Miguel, October 1 at Bowery Ballroom, $25
Modern r&b fan, do you enjoy the cool kid stylings of The Weeknd and Frank Ocean, but sometimes feel like their anguished bloodletting is not properly twerking your booty? Then perhaps you should consider the happy medium that is Miguel. Earlier this year he released three free online EPs titled Art Dealer Chic, and now he's dropped his new album Kaleidoscope Dream, which includes remastered versions of the free songs as well as some new joints. Miguel had been recording for a while, but the Art Dealer Chic series saw him reach a sweet spot, with his songwriting and voice approaching Dirty Mind-era Prince, but with the heady, artsy-fartsy vibe that the young people like these days. Funky and weird. Can't go wrong with that. -Michael Tedder
Heart, Alejandro Escovedo, October 3 at Beacon Theatre, $64.50
No, it's not 1979 all over again. But Wednesday at Beacon Theatre, you might find a gaggle of people with a vested interest in pretending it's 1979 again. Heart, the lady-rockers of "Barracuda," "Magic Man" and a nearly Lil B-level of late-seventies productivity, are taking it to the streets (well, Broadway at least) and they're bringing Alejandro Escovedo with them. One of the most sneakily influential rockers of all time, Escovedo helped bring punk to the masses with The Nuns, helped invent cowpunk, and then went on to serve as one of the seminal influences upon the whole Alternative Country movement. He does a mean cover of Lou Reed's "Pale Blue Eyes," too. -Drew Millard
RZA, October 3 at Music Hall of Williamsburg, $20
Are you ready to have a bunch of truthbombs about science dropped on your 85-percenter self? Well, RZA's got you covered. The architect of the Wu-Tang Clan's entire aesthetic, both sonically and otherwise, leads something of a dual existence. He can be the sage who helped guide a crew of rough Staten Island guys to stardom, or he can be Bobby Digital, a drug-addled psychopath. Given that RZA's doing to show to promote The Man With Iron Fists, his directorial debut (which is literally about a man with iron fists), we're probably going to get a bit of both. -DM
Animal Collective, Micachu & The Shapes, October 5 at Williamsburg Park, $35
Ah, the delicious gamble that is the Animal Collective Live Experience. While you have to admire their commitment to following their art waaaaaay down the rabbit hole of their imagination, it's hard not to get annoyed when you show up wanting some "My Girls" and instead get a set full of unreleased new songs. Fortunately, those new songs are usually pretty tantalizing, as it is Animal Collective and even at their weirdest they usually deliver the goods. But if you're on the fence about this one, take heart. Set lists for this current tour seem to be centered around their current groovy (in all senses of the word) release Centipede Hz and a few standouts from modern classic Merriweather Post Pavilion and of course some even newer new jams. (Never change, Panda Bear.) While we'd like to maybe get some "Who Could Win A Rabbit?" in rotation, this is a mix we can live with. -MT
