The Key

Ted Leo—the hardest-working man in indie-rock—turned more than a few heads late last month when he posted a massive missive on his website about the promises and perils of making money off one’s art. It wasn’t the first time in history that a musician debated profiting from his hard work—but it might have been the first time someone did so by publishing a rambling, 3200-word monologue that touched on everything from writing for late-’90s fanzines to working with Lookout! Records’ press department to booking tours from pay-phones on the side of the road. By the end, Leo came to the conclusion that 1) money=good, and 2) the best way to make some money was to get into the musical theater business; he then announced that, the following week, he would reveal the new project, which he had already completed. (Cue one giant “WTF?!” from the Internet.)

The good news is that it was all just a big joke, and you won’t be seeing “one of those half-assed musicals that’s going to cheapen [his] music and embarrass everyone involved” (such as Green Day’s American Idiot Broadway musical). The better news is that the “completed project” is actually the video for “Bottled In Cork” off this year’s The Brutalist Bricks, which—in addition to being pretty funny video for a pretty amazing song—featured Philly-born comedian Paul F. Tompkins. The bad news is that, well, we kind of wanted to see The Brutalist Bricks: The Musical. Instead, we’ll just have to settle for a set of catchy indie-rock pulled from the eight top-notch albums and EPs he’s released under the Pharmacists moniker in the last decade. Ted Leo performs with Screaming Females (who celebrate the release of their brand-new album, Castle Talk, during tonight’s show), Women, and Dry Feet at 7:30 p.m. at The Ox.