Everything Gossip’s Nathan Howdeshell (a.k.a. Brace Paine) says is charming. It’s not necessarily the content of his words, but that it’s all tinged with an appealing drawl, the result of his Arkansas upbringing. So it’s sweet when he says that “fuck” is his favorite curse word, or when he tells me that if he could he would eat at McDonalds every day. And it’s even sweeter when he divulges his affinity for smoking pot after a long day because, well, yeah. Nathan and his band swing through New York tonight when they take the stage for the first time at Terminal 5 with openers MEN and Apache Beat. But first, he spoke with me about his online ventures, tonight’s show, and what he has planned for the end of the world.

October 1 - In a few months, when people start calling the W Barcelona (opening today) “the WB,” remember you heard it here first.

October 3 - You’d have to be a real sick fuck to enjoy Virus Appreciation Day.

October 4 - The New York Film Festival reaches its halfway mark. In an effort to compete with Cannes, Water Taxi Beach goes topless.

So! MTV's Video Music Awards are coming to New York again, and a few awesome acts managed to get involved in the scrum. Remember when this was standard for the VMAs? Anyway. The French reigning kings of indie-pop, Phoenix, and hip hop's rising royalty, Kid Cudi, are playing a show Saturday night at Terminal 5, sponsored by the VMAs and LIFEbeat, a nonprofit charity dedicated to pairing the music industry with efforts to increase AIDS awareness and prevention with young adults. It's a hot show, and the tickets are priced as such: $40 advance, $50 at the door tickets, and VIP tickets (sectioned-off area, open bar) run $150. Lucky for you, though, we've got some tickets to give away, and a few ways you can win.

Here's why we love Santigold: She used to front a punk band in Philly named Stiffed, she can work out a tiger-print leotard, and she changed her name and you don’t even care why. This week, she and her fiancé Trouble Andrew took over Terminal 5 with Amanda Blank, and this summer Santi does the Euro festival thing, closing it all out at Lollapalooza in Chicago. For a woman this busy to take the time for our humble Pop Quiz, well, it's an honor.

When I found out the California dreamer Farmer Dave Scher was about to come out with a new album, I couldn't help smiling. Best known from previous bands Beachwoods Sparks and All Night Radio, Dave is now releasing Flash Forward to the Good Times on Kemado Records come August 18. I’ve always been a big fan of his psychedelic trips of music with All Night Radio -- first encounter was way back in 2003 at the Bowery Ballroom for Sub Pop’s music showcase. When I chatted with Dave, I thought he’d been beamed from 1969 due to his verbiage, aesthetic, and of course his tunes. (Quite an impression this musician made on my ears.)

Once upon a time some guys met at a ringtone factory and decided to start a psychedelic rock band. Still nameless a few months later, they came across a really awesome baby while surfing the Internet and decided he would be the namesake for the project. And thus Amazing Baby was born. They have yet to release a full album and never intended for the project to go beyond the recording studio, but after uploading some songs and getting enough buzz off those tracks alone to open up for Bloc Party and MGMT, it was probably time to quit their day jobs. They’re currently working on a full-length debut album called Rewild, out on Shangri-La music this year, and are playing live dates, which you should check out. In New York they’re opening for Cold War Kids this Friday at Terminal 5, and they're at The Bell House next Friday. But first, guitarist Simon O’Connor took some time to answer our totally Pop Quiz. It's amazing, baby.

Superbad director Greg Mottola is poised to pop the bromance bubble with Adventureland, a movie he wrote and directed based on his experiences as an underpaid carny one college summer. Starring Jesse Eisenberg as James Brennan, Mottola's fictionalized alter ego, and Twilight's Kristen Stewart as Em, his troubled love interest, Adventureland is a sweeter, slightly more serious, and definitely more stoned version of Superbad. After the jump, Mottola talks with us about who might be the awkward king of America, Twilight madness, getting mistaken for Moby, and his upcoming stab at sci-fi with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

There're two Terminal 5's in New York: one's the oversized, futuristic-prison-looking music venue so far on the west side, it's almost in the Hudson River. The other's the new Jetblue Terminal at JFK. On name alone, we had reason to be skeptical; that being said, ask anyone who lives here -- NYC travelers are mostly forsaken by the airport gods, as both JFK and LaGuardia are a pain in the ass to get to. (Nobody wants to fly out of Newark, supposedly the "nicest" of the three airports.) Such facilities are mostly drab, extraordinarily boring places. As entries to one of the greatest cities on the planet, they're underwhelming, depressing travel hubs. The taxi lines are long, the weather getting off of the plane is traditionally shitty, the scenery isn't exactly nice. That being said, expectations for Terminal 5 could be set reasonably low. Jetsetters were promised top-shelf dining, shopping, and a generally perfect, 180-degree turn from not just the typical New York airport experience, but the airport experience at large. I flew through Terminal 5 on my most recent holiday home, and can safely say it lives up to the hype. Terminal 5 was awesome.

Earlier this year, Conor Oberst released his first solo album in 13 years, and he and the Mystic Valley Band (named for the area where they recorded Tepoztlán, Mexico) have been touring since July. They swung through New York this past weekend for a country good time at Terminal 5 with opener Ben Kweller, who Oberst met when they both were living in Brooklyn. Kweller has since moved back to his home state of Texas, but is also on tour previewing his country album coming out next year.

Screw the earphones, turn up the Marshalls. This one goes to 11.

1. Bowery Ballroom (Lower East Side) - Towering ceiling makes for great sound; great booking ensures its worth.
2. Music Hall of Williamsburg (Williamsburg) - Indie rockers expose themselves in this rejuvenated version of Northsix.
3. Studio B (Williamsburg) – Budding Brooklyn ironists get trashed to French electro.