This week in the Phoenix, Chris Faraone talks to PACEY FOSTER -- "the biggest nerd hip-hop historian in all of Boston" -- about Pacey's Boston chapter in the upcoming HIP HOP IN AMERICA: A REGIONAL GUIDE, and specifically about the early days of Boston hip-hop. Topics include Magnus Johnstone's groundbreaking WMBR show "Lecco's Lemma," extremely rare demos from Edo G's original Fresh To Impress Crew and Keithy E, who later had more success as GURU of Gang Starr.

VIDEO: Back home from Brooklyn, it's the Toothaches! Motion pictures and words by P. Nick Curran and Addison Post

Well past midnight on a Saturday, Rose Blakelock and Zimmy Ayer of THE TOOTHACHES descended through a busted basement bulkhead, past piles of scrap wood and discarded abike frames, into a single-lit room where several people sat Indian-style on a rotted carpet.

As many people are aware, PHOENIX and THE PHOENIX have many things in common. We're both huge French electro-pop stars, obviously. And when you Google either of us, you come up with results in Arizona. That's what you get for being famous.

Well, after years of people confusing us, getting each other's email, and admiring each other from afar, we've finally decided to prove to everyone that we're actually not the same person -- by showing up together in the same room at the same time.

As part of the all-consuming "best of the decade" (and "worst of the decade") fever currently afflicting every media outlet going these days, WFNX has been asking some of our favorite bands and artists about their favorites of the decade. Last Friday, for instance, Metric answered the question with a song (sort of - their favorite was actually Is This It? but "The End Has No End" appears on Room on Fire).

Click on the player above to stream tracks from bands featured in this week's music section, hand-picked by Boston Phoenix music editor Michael Brodeur. 

Among punk rock insiders, Mike Ciprari is best known for his Massachusetts-based boutique company SPJ Custom Drums, whose sick, blinged-out kits appear onstage with bands ranging from Gym Class Heroes and Every Time I Die to Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga. Now Ciprari’s moving from hardware into what the suits refer to as the content business: he’s playing drums in THRASH UNREAL, a pop-punk band whose hooks are as brazen and glammy as the infamous light-up kit Ciprari created for Panic! at the Disco.

^{The Dropkick Murphys aren't afraid to fight you.}

On sale Friday, November 27

The Wandas + The Willowz + Guillermo Sexo + Art Decade | Monday, December 14 at the Middle East upstairs, Cambridge | $9 | On sale Friday, November 27 at 10 am | http://www.ticketmaster.com

The Luxury + Conservative Man + Organ Beats | Saturday, January 9 at the Middle East upstairs, Cambridge | $9 | On sale Friday, November 27 at 10 am | http://www.

Just before taking the stage at the House of Blues on Friday, METRIC ran over to the Hard Rock in Boston to perform a quick unplugged set for an intimate, fans-only unplugged set. The surprise of the bunch was an acoustic rendition of their version of the Strokes' "The End Has No End."

As we just got through saying, we are firmly in year-end list season. And since it's 2009, we're also in decade-end list season (vote here! You're telling me you don't have an opinion on the Knife vs. LCD Soundsystem? Or In Rainbows vs. Veckatimest?). And all that's fine. It's kind of fun, even, sometimes.

You may already be getting sick of reading the obligatory Top Albums of the Decade list that every music editor, blogger, and social networker has been ordered to shove down your throat. Pitchfork's got 200. Paste's got 50, and so does NPR.

If these lists have anything in common, it's that they leave us wanting to throw in our own two cents.

When Cave In signed off at the tail end of 2006, we feared one of Boston’s greatest post-metal bands had perished before its prime. So when a couple of years later they snuck back into the studio and then unveiled a blistering new EP with a one-off show at Great Scott, we grabbed our cameras — just in case it turned out to be a last hurrah.

Holy. Shit. Thanks to MIKE GILL for lugging the camera to Jesus Lizard's reunion gig last night at the Dise. If you had questions about David Yow's ability to bring the mayhem, this should answer it. The difference between then and now? Now it takes him an extra 0.03 seconds to dive 20 feet into the audience.