Benjamin Lozovsky

Jay-Z at Carnegie Hall.

Good morning! We've just rolled out new and improved listings for New York concerts.

Our online music listings are now sortable by artist, venue and price. We've also got a raw, unadulterated, alphabetical list of upcoming shows in the drop-down menus on the righthand side of that page. You can also buy concert tickets directly from our website.

Take a look. Bang around a little. We're still tweaking, so if you have any problems or suggestions, let us know in the comments.

Eternal Summers.

Sound of the City's staff has opinions about which bands to see at the CMJ festival, happening around the city this week. Here, Martika Finch picks her favorite acts playing over the coming five days, including one Nashville-based punker who's playing the Voice party this Saturday. (Check out Maura Johnston's and Nick Murray's selections, too.)

Widowspeak
This Brooklyn trio's self-titled debut is somber and sparse, with lead singer Molly Hamilton casually letting words pour out of her and into the haunting melodies of songs like "Harsh Realm" and "Hard Times"; drummer Michael Stasiak and guitarist Robert Thomas' create a psychedelic, melancholy backdrop. Call it "psychemelancholia"?
Where to catch them: This Thursday at Cake Shop, the free Terrorbird CMJ Day Party at Cake Shop.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra
If their incredible show at Glasslands last month is any indication, this band could outgrow the intimate venues it's currently playing very quickly. UMO's music is very obviously rooted in pop, but the band takes a catholic approach to what the word "pop" means, and isn't afraid to reach across the aisle and dig deep into other genres for inspiration.
Where to catch them: Thursday at the Union Square Puma Store. (Yes, really.)

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Main Attrakionz.

Sound of the City's staff has opinions about which bands to see at the CMJ festival, happening around the city this week. Here, Nick Murray offers his seven picks—well, six festival-affiliated artists and one dude who just happens to have a couple of NY-area shows this week. (Check out Maura Johnston's and Martika Finch's selections. too.)

AraabMUZIK
This Providence-born producer hammers out beats that will make your feet move with a virtuosity that will make your jaw drop. After turning hip-hop heads' heads with his work on Cam'ron's Crime Pays and Dipset reunion single "Salute," AraabMUZIK has come into his own on this year's trance-influenced solo album Electronic Dream.
Where to catch him: Try the Saturday Blowout at Santos Party House, where he joins Main Attrakionz, Action Bronson, Elks, Trash Talk, and Kylesa in one of the week's most promising showcases.

Titus Andronicus
If you haven't discovered the bar punk, Eric Foner-with-power-chords bliss of The Monitor—the latest from New Jersey-and-proud quintet Titus Andronicus—by now, you should probably proceed directly to Glasslands tonight. If you're familiar with the record, go anyway; these days, the group rarely plays venues as intimate as this one.
Where to catch them: The band's only show this week happens tonight at 9 at Glasslands.

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Those Darlins, hangin' out in those giant pipes.

The mouse-headed DJ Deadmau5 finally finished his six-night stand at the Roseland Ballroom earlier this week (in one of the week's strangest press releases, I learned that the event was commemorated by a fancy cake that placed his signature headwear in front of the New York skyline), but the next three nights offer plenty of new opportunities for dancing to a host of other genres, including hard rock, cabaret, and jazz.

Let's start with the latter: Tonight, Richard Gehr recommends checking out slide trumpeter Steve Bernstein and his Millenial Territorial Orchestra as they take on the music of Sly Stone at 92YTribeca (you can read more on Bernstein's Sly inspiration in his interview with Jesse Jarnow), while Jim Macnie suggests going uptown to catch the third of Wynton Marsalis's four birthday shows. Apparently, African drummers will be involved (not to mention tap dancers, fiddlers, and a gospel choir). Meanwhile, Pat Metheny and Larry Grenadier hold down the fort at the Blue Note all weekend, and Macnie suggests that the chemistry between the two will make for some great performances.

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The week brought us Jon Brion and Shellac and Sam Sparro (not to mention a handful of surprise Occupy Wall Street pop-ins), and that wide spectrum of genres is also represented in this weekend's concert listings.

Tonight Deadmau5, who Maura has just informed me stands out as the only artist to be namechecked in Snooki's debut novel, It's a Shore Thing, continues his six night-stay behind the boards at Midtown's Roseland Ballroom. Come for the four-on-the-floor remixes, stay for the 5illy hat5. Downtown, Hernan Romeo comes to the Lower East Side's Drom, bringing a sound that, per Aidan Levy, "transmutes the seductive language of Piazzolla, Segovia, and Ginastera through the Argentinean zonda, a hot, dry wind that sweeps through the plains during summer and fall." The show starts at 8, if you can find a cab, you still might catch the majority of deadmau5's set, which starts at 11:30. On a completely different note, cabaret guru David Finkle recommends the cheerful masculinity of Uptown Express's show at the Metropolitan Room. Across the East River, partygoers too hip to associate themselves with someone in Nicole Polizzi's orbit will be dancing to the "mind-expanding array of late-night techno that sweeps from introspective to invigorating and back again" (per Kristal Hawkins) spun by Donato Dozzy and Nuel. On the jazz tip, Jim Macnie recommends catching Anthony Braxton at Roulette, while the borough's biggest show remains Swedish pop star/American indie hero Jens Lekman's turn at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.

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Don't be alarmed if you wear an ICP shirt to Union Pool and I punch you in the face.

Seems like a long time since a certain widely maligned, fundamentally ludicrous horrorcore duo and their earnestly intentioned family of facepainted, hatchet-swinging outcast fans were actually reviled. Now, they're kneejerk traffic bait, like cats or guidos or weird subway behavior. So after the viral-video genuises sold out the 600-capacity Gramercy Theater last April, Insane Clown Posse have been booked to headline the 3000-capacity Hammerstein Ballroom on their fall American Psycho tour this coming October. "Hell yeah," said Violent J yesterday about the size upgrade. "It's gonna be so dope."

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There's no getting around it, this is LCD Soundsystem week. Buy your tickets on Craigslist and be scorned by James Murphy forever if you must--sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

But hey, other things are happening this week too! Tropical dance fete Que Bajo?! has relocated to a new home for their Thursday night getdown, taking over the main space of Le Poisson Rouge tonight, March 31. The party features cumbia, salsa, dancehall, kuduro, moombahton, Latin house, and other warm weather tunes--expect to sweat for real. GHE20 G0TH1K maven Venus X joins residents Geko Jones and Uproot Andy for a special "old school reggaeton" set, while Houston's Panchitron provides more of a Latin house groove. Venus X does not mess around when it comes to queer nightlife (check this Twitter fight with Diplo), so be prepared for the onslaught of her intensely dancing party regulars. We've seen epically emboldened salsa queens flit around the dance floor, recruiting partners out of wallflowers--standing in the background is not really an option. Que Bajo is for dancing, especially tonight. Tickets are $10 in advance.

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Pics by Sophia Betz

The Stepkids
Mercury Lounge
Thursday, March 10

Better Than: Being dry. Maybe.

"I couldn't believe it, bro!

"My mouth was hanging open the whole time!"

Down in the basement dressing rooms of Mercury Lounge, a childhood friend of Connecticut band the Stepkids is trying to articulate his feelings about his pals' colorful performance. Like most of the audience, he was unprepared for the light show, the lean and deft psychedelic soul, the all-white outfits, and the graceful leaps from one decade's sound to another. He was not alone.

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Faith No More
East River State Park
Friday, July 2

We are gathered here this evening with our backs to the sunset to watch a reunited Faith No More play the East River State Park, a former shipping dock in Williamsburg consisting of seven mostly un-shaded acres, part concrete slab, part lawn, part Juicy Juice-sponsored playground. At the water's edge, there's a beach about three feet deep. A proud representative from the Open Space Alliance informs us that this is now the largest outdoor venue in New York City. So there are at least two big deals to think about: FNM's first East Coast show in more than ten years, and the fact that it's happening in Williamsburg, a neighborhood whose local culture flowered in part out of an ideological rejection of stuff like $45-ticket hard-rock shows where the beer tickets and the beer are kept under separate tents.

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No idea what the marketing rep responsible for this was thinking, but tonight from 7:30 to 9:30 pm, there is a pre-release "jukebox listening party" for the new Gorillaz record Plastic Beach . . . at the Greenpoint Tavern. The Greenpoint Tavern (aka "GPT") is, for the unitiated, a divey, kitschily decorated clubhouse on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg that's been around for more than 50 years; 75 per cent of the bartending staff is older than that. On weekend nights, the place's proximity to North 7th tends to make it a victim of hipster-tourist "douchebaggery," which might be the sort of scene a sticker-packing street team would want. But on Mondays, there're usually 10 to 15 people in the GPT, about three of them are under 40, and they're all yelling about Wheel of Fortune. So much luck to the music-biz intern who'll be forced to explain to a room of guys nicknamed Cold Cuts and Fat Anthony and Frankie Chips that they're listening to music from cartoon characters. Major labels, FTW!