Primus

For more shows throughout the weekend, check out our New York Concert Calendar, which we update daily.

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Via

A weird thing happened in 2013. Chicago-area deathcore quintet Born of Osiris smashed into the Billboard Top 200 charts with their Tomorrow We Die Alive album, coming in above the Lumineers and Lorde, bands distinctly unlike the ultra-heavy and underground metal assault of BOO.

Vocalist Ronnie Canizaro, a 25-year-old whose speaking voice sounds like he's 17 (his growled vocals in the band are ageless), was surprised, to say the least. Calling from outside the evening's venue, Atlanta's Masquerade club, he recalls, "I didn't expect that, I was very happy. There are more people that are appreciating metal now. There are always fads... I mean, nu metal is what got me into all this: Korn, Slipknot, who are still going strong. I think our band, we never follow the trend or fad, we've been on this slow rise with each album, growing, gaining more fans, playing bigger shows. It's cool to see the progress."

See also: Ten Metal Albums to Hear Before You Die

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Dej Loaf

Move over "No Flex Zone." Rap's adversarial anthem du jour is newcomer Dej Loaf 's "Try Me." The menacing track is primed for stalking through the streets while fending off haters and naysayers, and with lyrics like, "Let a nigga try me, try me. 
I'm a get his whole muthafuckin' family
/ And I ain't playing with nobody/ 
Fuck around and I'm a catch a body," people will think twice before they try you.

Like so many things in hip-hop, it was an Instagram shout-out from Drake in September that catapulted the 23-year-old Detroit native born Deja (Loaf comes from her penchant for loafers) into the spotlight. Drake didn't flip his own remix to "Try Me" but the kingmaker had spoken. Shout-outs from Kevin Durant and Ty Dolla $ign followed, as well as remixes from the likes of Wiz Khalifa and E-40. Not surprisingly, major labels took notice and Dej soon signed a deal with Columbia Records.

See also: The 10 Best Male Rappers of All Time

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Strange Famous Records

Swell and Sentence: The Metermaids

Sage Francis's Strange Famous Records has been on a tear as one of the last true indie-rap labels regularly putting out MCs from all over the hip-hop map. Strange Famous is following-up Francis's Copper Gone record with Brooklyn duo Metermaids' We Brought Knives, the group's second album for the label, due out December 2. We're proud to premiere the first single, "Profiteer."

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Mike and El via Run the Jewels

By now, you've had most of the week to play El-P and Killer Mike's magnificent Run the Jewels 2 on repeat. (If not, quietly chastise yourself and then head over here and download it now). While the chemistry between Mike and El is an undeniable draw, the Run the Jewels movement has also bloomed into something of an ensemble project, with a coterie of behind-the-scenes cohorts also contributing to the album. Consider this a salute to the faithful jewel-running supporting cast.

See also: 'My Inner White Girl Really Likes This One': Taste-Testing Fall Beers With the Doppelgangaz

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Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill's carved out a special New York niche.

Halloween's right around the corner, and when it comes to New York's Halloween traditions, you would be hard-pressed to find a longer-lasting hip-hop standard-bearer than Cypress Hill's annual show. Emanating this year from the Best Buy Theater on October 30 (Devil's Night, for you Midwest transplants), Cypress Hill celebrate almost two decades of tricks and treats in the home of hip-hop with La Coka Nostra, Immortal Technique, and Vinnie Paz.

We spoke to Sen Dog about the group's proud New York tradition, as well as their appearance on The Simpsons and infamous banning from another New York institution, Saturday Night Live.

See also: The Five Best NYC Rap Albums That Never Happened

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Sam Morril has been a stand-up comic in New York for almost a decade. He has been on Conan and Comedy Central, and performs in comedy clubs all over New York City and nationally. Before making it to the stage, Morril would hand out flyers for comedy shows -- doing so, luckily, only for a short stint. Morril met Patton Oswalt after a show in New York, who advised him to "do open mics, just go to every open mic." Morril took his advice. "They were awful," he reflects, "humiliating and awful. But I just kept doing them."

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A photo posted by Jayson Musson (@jaysonmusson) on Oct 10, 2014 at 12:55pm PDT

You may have never known it, but the only thing Elton John's "Sad Songs Say So Much" was missing all these years was a few gunshots, an air horn, and a guy with a deep voice demanding "MORE FIRE!" Put those things together and you've got magic, friend. CVS Bangers Volume 3 magic. The kind that mashes up the songs you'd typically hear while making your trip to the pharmacy with rap mixtape tropes. Gangsta Grillz meets Yacht Rock, basically. It's brilliant and hysterical, and brilliantly hysterical. This most beautiful marriage is the brainchild of DJ Hennessy Youngman, who hosts a CVS Bangers 3 listening party tonight at Beverly's, and described the project thus when he debuted the first CVS Bangers last year:More »

Photo by Douglas Anson

[Editor's note: Every Wednesday, New York City's own Andrew W.K. takes your life questions and sets you safely down the right path to a solution, a purpose, or -- no surprise here -- a party. Need his help? Just ask: AskAWK@villagevoice.com]

Hi, Andrew!

Believe it or not, I really don't like Halloween. Out of all my friends and family, I'm the only one who dreads this time of year and doesn't get excited about dressing up or going out and doing "spooky" stuff. I've always been this way. I just don't believe in this sort of stuff -- like ghosts, goblins, haunted houses, and all that supernatural nonsense. I believe in rational thought and science, and to be honest, it creeps me out to see so many millions of people allow themselves to get into such an obviously shallow frame of mind every year during this "holiday." How can I participate in Halloween without bringing everyone else down, while at the same time not compromising my belief that all this is moronic?

Halloween Hater

See also: Ask Andrew W.K.: Pizza Is Healthy

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All photos Nate "Igor" Smith. See all of our Mötley Crüe in NYC photos.

Better Than: Seeing them on most of their other tours from the past 15 years.

"If this didn't work out, I don't know where you guys would be," said Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx in the middle of his band's final NYC show. "Maybe you'd be at a Mumford and Sons concert." Sixx's quote and the audience's subsequent boos were all in good fun, but that's the nature of a Mötley Crüe show. Amid the fire, the dancing girls, the moving stages, and the Mumford jokes was three decades of good cheer and memories. For a packed Garden audience, the '80s hair-metal heroes closed the book on their time together. For Crüe, it's only fitting that the final chapter was an excessively debauched party that went out with a series of deafening bangs.

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