Not to scare you, Philly bands, but the future? It's on you. We are, we were, the city of 2005. Meaning we could be over in 2006.

But it'll be bands, records and venues—remember Seattle's grunge epoch?—that make or break our standing.

You're fucked.

I can help.

Even though I don't make it out to all your gigs (I'm not your mom), and even though I don't talk to you when I see you, I love you and want the world for you. Some of you. The rest—not so much.

So here's my guide to the future, real and imagined, and the people, trends and places to glom onto to ensure your own future. Real or imagined.

First Looks: Of course there's the due-by-summer House of Blues at 15th and Chestnut streets. And the stretching of the TLA on South Street. (The redux centers on a revamped balcony, now being built, that will extend over the crowd and accommodate another 150 peeps. This, along with an expansion of the downstairs audience/bar area, is due for February.)

Don't forget Johnny Brenda's at Girard and Frankford avenues. The tin-ceilinged tap room, according to co-owner William Reed, is going full steam ahead with plans for a 200+ venue with an opera-house balcony, wrought-iron railing, indirect lighting and Deco glass block. "Hate to compare, but it'll look like a mini Troc, or the Jazz Café in Paris," says Reed, who along with partner Paul Kimport and new JB operations manager Brandy Hartley (noted for working with M. Night Shyamalan) will control-freakishly book JB's, with occasional assists by R5 and Heyday. Reed wants Fringe-y cabaret stuff as well as frequent performances by the indie suspects from Audible and Mazarin who hang at his bar.

Rude White Rap: Though the Big Gay Al of hardcore hip-hop (V.I.P.) is in hiding, Plastic Little and The Yah Mos Def got enough dirty beats and dastardly self-referential brio (songs about Major Taylor, Scott Beiben) to make the natives nod. Drink the gin. Forget the juice.

Zigaboo: Stop telling me I enthuse too much about our most energized avant-punk-funk-Last-Poet-like-ensemble: Phil Moore Browne. Along with a brand new CD that'll send 'em to the top of the hard/hop heap, they'll give you Vitamin Water if you're noice to them. (Tell Fiddy to make a carb-free brand.)

We Like You. But We Luuuuv the Other You: Lenola hangers-on (it's been quite a while since you heard that name, eh?) should welcome Like a Fox, the glambient band from Jay Laughlin and Dave Grubb. We dig Quentin Stoltzfus' Mazarin. But hearing him in Blood Feathers and Proko: whoa-oh. Also, we're digging Kurt Heasley again. His Lilys CD, the buzzing priss-poppy Everything Wrong Is Imaginary, is a producer's dream, what with Tommy Joyner and Mike Musmanno in the band. And we're into the former Lilys/Low Numbers who make HiSoft and its brilliant MBV-ish debut EP, Amateur.

Good Thursday: I'm thrilled about Mike Trombley and Ron Morelli's all-things-Larry-Levan tribute Paradise (second Thursdays at Key West). But I'm doubly psyched about the return of DJ Rahsaan and Co.'s reggaeton bash Esta Bien (last Thursdays at Silk City). Two too rarely heard sounds—the garage house of Gwen Guthrie and the frenetic world-hop of Tego Calderone—at a bar near you.

Hippie Hop: That's the post-jam ethos you'll be swaying to courtesy Joey Mahoney's Songspot.org booking and pals Simple & Supreem, Disciples of Groove and Blue Sinatra.

Done: Teary Bigger Lovers and The Snow Fairies—the guys that recorded my 11th fave local CD, Get Married—broke up? I say Cordalene'll split in 2006. Some'd say I'm predicting that because they exorcised Jim McGuinn from the band and I'm still pissed: They'd be right.

Old Guys You Know Nothing About: While you wait for that Notekillers CD, look for local ambi-analogue synth minimalists Experimental Products (Mark Wilde and Michael Gross) to resurge: Their '80s vinyl (Prototype and two EPs) are worth hundreds on eBay. Their "Glowing in the Dark," was re-released by DJ Hell's Gigolo label in 2005 and the original outfit is updating its drum 'n' synth kit as we speak.

Five stupid things that will happen in 2006:

• With Todd Rundgren forgoing his solo career (after the wild new DVD, Liars Live) to join The Cars, look for other old guys to join like-minded new wave bands: Kenn Kweder and Orange Juice, Robert Hazard and Rank & File, Joey Sweeney and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
• If you don't love Lauren Hart's folk-jazz-rocky 5 Lifetimes, her husband Todd "La Colombe" Carmichael'll yank his monopolized caffeine treasures right out of your mug.
• Rich Wexler will turn Philly Communist, offering local bands who sell their CDs in his Green Line Café 60 percent of the profits.
• With its 35th anniversary upon us, every sound—ringtones, doorbells, that ringing when you snort cheap blow—will come from Gamble, Huff and Philadelphia International.
• If they can't snag a casino, Fishtowners David E. Williams, Espers and co. will just open a spook house.