“The Rat,” released by the Walkmen in 2004, is one of the greatest songs of this century. So the S.S. was stoked to get an early listen to their killer upcoming disc, You & Me, which has an equally awesome banger, “In the New Year.” The Walkmen recorded You & Me over two years at home in New York, and also in New Jersey, Philly and Mississippi. “It’s always exciting to come up with a big rocker that just works,” singer Hamilton Leithauser says about “New Year,” “because we don’t even like playing rock that much. That could be the problem: We spend so many hours playing slow waltzes.” Other You & Me cuts (”Canadian Girl,” “Red Moon”) will sound amazing live when the band storms through the U.S. in August and September. “It took everything we had to finish the record,” the singer says. “But we’re really happy with it.” We asked Leithauser for the skinny behind “The Rat.” “We were just screwin’ around,” he says. Drummer Matt Barrick kicked off a breakneck groove, and the boys joined in. “We threw some chords on it, I wrote the words in five minutes, and then we all started slammin’!”

*****

We finally hit up one of Les Paul’s Monday-night gigs at the Manhattan jazz club Iridium. At age 93, Paul is still shredding. It was a special night — he welcomed his godson, Steve Miller, who sat in for “Fly Like an Eagle.” We hung with Miller during the gig (interrupted by a waiter saying, “Abracadabra!” while delivering a burger) and rolled back to his hotel, smoking stogies into the wee hours. Miller, 64, is rockin’ the USA once again, selling out sheds across the country. “The band gets hotter and hotter,” he says. “The shows have been a lot of fun.” Though he hasn’t released a fresh album since 1993’s Wide River, Miller told us of his desire to put out a new disc. After a trio of shows in March at the Fillmore in S.F., Miller was in the studio cutting 41 old blues gems. “Nothing but great tunes,” he says. “Like ‘Pretty Thing,’ by Bo Diddley; ‘No More Doggin’,’ by Rosco Gordon; and ‘The Walk,’ by Jimmy McCracklin. I hope to finish it up this fall.”

*****

We usually hike out to Shea Stadium to see our beloved Mets, but it was also rad to see Billy Joel, who offered a master class in how to rock (or whatever you want to call it) a ballpark. With our laminate, we got to sit in the home dugout, peruse the antiquated clubhouse and hold court with the maestro himself. In his dressing room before the show, Joel sang the praises of guest star John Mayer — “He’s got such a fluid, Hendrix-y kind of touch” — then he told the Smoking Section about an unfulfilled dream. “One of my fantasies is to play the Hammond B-3 organ in a band,” he says. “Because that’s my ax, the Hammond. Not the piano. I play songs on the piano — I’m the fuckin’ Piano Man — but I really love to play the organ.”

[Photo: Fergusson/Getty]