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I like Christmas well enough, but what I really love are Christmas songs. “Do They Know It’s Christmas” rocked my brace-faced, junior high world. I bought the single, and raced home from Tredyffrin-Easttown Middle School every afternoon to catch the video on MTV. In high school, my brother, Chris, and I used to drive around…

At last year’s “A Family Holiday Benefit,” our raffle raised a few hundred extra bucks for 826NYC. At this summer’s Authentic Record’s Flood Relief Benefit, though, we tried a silent auction instead and raised a few thousand. And so, for Monday’s big “A Holiday Benefit, Vol. II,” we’ve got a bunch of cool silent auction…

My primary assignment was bartender, but I also played the role of backing vocalist, reporter, photographer and tambourinist. Most of the “A Holiday Benefit, Vol. II” gang got together to rehearse last night: Chris Abad, Tony Maceli, Jaime Allegre, Casey Shea, Jamie Leonhart, Bryan Dunn, Deena Goodman, Rosi Golan, Derek James, Dov Rosenblatt and Amber…

Comprised of eleven tracks from some of New York City’s finest emerging artists plus their collective cover of “Happy XMas (War Is Over),” A Holiday Benefit, Vol. II is a charity CD spanning the sacred (Brent Shuttleworth’s “The God In You”), the profane (Derek James & Kyle Paas’ “Mele Kalilkimaka”), plus plenty of rockin’ holiday…

At 7:16pm Wednesday night, I was working on a PowerPoint presentation entitled, “The Smart Bomb,” a very serious, very substantive, 16-page strategic document. At 7:17, the butterflies in my stomach overtook the synapses in my brain’s ability to make any further Q4 projections. There was a rock show to be had. So I left. Less…

As The A-Team’s Colonel John ‘Hannibal’ Smith used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” Benjamin Wagner “Live At Rockwood Music Hall” is available for download now! The online-only LP comes in two flavors: an 8-song iTunes version, and 10-song Authentic Records version. Tracks were culled from three separate performances over the…