Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros aren’t quite a household name yet, but we have a feeling they will be one very soon. Last night, the ten-piece, joy-spreading ensemble brought its enlightened vibes to Music Hall of Williamsburg, where it played the second of two sold-out local shows. Photographer Peter Kleeman snapped a bunch of pics for the Volume, and you can check out the results above.

Okay, we’re still obsessed with the awesomely strange video for the Dead Weather’s “Cut Like a Buffalo” (check it out after the jump). You may remember that Jack White, Alison Mosshart & Co. played Terminal 5 in July (plus a very sweaty pop-up show, reviewed here)—and the band returned to NYC last night for this relatively intimate gig at Music Hall of Williamsburg in advance of tonight’s MTV Woodie awards, proving again that as a live prospect, the Dead Weather is a juddering, squealing force to be reckoned with. Check out pics of the show by TONY photographer Lizz Kuehl.

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Former Cardigans chanteuse Nina Persson now fronts A Camp, the musical project she shares with her movie-composer husband, Nathan Larson. Earlier this year, we reviewed the group’s latest album, Colonia, which featured contributions from Mark Linkous, Joan as Police Woman and the Smashing Pumkins’ James Iha—and last night’s show at (Le) Poisson Rouge had a string section featuring members of Beirut, Arcade Fire, and Antony and the Johnsons. TONY photographer David Rosenzweig was there to catch the action. After the jump: the video for A Camp’s single “Stronger than Jesus.”

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The Jesus Lizard, recently reunited after a decade-long hiatus, brought its pulverizing art blues to Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza last night. See above for photos from the gig by Laal Shams, and read on for a review by Hank Shteamer.

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To quote Keanu Reeves: whoa. Was last Thursday’s Dance.Here.Now. party at Cielo a sardine can or what? We haven’t seen the joint that packed on a weekday since Danny Tenaglia dropped a set of classics there a while back. The occasion was a set by the beloved festival-techno practitioner Carl Cox (who, come to think of it, is the U.K. equivalent of Mr. Tenaglia), so the crowd wasn’t exactly unexpected. What was a bit surprising was that Coxie was on the decks all night long—no opening DJ for him, thank you very much. And he was playing surprisingly deep music early on (a track from cosmic-disco star Prins Thomas’s Full Pupp label was on when we entered the club). By the time we left, however, the big man was banging it out in big-room style, and the crowd—which was not so much dancing as it was bobbing up and down in the one square foot of space allotted to each reveler—was banging right along.

Photographs: Marc Whalen

When Metallica released its Death Magnetic album last year, we reviewed it as “the record Metallica needed to make.” Helmed by Rick Rubin, Death Magnetic was a brutal, kick-ass return to form—as was the band’s first live show in NYC earlier this year (our review here). TONY photographer Taso Hountas caught the action (and the energy) at Metallica’s Madison Square Garden last night; included in his pics are some shots of show opener Lamb of God.

Photos: Dan Dealy

Before Bowery Ballroom was filled with smoke—and the smooth sounds of the G-Funk era that were part of the liquor-sipping set from Warren G (check out our preview here)—the stage was rocked with some of hip-hop’s new high-energy crews. Chi-Town’s rambunctious Kidz in the Hall kicked things off—you may remember that the duo made our couch their stage when they played a Live at TONY session. Last night, Double-O and Naledge paid no regards to the “cooler than you” New York crowd and were determined to have as much fun as possible, even dragging a couple fans on stage for their latest, “Jukebox.” Keeping the energy up was the West Coast team U-N-I, bringing along friends Curtains and their DJ for the night, Theo Martins; the crowd may have started the show unfamiliar, but they embraced the duo by the time they were through. Finally, Warren G made his entrance, smooth-rolling through most of his performance with a drink in hand. The audience erupted into a frenzy when G announced he was there to celebrate his birthday, launching into a medley of West Coast classics from his group 213 (with Nate Dogg and step-brother Dr. Dre). The night hit its climax when the song that everyone came to hear, “Regulate,” blared through toward the end of G’s set. Before calling it a night, the birthday boy passed the mike on to a few MCs in the building—including a second appearance from Curtains and a freestyle from New York’s own Donny Goines.

As is the case with pretty much any Bruce show, if you missed Saturday’s gig (can you call a show a gig, when it’s in a venue as huge as MSG?), you’ll likely groan when you see the set list. Besides playing The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle in its entirety, he performed “Glory Days,” “Human Touch,” “Born to Run” and yes, “Dancing in the Dark.” TONY photographer Taso Hountas was there to catch the action. Full set list after the jump.

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As we reported last week, Yeah Yeah Yeahs played a secret showbizzy gig on Friday, at the launch of a fancy new mobile phone. TONY photographer Lizz Kuehl took these awesome shots.

Photographs by Thomas Hauner

On the heels of a new release, Natural Forces—read our review here—Lyle Lovett brought his Large Band to the Beacon for a night of salt-of-the-earth tunes.

Photos: Taso Hountas

John Popper and his crew jammed out at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza last night, and they were more contemporary than you might think: recycled ’90s hits aside, the bassist was wearing a Yankees hat, supporting the new World Series champs.

“It’s a punk rock show, what the fuck did they expect?” muttered one girl to her friend at Saturday’s Halloween Vice party. She was bitching about the heavy-handed security men who were trying (and failing) to keep order during Bad Brains’ headline set (“Leave it to Vice to hire the Mafia for security,” wrote one partygoer on Brooklyn Vegan). What was funny about the hoo-ha was that across the street at Brooklyn Bowl, Deer Tick had just finished playing its Sex Pistols tribute show—so you could stroll from pretend punk to the real deal. Find out the full story after the jump.

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“Weezer fans have the Halloween spirit!” declared Rivers Cuomo, at Weezer’s Hammerstein Ballroom Halloween party, Saturday night. The band took the stage dressed as bugs, following sets by Matt & Kim and PT Walkley, and TONY photographer Lizz Kuehl was there to catch the action. The band also welcomed a special guest onstage for its new single, “(If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To”—Gossip Girl Leighton Meester. Check the vid after the jump.

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Photographs by Diana Sonis

The night before Halloween at Webster Hall saw a rowdy crowd ready to get the weekend’s festivities  going. Simian Mobile Disco—playing behind the recent Temporary Pleasure—pulled and pushed plugs and switches to call up its dance-heavy electro. The crowd was enthralled, if a little burned out (see above).

A young crowd of giggoers started waiting in line at 1pm yesterday to make it to the front of last night’s La Roux show. Elly Jackson, frontwoman with the “Bulletproof” synth-popsters, was apparently recovering from illness, so any bouncing around from La Roux was strictly musical. TONY photographer Michael Alexander was there to catch the action.

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It was difficult to know what to expect from this set from TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe as Fake Male Voice—other than the fact that it would surely be mobbed. Maybe it was the drizzly rain on Friday afternoon or the unsexy time of day, but strangely, only a handful of people made it to Bruar Falls for the show. The plus points of this decidedly intimate set? It felt like the perfect match for Adebimpe’s lonesome, but fiery-red solo work. I also felt incredibly lucky to be one of the few people watching the show—undoubtedly my CMJ highlight.

Click past the jump for more

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Did you catch Mumford & Sons performing on yesterday’s Live at TONY? If so, you’ll know the Brit combo has a spine-tingling way with harmony. What last night’s show at the Merc Lounge showed was that the group is also capable of some serious rabble-rousing (complete with lusty crowd sing-alongs). Brooklyn’s Bear Hands played next, their singer possibly the very visual opposite of anything remotely bearlike: a slight, dreadlocked, spectacled man in shorts, naked from the waist up, singing stringy, Strokesy pop songs. Check out our pics after the jump.

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Sure, Paramore is huge among the teen set, but no matter what your demographic, it’s hard to deny the band’s uplifting emo-punk bombast. Here are pics by Taso Hountas from Hayley Williams & Co.’s sold-out Hammerstein Ballroom show last night—proof that CMJ is hardly the only game in town this week.

It’s no secret that we’ve been fans of Sian Alice Ahern and her band for some time. Jay Ruttenberg wrote a feature on the group early in 2008, and since then, the troupe has been on our top shows of the year list, had an album reviewed…

So you won’t be surprised to hear—from this source—that the Londoners killed it last night at the Knitting Factory Brooklyn. The Group headlined the Social Registry and No Quarter showcase (the rest of which was written about by Hank Shteamer here) and was just about perfect. The balance of Ahern’s sublime, otherworldly vocals with the stellar keyboard parts and subtle drumming was chillingly good, as were all of the accents. A trumpet piping in here, a backup singing bit there—it was all so well thought out and so well executed. Proving that what the members can accomplish on record they can do live, Sian Alice Group made a statement last night as one of the most underrated bands in the world.

Click past the jump for more fabulous photos from Kent Miller…

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Photos by Dan Dealy

Last night kicked off the whirlwind action of the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon. This year boasts a strong hip-hop lineup, and things started right with performances from The Clipse, Donnis, Wiz Khalifa, Grand Puba and U-God. Hit the jump for a full recap of the night’s showcases, including a video from Wiz Khalifa and a very special guest at Southpaw.
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