Eighteen years! Hard to believe this august publication is old enough to vote, run for office and be drafted into military service. But there you go. We’re still too young to drink, but our 18th anniversary will be celebrated at a bar anyway — Radio Radio — with performances from NUVO-friendly bands Beta Male and Hey Hey Melodica, and the destructive divas of the Naptown Roller Girls.

On the slightly sedate side, you’ve got Hey Hey Melodica, the gang whose smoky and laid-back sounds hearken back to an alternative before alternative was commercial. They’ve been working on a new album and plan an East Coast tour later this year. “NUVO has been supportive of us for a while, a few certain staff members especially,” vocalist Anthoney Scroggins says. “It was really nice to be asked to play such a big anniversary show for them. We’re definitely looking forward to a fun night.”

Beta Male — about whom you’ll hear more in future issues — is, to put it rather gently, made up of absolute lunatics, which is why they’re probably my favorite band of the moment. They put on a dynamic and bombastic stage show — the kind where you never know if they might actually blow up the stage — and God only knows what they’ve got in mind for this weekend. Leave it to singer/keyboardist/interpretive dancer Allison Hazel to sum it up: “There will be feathers ruffled, middle fingers defiantly raised. There will be hula-hoops. There will be freedom with a great big pinch of glitter. Let’s just say we’ve been watching a lot of old Jackson 5 and Ziggy Stardust videos on YouTube and reading a lot of Huey Newton.”