On the last warm Saturday night of 2008, the kids came out in Obama T-shirts and knotted neckerchiefs to Southpaw to catch one of Deer Tick’s two NYC shows in five months. After an energetic performance by Those Darlins—a neo-Southern rock outfit fronted by three girls whose combined ages might crack the age of their apparent idol, Lucinda Williams—the crowd erupted into shouts when Deer Tick, in all their lumberjack-plaid glory, joined the Darlins on stage for a rollicking old time jam about a chicken bone.

Last Sunday, post-modern comic book author and novelist Neil Gaiman met with designer Chip Kidd to discuss Gaiman's pioneering comic series, The Sandman, in front of a packed auditorium at 92Y. Gaiman proved an affable and charming speaker, regaling his audience with disarming anecdotes and witty impressions that, unlike the protagonist of his 20-year-old cult classic, didn't put anyone to sleep.

Borough: Bushwick, Brooklyn
Fun Fact: Lead singer Ryan Reesey recently starred in a commercial for Guitar Hero.
Why They're Worth Watching: Me You Us Them meld an intense blend of distorted, off-kilter guitar riffs with searing vocal melodies, rendering them one of the most memorable shoe-gaze groups in recent memory.
For Fans Of: Sonic Youth, Jimmy Eat World, The Jesus & Mary Chain

Tucked away in a booth at a Williamsburg watering hole, a few feet away from one of Brooklyn's more rowdy election night Obama victory parties, the members of Me You Us Them consider how the current state of politics have influenced their musical approach. "It's certainly affected us," guitarist/vocalist Ryan Reesey says. "You actually have to get off your ass and do something."

This Sunday, Nov. 9th, at 92Y, seminal designer Chip Kidd will chat up best-selling author and comic book icon Neil Gaiman on The Sandman, the author's benchmark comic book series, which is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. 

A live opus, twenty-five years in the making

The 1970s saw the heyday of the rock opera, with musical opuses by Genesis, Queen and Meat Loaf all vying to out-bombast The Who’s seminal Tommy and Quadrophenia and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. Lou Reed's contribution to the genre came in 1973 with Berlin, his psychodrama about a drug-addicted couple that mixed the titular German capital’s art-born-of-political-strife with an LES aesthetic—and nearly relegated Reed's post-Velvet Underground solo career to one-hit-wonder status.

As far as bargains go, Oct. 7th's Revenge of the Book Eaters was like paying for a burger and being served filet mignon. Talented, witty and charming filet mignon.

A beautiful swell of experimental folk

The songs of In Ear Park, the sophomore effort from Grizzly Bear's Dan Rossen and his college classmate Fred Nicolaus, are not so much heard as absorbed. After repeated listens, the densely layered and often distorted instrumentals begin to parse themselves out, the hooks of “Floating on The Lehigh” proving particularly arresting. Dedicated to Rossen's recently-deceased father, the title a nod to the Los Angeles park they used to visit together, the album is more nostalgic than mournful; on occasion, like the lighthearted and impossibly catchy "No One Does It Like You," it's downright jaunty. The artfully paced “Classical Records” is a stand-out, beginning sparse and haunting before growing into a crush of piano and percussion. Some songs are more memorable than others (“Teenagers” too closely recalls “Teen Angel,” while “Herring Bone” largely registers as background music despite some gorgeous piano playing), but the less compelling tracks still have enough melodic twists to hold interest. Harmonic and ethereal, there's something comforting in the album's sonic charge, with its folksy beauty seeping in like crisp autumn air through an open window.

Golden tones shine on Brooklyn preservationists' debut

The Menahan Street Band, named for the Bushwick address where producer Thomas Brenneck lives and recorded this album, provides a priceless entry into Daptone Records' gospel of modern jams with a collection by members of the Budos Band, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, El Michels Affair and Antibalas. This debut LP of steam-of-conscious instrumentals presents an inviting take on the genres of funk and soul with the most unobtrusive delivery imaginable: The gentlemen sand their sound into smooth, minimal waves of swelling horns, tumbling bass lines and ricocheting wah-pedal beats that fade in so gently, it's hard to tell when one escapes out the back window or one creeps in the front door. The title track recalls Miles Davis after he weaned off big band but before he propelled into the narcotic-fueled experimentation of Bitches Brew, and you can hear the tear drops drip into a sea of well whiskey as the tragic horn swells of "Karina" vibrate with desperation. It's seamless and beautifully effective. Though a rotating cast of singers would render these silk jams far more memorable, this is the perfect reincarnation of scratched vinyl anthems and masterful jazz improvisation for today's generation. If the band ever moves out of that apartment on Menahan Street, it deserves to be recognized the world over.

[Above: Debbie Harry]

We love animals. A lot. But Rational Animal's Gimme Shelter Rock & Rescue NYC benefit show, which helped to raise money to save stray animals from euthanasia, at Highline Ballroom last week was a little, well, weird. It must have been a full moon.

On the strength of their full-length debut, Oracular Spectacular, the fellows of MGMT made a name for themselves as one of the buzziest acts to emerge from Brooklyn's indie rock hive this year. But that reputation may only be partly deserved: While co-founder and keys player Ben Goldwasser (above, left) won't deny his band's successes (they just wrapped up a tour opening for the one and only Beck, after all) he's quick to point out that their relationship to New York's hippest borough is tenuous, at best.

Goldwasser recently took a break from preparing for a night of psychedelic, candy-coated dance-rock goodness in Des Moines, Iowa, to chat with Paste:Local NYC via telephone about not actually being from Brooklyn, crazed European fans, Halloween costumes and more.