Like a lot of bands, I Was Totally Destroying It doubles as an occasional tribute band. But IWTDI's tribute-band alter ego is loads cooler than most. They call themselves I Was Totally Destroying U2, and they've got their target subject down perfectly -- especially frontman John Booker's conjuring of Bono's histrionics.

"I put on that stupid leather jacket and the shades, and it helps get the character going," Booker says. "I have a blast with it, and the whole thing is a lot of fun. It also helps fund I Was Totally Destroying It, which we need. We just had a crazy tour. A window got smashed out in the van."

The next I Was Totally Destroying U2 show is scheduled for Jan. 2 at Raleigh's Tir Na Nog. In the meantime, you really should catch IWTDI's original-band incarnation because the group's new album is fantastic. A fine place would be tonight at Duke Coffeehouse, as part of Durham's Troika Music Festival. See the story in Friday's paper; and for some audiovisual content, check their bit from the 2008 edition of Eight Great Local Acts or their recent Studio B performance.

Depending on your feelings about the man and his work, Dane Cook doing seven-and-a-half straight hours of standup comedy might be way too much or not nearly enough. He really has been on a stage for that long, too. It happened on Jan. 1, 2008, when Cook set the endurance record at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles.

"It was not planned," Cook said in a recent phone chat. "I actually got coaxed onstage. I'd just stopped in to say hello to the owner, and he asked me to go on. 'Nah,' I said, 'I'm tired, taking a few weeks off.' 'Oh, c'mon, just five mintues.' 'Well...I do have this funny idea. What the hell, I'll get up there.'"

Cook got on a roll, and that five minutes stretched to three hours. That was when he says he tried to break it off -- but the crowd said no. Then someone in the audience mentioned Dave Chappelle, who held the Laugh Factory's endurance record of a bit more than six hours.

"It became this fun little challenge," Cook said. "I never left the stage or sat down, I wanted to stand the whole time. And I sent a guy out to buy food for everybody. By the next morning, I'd told every joke I ever knew and talked to everybody in the crowd. I knew them all and found the humor in everybody's lives. Seven-and-a-half hours later, I felt like a vampire walking out into sunlight."

For lots more talk from Cook, and details about his Sunday performance in Raleigh, see the interview in Friday's paper.

Leonard Cohen played Durham Tuesday night and it didn't suck, not even a little. Click through for all the details.

The down side of Valient Thorr becoming a big deal beyond the Triangle's borders is that the band is almost never here anymore -- they're on the road more or less constantly. Fortunately, they're also thoughtful enough to send the occasional video postcard, including their latest for "Tomorrow Police."

Looks like donating a kidney hasn't slowed frontman Herbie Abernethy down any...

While you're waiting around for trick-or-treaters tonight, tune in radio station WKNC, 88.1-FM. The station is airing an original production of "War of the Worlds" -- which caused a full-on panic when Orson Wells did a version in New York back in 1938. It starts at 7:00 tonight.

A couple of years back, Django Haskins was casting about for a name for his latest band -- which is harder than you'd think because, as he notes, a lot of them are already taken. So he turned to one of his idols, Leonard Cohen, and an album title. And so The Old Ceremony was born. The name refers to Cohen's 1974's "New Skin for the Old Ceremony."

"I was looking for touchstones, musical or otherwise, for the atmosphere we hoped to create with our music," Haskins says. "Leonard Cohen was one of those touchstones. To people familiar with his stuff, I hope that conjures up a certain aesthetic or attitude about life as well as music. We're trying to create something a little bit broader than the traditional guitar-rock group, and that was one of the things that appealed. And there's also a sense of aspiring to that level of lyric-writing, even though I know I'll never reach that. But you've gotta aim high."

For more about Cohen's music, see the story in Friday's paper, which previews his show in Durham next week.

On the one hand, it must frustrate Roger Daltrey to go around doing solo tours like the one that played Durham Wednesday night. Whenever he'd fire up a Who song, everybody in the crowd would jump up, rock out and cheer wildly. And then whenever he did one of his solo songs or a cover, everybody would sit right back down. It was yet another example of the dilemma that singers from legendary bands face when they go solo.

Still, being the pragmatic sort, Daltrey probably didn't mind too much. He was singing, people were listening and all was right with the world. By the end of the set, his shirt was open and he was swinging the microphone around just like old times. That moment at the beginning of "Baba O'Riley" when the drums kick off and lock in with the synthesizer squiggle and the anthemic piano riff, just as Daltrey made like a lasso with his microphone -- it just doesn't get any better than that.

For me, the high point actually came from one of Daltrey's sidemen. That was Simon Townshend, Pete's younger brother and longtime guitarist in Daltrey's solo band, who took a star turn as vocalist on the manic ode to being in motion, "Goin' Mobile." Nailed it just perfectly, too.

Pop stars are never more present than immediately after their deaths, and Exhibit A is Michael Jackson -- whose posthumous concert movie, "This Is It," arrives today in the Triangle. There's a long and storied tradition of such artifacts, too. For more, see the story in Wednesday's paper.

There really is something new to report about them just about every day right now. One fun detail is that cyclist Lance Armstrong is a big fan, if his twitter feed is to be believed:

"I'm thinking this new Avett Brothers is pretty damn good."

Also, tune in tonight's episode of "One Tree Hill," which is entitled "I and Love and You" -- after the title track of the aforementioned "pretty damn good" new Avetts album. It plays at the end of the show. That's tonight at 8 on the CW Network.

ADDENDUM: Spin review of Avetts show in Nashville.

Everybody in the ink-stained-wretch racket has a bucket list of stories we'd like to do while we still can. And Sunday's paper has one I've wanted to do for years and years, about a group I jokingly call the "Carolina Movie Mafia." It consists of a dozen or so UNC-Chapel Hill alumni, many of whom had some connection to the Triangle music scene at some point. Nowadays, they're out in Los Angeles doing behind-the-camera work in film and television on some pretty high-profile projects.

Now I've been doing bits and pieces of this story from afar for years. But the piece I wanted to do required going out to Los Angeles to spend some time amongst the UNC crew on their turf -- and the paper's ongoing budget austerity meant I'd have to pay my own way. I kept waiting for the "right" time to do it, and there were always reasons not to go.

Finally, I decided to just pick a time to show up out there and do it. I scrounged up enough freelance work to cover travel expenses for the trip, flew out to Los Angeles last month and started racking up miles on the rental car (more than 600 in a week). While I was at it, I also did this story from out there.

So, finally, here it is -- lots longer than what we usually run nowadays, and yet it could've easily been even longer. Nevertheless, I hope you like. Me, I'm just happy to get to cross one more off the list.