Where the Bands Are: This Week in Live Music and Concert News

January 8, 2026

AI Design by Kim Miers

(Have a cool concert or interesting event you know about? Email all the info and links to jeffmiersmusic@gmail.com to be considered for inclusion in Where the Bands Are.)

Hey there, music-loving friends. Here’s to a positive 2026.

A little bit of music-nerd news…

Although this is the music industry’s annual slow period, one industry behemoth did make a bit of news on New Year’s Day. MTV celebrated our new trip around the sun by pulling the plug on itself.

I find this notable primarily because I was under the impression that the channel had bitten the dust decades back. But as it turns out, MTV was still showing (at least some) music videos right up until 2011, despite the fact that its cultural relevance expired back in, oh, let’s say 1993, just because I’m feeling generous.

I stopped caring a long time ago, but hearing this news put me in a reflective mood, and I cast my thoughts back in time, toward an era when music videos actually meant something, and MTV – despite its blatantly corporate-capitalist agenda – occasionally did something daring, broke new bands and artists, and included some hip stuff in its steady rotations. Remember the show 120 Minutes, where MTV stuffed all the weird stuff the bean counters found too odd for prime time? I remember seeing a video from Bob Mould’s first post- Husker DU album, Workbook, one hazy late evening. There were other worthwhile bands and artists I was exposed to through the show, as well. Alternative music had an actual home on 120 Minutes. I wasn’t embarrassed to watch it regularly.

Obviously, that changed, largely with the advent of ‘reality television,’ one of the scourges of the late 20th century and, in my view, at least partly responsible for the mess we find ourselves in as I write this. (That’s another story, and it’s one you can find some great writers and reporters covering right here on Substack, should you be inclined to ruminate on our end days. Sorry. That’s a little dark, I know. )

Anyway, I digress, because that’s what I do, and I’ve gotten good at it, mostly out of self defense.

My point was (is), MTV has finally been taken off of life support, though I’m sure some greedy genius will find a way to revive it, probably as some sort of streaming service meant to rival Spotify. Yeah. Just what the world needs.

MTV was great. Then it was gross. Then it hung around well past its sell-by date.

Ahhh, but they did one thing right.

When the channel signed off, it did so by airing the same video with which it first went live, back in 1981 – ‘Video Killed the Radio Star,’ by The Buggles.

I thought that was pretty cool. It convinced me to break out my vinyl copy of The Buggles’ The Age of Plastic, and lo and behold – the album has aged incredibly well. This is how I like my pop music – quirky, edgy, melodic, eager to push the boundaries of the technology of the age. The band’s Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes were eager to do just that at the dawn of the ‘80s, and both went on to have major impacts on the evolution of pop and rock in the time since.

If you’re suffering from the January blahs, why not give The Age of Plastic a spin? It’s such a cool album. And hey, if you’re interested, check out Trevor Horn’s abundantly awesome autobiography, Adventures in Modern Recording. Both offer a pleasant diversion, one that might actually feel like blessed relief right about now.

Alright, then. Let’s get out there and support our local music scene during this slow time! Here’s a few things happening this week and in the not-too-distant future…