Afrobeat is made to be experienced live. The large bands, spontaneous energy, and multitude of musical influences (fusing funk, R&B, and traditional African sound) are ideal for a concert experience.

Trying to label Animal Collective is a surefire way to get bogged down in hyphenated genre mash-ups and reductive anecdotes. The band of four childhood friends has consistently defied expectations with experimental forays into psychedelia, noise, folk, and a bucketful of other elements over the course of seven albums.

“There were never any good old days; they are today, they are tomorrow!” shouted Eugene Hutz, the mustachioed singer for Gogol Bordello. And true to his words, his band and its loyal followers at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles partied like there was no tomorrow.

“Some people come up to me and say, ‘You’re a lot shorter than I thought you would be. I thought you’d be huge, a monster!'” Roger Miret, vocalist for the legendary New York hardcore group Agnostic Front, is a man whose reputation precedes him. And though Agnostic Front’s political hardcore is raw, confrontational, and fierce, offstage Miret is friendly and considerate.

Prefuse 73, aka Scott Herren, has been producing off-kilter, usually instrumental hip hop since he released Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives in 2001. He is also known for his other long-running projects, producing intelligent dance music (IDM) as Delarosa and Asora and post-rock as Savath and Savalas. All these projects maintained a steady progression throughout the decade.

Renowned Japanese DJ and producer DJ Krush will hold his first-ever DJ seminar on November 2 at the Scratch DJ Academy and Campus Circle in Los Angeles.

An artist whose oversized persona threatens to draw more attention than his music, Mac Lethal is a drinkin’, druggin’, and womanizin’ rapper from the heartland of America.

Following their never-ending tour cycle in support of Lullabies to Paralyze (2005), Queens of the Stone Age became frustratingly predictable in concert. The band would pound through a repetitive mix of songs; bandleader Josh Homme would make frequent references to drinking, pot smoking, and fucking, and then get pissed off at a random heckler in the crowd.

Poet Saul Williams’ newest album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, was produced by recent collaborator Trent Reznor. The album, a commentary on racial bigotry and epithets, will only be available to download for free or with a $5 donation to the artist, starting November 1 on Williams’ website.

Brooklyn decibel terrorists A Place to Bury Strangers have been creating a massive buzz with their economical bursts of noize-toon, neatly encapsulating influences of The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Joy Division, Spacemen-3, Big Black, and Ride.

“I’d be crazy not to follow / Follow where you lead,” mews Thom Yorke on “Weird Fishes / Arpeggi,” the fourth track from Radiohead’s long-awaited seventh album In Rainbows. It’s a lyric that may pertain to the innovative band’s worshippers.