually find Rutland Weekend Television, generally speaking, to be a bit funnier than Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Maybe that’s just because I am over-familiar with the Monty Python material and Rutland Weekend Television is fresher-seeming to me. Maybe it’s because of what Neil Innes brought to the table (I’m a huge. huge Bonzos fanatic). In any case, I’m sure it will get battled out in the comments.

Below, Eric Idle barters his soul with a uncooperative Satan.
 

 
More Rutland Weekend Television after the jump…

 
These look like they were designed by a crazed interior decorator. Well, I guess you’re going to be in there forever, right?

Funeral directors in Germany are bidding for the pink pound - by launching coffins specially designed for gay customers.

The caskets feature homoerotic artwork on the outside and come with a series of tastefully luxurious plush designer interiors, say makers Mike Konigsfeld and Tom Brandl in Cologne, Germany.

 
Gay coffins lift lid on new market

(via Buzzfeed)

 
I’m no tie expert here, but these ties from Etsy seller Cyberoptix TieLab are pretty incredible. Their prices are super reasonable for screenprinted silk and microfiber neckties.
 

 
See more ties from Cyberoptix TieLab after the jump…

 
This, apparently, is the actual cover of the upcoming book by Glenn Beck and Dr, Keith Ablow. The message is confusing at best, don’t you think? What might these seven wonders be? I’ll admit that my morbid curiosity has been piqued, gentlemen! Who signed off on this turkey?

Quoting from the Public Road blog:

WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? Is Keith Ablow about to murder Glenn Beck and that small child? Do Keith Ablow and Glenn Beck share custody of the boy, and Keith Ablow just handed him over for a weekend visit with Daddy #2? Did Keith Ablow share seven secrets with Glenn Beck a few seconds ago that enabled him to get over his fear of frolicking with children? And why can’t Keith Ablow have his own small boy to play with?