• Chris Owens, newly dapper.

For his NYC solo debut, (Le) Poisson Rouge was set up like a supper club, its floor filled with reserved tables of the artist's friend and contemporaries, complete with cocktail menus and table service. A ring of limited space for ticket buyers and not-quite-VIP press filed in behind. (A table near that ring was saved specifically for "Mount Eerie", I noticed.) The room went dark, and the crowd got unusually quiet, as Owens came out with a five-piece band and two velvet-draped lady backup singers. Stripping down to bare essentials was probably not his unfulfilled desire. There was a grey-bearded flautist!

• VJ Army
• Please come have a beer with US, Pat!

So, what does a middle-aged man (albeit a middle-aged man with two pre-teen daughters) have to say about a show targeted towards 8-14-year-old girls? Quite a bit, it turns out.

His new piece, "Epizootics!", was debuted via a 10-minute short film that is flat out weird as fuck. At a time when David Lynch is tossed around a little too casually as a reference point, Walker, along with director Olivier Groulx have made a piece of art that actually gets real close to the smiling, surreal malevolence of Lynch's best work. We are going to have to go through it, at length.

C'mon, don't be scared. (Be a little scared)

The bad news is that the storm cost them roughly $250,000 of their $1.8 million dollar operating budget, including $150,000 from the cancellation of their annual record fair, which was to be held last weekend at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Chelsea. According to a report in Capital New York, the station is left with just $15,000 in the bank after paying its full-time employees.

They're holding a "Silent Fundraiser" to help make up for the huge loss, which has brought in about $40,000 so far. Visit their website to find out how you can help and, of course, what's in it for you if you do. Like a tote bag! But also the satisfaction of knowing you're helping preserve one of the most important and overlooked cultural institutions we've got.

To drop the this into music's current framework, the album (the band's one and only to date, if you recall) remains Sub Pop's second-highest grossing album in their 26-year history, only eclipsed by Nirvana's Bleach, but it still sold about 100,000 fewer albums in its nine-plus years of existence than Taylor Swift's Red sold in just a week.

Even still, we were so onto something when we ran up and down our dorm's halls sophomore year claiming that vaguely danceable pining was the biggest thing to happen to independent music since the 90s version of, well, vaguely danceable pining. We long last have vindication, for which we are owed a video. The one with Jenny Lewis:

Keeping with the theme of non-Brooklyn bands going all-out Brooklyn as part of Jimmy Kimmel's week-long excursion to our fair borough, The Avett Brothers, joined by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, graced BAM's Harvey Theater last night with a song choice not from their new album but one from their 2009 offering "for reasons you will soon understand."

Let's just say the "Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in/Are you aware of the shape I'm in?" part seemed to take on extra meaning in light of recent events. Watch below:

That right there is a screen grab of Vampire Weekend drummer Chris Tomson, the crazy one of the bunch (we know this because he's the only one not wearing a button-down), who fished for an opportune camera shot to hold up a Brooklyn Nets hat after the band's performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night, appropriately filmed at BAM's Harvey Theater as part of the show's week-long, Sandy-ravaged caravan to Brooklyn. Marty Markowitz looked on from the crowd. It was all very Brooklyn.

In other news, we learned that the new song we've been fawning over is titled "Unbelievers." It was spread across the most elaborate arrangement we've seen it in yet with a three-piece brass section, cello and piano adding prototypical V. Weekend swells to its swinging, country-dusted melody. (Maybe a hint at the recorded version to come?) The band sounded tidy and bright. They were dressed as skeletons. Or maybe zombies. (Their overall commitment to button-downs even as zombies and/or skeletons was admirable.) They might very well be responsible for one of the best albums of 2013. Watch after the jump:

Man, if there was ever a day for prolonged, dark sentiment it would be today. We've just seen a storm of historical proportions wreck the great, modern city. Recently shining, modern apartments across Manhattan are lit with candlelight for a least a while longer. It's Halloween! (And, as of this writing, the spooky is racing far ahead of the sexy.)

So, assuming there's something functional in close proximity for which to play music, you've gotta go goth. Goth rock, both the sound and the general image of it, has only grown in mainstream acceptance since its first appearance in the early 80s. Using dark, sometimes supernatural imagery to explain tumultuous internal feelings is pretty much what pop culture does now (See: Buffy, Harry Potter, Twilight, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, everything). Broadcasting inner darkness to the wider world is something that whole generations of young people have grown up always being comfortable with. Pop-culture in 2012 is gother on average than 1982 by a huge margin.

But most every list of the genre's best songs features a too-familiar roll call of names and tunes. Bauhaus, The Cure, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Birthday Party. And while those songs have aged quite nicely, there has been a good 30 years now with goth in our bloodstream. Its not like these sounds and themes have stayed locked and dated in a shallow 80s grave.

So, on this the gothest of days, we provide you with our definitive list of the 20 best goth songs released since 1992. Go on and mope a bit.

So, for skeptics that remain among you, we've got 5 key bullet points for why this just might be your moment to give T-Swift her due. (When you come around, she'll act really surprised and appreciative!)

Talking on the phone from his home in Florida fighting "some weird mouth infection" (“It’s not like I made out with any strange people while I was up in New York”) frontman Carson Cox reflects on the last few months, Merchandise's desire to stay industry outsiders, and the frustration of being mistaken as a Brooklyn band—a label they don't at all want. He's extremely friendly and talks with little breaks, allowing a series of unfiltered thoughts and ideas to tumble out that occasionally bump into self-contradiction. Making sense of Internet success has never been easy though. Especially if you're determined to fight the good fight.

Last night marked the first live TV interview of America's recently dethroned Master of Sleaze and Skeeve in over 20 years. So that's what that special feeling in the air was while walking home from work. Here I thought it was the crisp fall air. To promote Guns N' Roses upcoming 12-night residency at, of course, the Hard Rock in Vegas, we were treated to the deep three-word monologues of frontman Axl Rose in response to Jimmy Kimmel's tempered questions. It was a good night for America and all that we stand for—corn, burgers, holiday traditions, VHS tapes, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll—especially when the merits of the democratic voting process were boiled down to "meh." In case you missed it, CliffsNotes version follows:

1. Axl tends to be late to social engagements and these types of things, but he was right on time to the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live. Can you believe it? Jimmy can't.

2. Axl hitchhiked to L.A. at the age of 19. It went fairly well.

3. He was once the cool manager at Tower Video on Sunset who hired all his friends and let them drink beer after work. His time there was short-lived. He's since shrugged it off.

4. He and Izzy made a show flyer for one of their first bands called Rose. "There living fast and they'll die young!!! See them now!" it proclaims. Those were the good ol' days of uninhibited grammar rules and loose distinctions between "they're," "there" and "their."

Did we mention that we're really into Divine Fits? Oh, we did, like a million times already? Well, its true. So it was a distinct pleasure to catch the band last night in the snug confines of Manhattan jazz club Drom, at a party thrown by Buzzfeed's recently launched music section. With band members too famous to ever need a "playing little bars"phase, small club shows were always going to be a rare bonus. But it seems as if the Fits would be content just hanging out forever, popping up Springsteen-style in dive bars to drink beers and play svelte rock covers. Last night, Dan Boeckner still had fresh cellophane on his arm from a tattoo he received upstairs ahead of time (which might not actually provide 100 percent fresh ink protection from wild rock n' roll flailing).

Since then, Apple's career has taken an unexpected course, blooming and shrinking in an almost constant cycle, all while accumulating a firmly devout fanbase—one eclipsing gender, age and social stereotypes. For the true believers, she became a new kind of role model. Last night, we stopped by her second of two sold-out shows at Terminal 5 to talk to some who were around in 1996, and some who weren't.