The Crystal Method's favorite things

Coming in second place to pop star Lady Gaga ain't half bad. Earlier this year, the Crystal Method saw its fourth studio album, "Divided by Night," debut on Billboard's electronic music chart at No. 2 -- behind Gaga. To which one-half of the Crystal Method, Ken Jordan, responded: "Lady Gaga shouldn't even be in the electronic charts!"

He would know. For more than a decade, Jordan and partner Scott Kirkland have been the American standard for electronic music. The Crystal Method's penchant for hard-hitting breakbeats (spiked with rock, rap and funk influences) has put its music in more video games and movie trailers than the guys can remember.

The duo will perform a DJ set Friday at Epic in downtown Minneapolis. Earlier this week, Jordan talked by phone from Los Angeles about some of his favorite and least favorite things.

• Favorite movie score of all time: "Once Upon a Time in the West" by Ennio Morricone. It's just fantastic. It's the best spaghetti-western soundtrack. I would love to score a western. Another one is "Fight Club" by the Dust Brothers. And I really love "Kill Bill," which was done by the RZA.
• A video game you hated that your music appeared in: I know our music has been in some military games and I'm not crazy about war.
• DJ duo you would pay to see: Plump DJs (from the United Kingdom) and Donald Glaude and DJ Dan. It's not the style of music that I make, but it's really funky and danceable.
• A 2009 song you wish you had made: (After three minutes of deep thought) I'm gonna say, "Beep, Beep, Beep [Crookers mix]" by Tiga. It's just really hard, but pretty.
• Favorite city to play: I'll tell you what, one of our fondest memories of Minneapolis was on one of our first big tours. We had a really early show on a Sunday. We thought it was going to be a disaster. Then the bus pulls up to First Avenue and the line was around the block. Music fans are really, really good in Minneapolis, and we always love playing there.

• Tom Horgen

Merry tide of shows

As is often the case, the days between Christmas and New Year's Eve are filling up with gigs by locally reared acts we don't see much throughout the year. The Gear Daddies will reunite once again at the Fine Line on Dec. 26, and word is that's the only one they're doing (Martin Zellar, however, also has a rare solo gig Dec. 13 at the Varsity). The Bad Plus will return to the Dakota to play six shows total over three nights, starting on Christmas. And emo-ish rockers Quietdrive will wind down a rather rocky year -- in which it split with one of its guitarists and its label Epic Records but self-released a new EP -- with a concert at the Varsity on Dec. 26.

• Chris Riemenschneider

Winter on Seven's rooftop

Out of bankruptcy and clamoring for your business, Seven in downtown Minneapolis has found a way to make its best asset available year-round. It's no secret that the ultralounge's rooftop bar has always been its star attraction. The Skybar usually shuts down during the winter, but owner David Koch has erected a large white tent (heated, too) to shield bargoers from the elements.

• Tom Horgen

Herkimer turns 10

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Herkimer is partying all day long on Saturday. The Lyn-Lake brewpub will offer $1 beers, food specials, trivia and other fun stuff.

• Tom Horgen

One more night to get it right

"A big town's got its losers, a small town's got its vices." Those lyrics from the Replacements' song "Answering Machine" strongly resonated last Friday night at First Avenue, when the small-town-cliquish Twin Cities music scene came together in a big way to celebrate its most legendary losers.

Sung by Semisonic's Dan Wilson, "Answering Machine" wound down a four-hour tribute to the Replacements that climaxed with an all-star revival of the Minneapolis quartet's most seminal album "Let It Be," which turned 25 this year. (Predictably, none of the surviving 'Mats showed.)

"Let It Be" epitomized the transition from angsty, punk-rocking youth to bluer, ballad-writing adulthood. The singers who revived it Friday ranged in age from college-age songstresses Sarah Nienaber (of Gospel Gossip) and Caroline Smith to 50-something vets Dale T. Nelson (Otto's Chemical Lounge) and Curtiss A. Ironically, it was the older guys who raised the hellfire in the punkier tunes ("Favorite Thing" and "Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out"), while the kids handled the lighter fare, "Sixteen Blue" and "Androgynous."

Other highlights included the Honeydogs' Adam Levy's stormy handling of "Unsatisfied," Tapes 'N Tapes frontman Josh Grier's snarling "Black Diamond" (a Kiss cover featured on the album) and former Selby Tigress Arzu's smirking tear through "Gary's Got a Boner." The singers were stridently backed by a coolly mish-mash band led by guitarist Terry Eason and featuring Melismatics members Ryan Smith and Pony Hixon-Smith and Heiruspecs' Peter Leggett and Devon Gray.

Performances in the neighboring 7th Street Entry were especially all over the map. Rowdy garage-rocker Stook! rambled through ramshackle versions of "Kids Don't Follow" and "I.O.U." Quirky Patches & Gretchen played a sloppy set of non-Replacements tunes that seemed to be delivered entirely on a whim. But there were also some meticulously delivered tributes, such as Jeremy Messersmith's serene version of "Skyway," which the singer called "the best song about Minneapolis-St. Paul ever written."

"In some ways, that's very liberating to recognize," Messersmith added. In other words, if you can't beat the Replacements at their game, you might as well join 'em.

• Chris Riemenschneider

So It Goes splits

One of the best-loved dance-rock bands around town, So It Goes is going away after a farewell show Friday at the Fine Line with White Light Riot and the Strange Lights (9 p.m., $5). The band members say their split is not a "drama-toxic fallout" but just for the more boring moving-on personal reasons.

• Chris Riemschneider