Popular NYC concert venue Irving Plaza boasts an outstanding mid-sized sound stage for big-name bands. The venue is open to all ages and hosts local and touring theatre, dance, and music performers. This is a great place to check out established artists in an intimate space or up-and-coming bands before they hit the bigger venues.

This little gem is open Friday through Sunday. Though small, this is the only used record store with a New Wave section that is separate from the ‘80s Rock section. Diverse selection, friendly staff, and fair prices.

Established 100 years ago, the Hammerstein Ballroom was originally built by Oscar Hammerstein in 1906 as the Manhattan Opera. The Manhattan Center boasts a rich history of entertainment and corporate and cultural events. The Hammerstein Ballroom serves the metro New York area with two unique event spaces—the Hammerstein and The Grand Ballrooms. The flexibility of these rooms, along with their connection to in-house recording studios and television studios, allows clients to transform the rooms to suit any style of event, ranging from corporate events to rock concerts, trade shows to television shoots, fashion shows to product launches.

This nightclub/cabaret is a fashionable downtown venue with live musical entertainment: deejays, salsa bands, international music, and jazz. Don’t let the crowds and velvet ropes scare you—Joe’s Pub is crowded nearly every night of the week. And while you can’t pick a bad night, it’s best to take note of the specific party or performer, as the lineup is diverse.

(Le) Poisson Rouge is a multimedia art cabaret founded by musicians on the site of the historic Village Gate. Dedicated to the fusion of popular and art culture in music, film, theatre, dance and fine art, the venue’s mission is to revive the symbiotic relationship between art and revelry: to establish asylum for both artists and audiences.

Recently celebrating its 10th birthday, the Living Room has become a firm fixture of the Lower East Side music scene. Co-owned by married couple Steve Rosenthal and Jennifer Gilson, the original Living Room was housed in a smaller spot on Stanton Street and, due to its overwhelming popularity, in 2003 it moved to its current location. This venue has a well-earned reputation for nurturing young and unknown musicians, famously including Norah Jones. With over 10 acts playing each day, you are guaranteed to have a fun night at this cozy and intimate venue.

This Lower East Side live music venue is one of the hottest indie spaces in NYC. There’s a great bar in front, and the music is in the rear. Get there early and grab a seat because this jammed joint is for music lovers, not rug-cutters.

Other Music describes itself as “a unifying aesthetic for a cornucopia of seemingly disparate musical genres—an attempt to classify the unclassifiable by delineating the common threads among these genres.” This works for us, as the iconic downtown Manhattan record store specializes in a wide selection of underground and experimental CDs, LPs, imports, and rare vintage.

Rebel has one of the widest selections of rock music with an impressive stock of Brit-rock, including vinyl copies of Bowie’s catalogue, the Verve’s A Northern Soul and new Scottish post-rock. The boxes and boxes of used discs are a goldmine, and a treasure trove of new vinyl (from Daft Punk to Mercury Rev) lines the left side of the store.

The nightlife masterminds behind Manhattan’s Delancey venue and Miami’s Studio A have transformed this one-time Polish nightclub in Brooklyn into one of the most significant large music venues in the City today. With live and deejay events curated by New York’s one and only Justine D., this spot is completely for the up-to-date and trend-setters crowd.

As part of the Bowery Presents family (Mercury Lounge, Bowery Ballroom), Terminal 5’s reputation for consistently booking killer acts precedes itself. With three levels, a whopping 40,000 square feet, and wraparound balcony bars, the venue is regularly packed with music lovers eager to see acts from The Shins to Emmylou Harris to Santigold.