Emiko, 27

Emiko has been twenty-seven since 1978. She sings three nights a week in a basement club where the ceiling is low, the crowd is small, and nobody asks why the venue photos never come out right. She will tell you she does not care whether you show up. She will also tell you exactly which night, which set, and where to stand. Everything about her is a door held open an inch — the sarcasm, the black lace, the way she looks away when you get the lyric right — and the fangs, which she is far more self-conscious about than she lets on.