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After 33 years in business, the landmark New York City nightclub CBGB will close its doors for good at the end of October. This week, the seminal black punk-reggae band Bad Brains said goodbye to the club with three reunion shows.

The adventurous Pacifica Quartet approaches Mozart string quartets as if they were miniature operas. The group taps into the lyrical and dramatic sides of Mozart's so-called "Dissonance" quartet in the studios of WGBH in Boston.

From the late '70s to the early '90s, the zany dance-rock outfit did the "Rock Lobster," had its own "Private Idaho" and got together at the "Love Shack." Now, the band has produced Funplex — its first new album in 16 years.

Argentina probably isn't the first place you think of for groundbreaking electro-pop music, but for the past several years it's been turning out a number of stunning recordings from some of the genre's most inventive artists. The brother-sister duo Isol and Zypce (that's ee-SOLE and ZIP-see) is about to release one of the year's more curious CDs: a spectacular headphone album, with a richly layered world of blips and clicks, called Sima.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) made a musical splash Memorial Day weekend in a performance with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra; it was later posted in a video clip on YouTube. Alexander performed a few tunes at the piano in NPR's Studio 4A.

The great soul singer recorded his new album, Lay It Down, with some of today's biggest R&B artists and hip-hop producers. But he says the music is still about "love, love, love."

Rock legend Ray Davies joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to discuss his career with the '60s British band The Kinks, and as a solo artist. He also describes a harrowing incident in New Orleans that nearly cost him his life.

Cold War Kids' second album, Loyalty to Loyalty, is based on the work of a little-known philosopher named Josiah Royce, who challenged Nietzsche's positions in the early 1900s. The art-pop band straddles the line between both philosophies in atypical rock fashion.

Canadian producer, singer and songwriter Koushik is 100 percent do-it-yourself. His wildly diverse sound stretches across psychedelia, pop, soul and hip-hop. He talks about his new album Out My Window, being a math nerd and keeping his head clear.

At 26, Liang Wang is new on the job as principal oboe with the New York Philharmonic. He makes his own reeds, spending hours each day hand-crafting the essential equipment with incredible precision.