For the past eight hours, Black Joe Lewis has been driving a van around Austin, Texas, delivering fish for $9 an hour -- and he could really use a beer. Seafood delivery is better than most of the crap jobs he's had, beginning with a stint at the pawnshop where he picked up his first guitar. "If I didn't have this band," Lewis says, "I'd probably be in jail."

St. Theresa moaned in ecstasy and called it seeing God.

A.C. Newman of New Pornographers and Torquil Campbell of Stars are both leaders of (mostly) Canadian indie pop groups. Both are known for fusing retro sounds with a modern sensibility, creating lushly orchestrated songs with a refreshingly straightforward appeal. And both have seen the impact of their creative vision upstaged by the same thing: the raw sex appeal of their female vocalists.

Concert-goers aching for full exposure to dangerous pop music needed look no further than New York's Knitting Factory on June 12 for sets by Architecture in Helsinki and the coyly-named Head of Femur.

The Libertines
Webster Hall
New York City