This article in today's Tribune poses a decent Friday Music thread question. What band do you most regret not seeing before THEY were dead and what band do you most want to see live before YOU are dead?

Number one would be seeing the New York Dolls at the Oscar Wilde Room of the Mercer Arts Center before it fell down.

There was a show listed in the Punk Rock Diary book that haunted me a bit. It was very early, like 1973 or 74 and was a set by the original Modern Lovers with Suicide and Jayne County.

Would've loved to have seen Pere Ubu at the Viking in Cleveland, when Peter Laughner was in the group. Really would have liked to see one of The Electric Eels legendarily combative shows there too.

Television when Richard Hell was still in the band.

That early punk tour through the midlands of Britian with the Sex Pistols, Damned, Clash and Buzzcocks all together.

When you go to the Fillmore the old posters there sport some incredible lineups: Moby Grape and Buffalo Springfield and The Byrds; Sly and the Family Stone and Tower of Power. Stuff like that. Moby Grape was an awesome force live, and Sly even more so.

One I passed on and kind of regret? Benefit for the rape victims that Novoselic put together: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, L7 (I think - maybe Babes in Toyland) at the Cow Palace. All your grunge needs in one place.

Tom Waits tour after Raindogs with Marc Ribot in the band.

The T.A.M.I. Show. The Big TNT Show.

Tom Waits tour after Raindogs with Marc Ribot in the band.

Ha! I saw this, and it was great.

He closed with a cover of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag". And did a long solo segment at the piano (including "Tom Traubert's Blues").

He closed with a cover of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag".

Tom was a big R&B fan growing up (in fact his first band was a soul cover group). He saw James Brown and the Famous Flames in '62, which is another show worth regretting missing.

This blog has the Dresden Dolls covering Queens of the Stone Age, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs covering Bjork.

This is where we found all the "Last Christmas" covers isn't it?

This is where we found all the "Last Christmas" covers isn't it?

Where I found them, yep.

This description intrigues and horrifies me:

Imagine Aphex Twin if he still played Dungeons & Dragons (the dice, dungeon master and fake swords variety), had Legolas's ears, the giant feet of a Hobbit and a serious obsession with fungus. Now meet Wisp aka New York via Middle Earth's Reid Dunn, one of the most talented artists to emerge from the electronic net-label scene and a man who's mission statement reads something like, "Conquer, destroy, dress in medieval garb."

Well, at least when he performs he gives you something more to look at than a dude diddling with a laptop. It's not much, but it's something.

Hec, have you gotten something in the mail from me yet?

Gig I was in the proper city to see but didn't know about and totally regret now: Blues Brothers and Cab Calloway at The Palladium while filming The Blues Brothers movie.

Gig I was too cheap to go to and regret: The Pogues at The Palace in Hollywood. Cait O'Riordan was still playing with them. I thought the ticket price was too high and wanted to see them at a smaller club. I had no idea how they were going to go up in popularity, nor that Cait would leave the band. I saw The Pogues a couple times subsequently, but never with that original line-up.

Artists I wish I had been placed/timed correctly to see: Hugely long list, but the semi-modern one would include Asha Bhosle in her prime, Beatles while performing in Merseyside clubs, Kate Bush, Tom Waits in that Rain Dogs period...

Totally bitchin' gig I was lucky to see: Benefit gig to spring Tom Jimmy and his wife from jail in OK. Cathay de Grande, Hollywood. Phranc, Black Flag, Fear, The Blasters, X, Tom Waits, and The Rhythm Pigs. The Minutemen might have been on the bill as well, but I'd have to check my archives for the flyer.

Another lucky gig: The Fleshtones at The Edge in San Jose, CA. In the mid-90s sometime. Hardly anyone showed up for the gig and the band didn't let it phase them at all. They used the extra space to allow them to jump on and off the stage, walk through the audience, shimmy with us, etc. Kicked ass.

I got to go to the first Amnesty International concert (its the second one that was a publicised bfd). Bono and Sting did an Invisible Sun duet and... The Police reunited. It was sublime. That tour might have been the last time they did it and they didn't do it at all the shows.

Gig I was too cheap to go to and regret: The Pogues at The Palace in Hollywood. Cait O'Riordan was still playing with them.

Ouch. That hurts just reading it. But huzzah on The Fleshtones! Peter Zaremba is the floppy haired man! (Keith Streng is also the man. The man with the guitar and the strong arrangement skills.)