Both schools of thought have valid points. To wit:

The "Bands Are Its" Argument

The word band is singular. Saying "Collective Soul are playing the 9:30 on Aug. 27" is as ignorant as it is a sad statement of fact. Collective Soul is a band. The band is playing on Aug. 27. It would be incorrect to say "Only a group of people with unfashionable tribal arm-band tattoos are going to the Collective Soul show at the 9:30 on Aug. 27." The antecedent is not the plural noun people, it is group, which is singular. QED.

THE PROBLEM: Some bands have inconveniently plural names. To say "The Fiery Furnaces is playing the Black Cat on Aug. 8" is to create something almost as difficult to listen to as the new Fiery Furnaces album. So this rule requires a big honking exception: "The Fiery Furnaces are playing"; unfortunately, "the band is out of ideas." It can look odd to have both forms of address in one article.

The Bands Are Theys Argument

People write sentences like "Widespread Panic are opening for the Allman Brothers Band on Oct. 6 at Merriweather Post Pavilion" because people say "Widespread Panic are opening for the Allman Brothers Band on Oct. 6 at Merriweather Post Pavilion." It's unnecessarily stilted for a publication that doesn't address people by "Mr." or "Ms." on second reference to sound so stuffy. Moreover, consonance reigns in your music section. All bands are theys.

THE PROBLEM: Why should the music section follow different rules from the rest of the publication? Because musicians lack unfashionable tribal arm-band tattoos? "Apple are releasing a new iPhone?" "The government are declaring war?" Asinine! (INTERESTING SIDENOTE: In the United Kingdom, many ostensibly singular entities are referred to as plurals: "PARTICK Thistle have found a unique way of topping last season's headline-grabbing pink kit - by launching a new away strip in camouflague." Then again, the story misspells camouflage.)

My feeling:

Platform agnosticism is underratedoverrated [DOH! WISH I'D HAD A COPY EDITOR LOOK AT THIS]. Just as there are features that work better online and features that work better in print, the way you talk and the way you write can be different. Anyone who's ever heard me stammer through an interview would probably agree! I say option 1.

Gwyneth Paltrow, when asked by MTV UK if she had any advice for Two Lovers co-star Joaquin Phoenix regarding his fledgling hiphop career, responded, "[G]o live in the projects for a few years to get some authenticity, maybe."

Wonder if she'll offer that same wisdom to kids Apple and Moses should they ever want to follow in "Uncle" Jay-Z's footsteps.

Attention local urban sophisticates! You will not be able to visit an Apple Store in the District of Columbia anytime soon!

That scoop comes courtesy of the underappreciated, under-Webbed Current newspapers, which explained in last week's editions [PDF, see pp. 1 and 19] that plans for the District's first Apple Store are held up in a thicket of regulatory approvals, from the Georgetown advisory neighborhood commission and the Old Georgetown Board.

Earlier this month, both bodies rejected Apple's design---the third the company had submitted for the property at 1229 Wisconsin Ave. NW, a Georgetown storefront the company has owned for more than a year---because, as the Current's Carol Buckley puts it, it "would not fit into Georgetown."

Nay, not even this testimonial, delivered by an Apple project manager, can cut through the red tape: "Steve saw this design and really loves it."

That's Steve Jobs, people. Steve Jobs!

When will you hoity-toity bureaucrats wake up and realize that when Steve Jobs loves something, that means you must love it, too?

The Current describes said design as such: "a glass first story with a solid stone upper facade punctuated by a large window shaped like Apple's logo." The Old Georgetown Board, charged with preserving historic preservation standards, "felt that the design turned the building into a billboard," according to a spokesperson. The ANC, charged with being parochial nitwits, raised concerns that the latest design was "too modern."

What are you missing out on, obstructionist Georgetowners? Well, as the Washington Business Journal put it in 2007, you're missing the "one retail store that any town, and any developer, covets above all others. A store with such cachet that any retail center blessed enough to land one becomes instantly certified as a platinum-level shopping mecca, with clientele who are urbane, savvy and have loads of disposable income."

Georgetown, though, does not covet thy neighbor's urbane, savvy, income-disposing customers---got plenty of those already.

So suck it, Jobs! Shoulda gone to Chinatown!

Flickr photo by ping ping