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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.

"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.

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.