Kathy Griffin

Pop quiz: Whose photo album boasts snapshots of their grinning mug smooshed against Regis Philbin, Carmen Electra, “Bachelor Bob,” Andy Dick, Diana Ross, and half the Backstreet Boys—and a shot of them running topless down an airplane aisle with a “Blur Your Gender” T-shirt flapping behind?

Well, Queen of the D-List Kathy Griffin’s, of course. (We officially challenge you to find another photo page on the great wide Interweb that fits that bill).

The Emmy Award-winning, reality-show-fiending, brash redhead has made appearances in more than 35 movies and 50 TV shows—many of them forgettable. But she’s cashed in on her Hollywood outsider status with her comedy, and taken the world by storm.

Her recent HBO specials include snappy titles like Kathy Griffin: She’ll Cut a Bitch and Kathy Griffin: Whores on Crutches. Earlier this year she showed off her “vajazzling” at a televised poolside pap smear. So we hesitate to guess what could happen when she hits the stage live in Albany this weekend.

Kathy Griffin will bring her bold and brassy laughs to the Palace Theatre (19 Clinton Ave., Albany) on Sunday (Nov. 7) at 7 PM. Tickets are $28-$98. For more info call 465-4663; to purchase tickets call (800) 745-3000.

Albany Pro Musica

Albany Pro Musica will celebrate their 30th anniversary season this year with an impressive lineup of concerts, and this week’s offering promises to be a choral-cinema spectacular of the highest order.

“Back by popular demand,” the full chorale, soloists and Albany Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra will take to EMPAC’s acoustically optimized arc of a concert hall to perform Richard Einhorn’s Voices of Light, an inspired oratorio he composed in 1994 as a score to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 landmark film The Passion of Joan of Arc.

A screening of the film accompanies the live performance, or vice versa depending on your proclivities. And according to Albany Pro Musica, in that combination, “the raw emotional power of the film reaches new depths.”

Voices of Light & The Passion of Joan of Arc will be performed in EMPAC’s concert hall (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy) on Saturday (Nov. 6) at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $30 for preferred seating, $25 general admission, $10 students. For more info, or to purchase preferred seating, call Albany Pro Musica at 438-6548. To purchase general admission tickets, call the EMPAC box office at 276-3921.

Amos Lee

When you’ve got a voice like Amos Lee does, you don’t have to play that self-promotion game. Famous people just line up to get close to you. Lee was barely out of college, working as an elementary schoolteacher, when none other than Blue Note Records picked up his first EP, garnering the attention of Norah Jones, who took him on tour, which caught the attention of Paul Simon, Bob Dylan . . . on down the line.

These days, he’s one of Philadelphia’s biggest musical exports, dealing in that funky acoustic R&B and soul that sounds so good with a cheesesteak in your hand. Guy can play a mean guitar, but, man, that voice. His fourth album, Mission Bell, is slated for release in January, and features the longest celebrity lineup of vocal talent yet: Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Calexico, etc.

He’ll be joined by Mutlu, no minor Philly talent himself.

Amos Lee will play the Egg (Empire State Plaza, Albany) tonight (Thursday, Nov. 4) at 7:30 PM. Tickets are $28. For more info, call 473-1845.