It was hard to believe I was watching Patti Smith live at Amoeba today. She seems like the kind of artist who doesn't exist in real life, yet here she was sounding every bit as amazing as on her landmark first album, Horses, while launching into suicide story "Redondo Beach" at the beginning of her set. She danced and smiled her way through "April Fool," the gleeful first single from Banga, her excellent most recent album, released earlier this year. "You're so quiet ... it must be the hallowed ground of the record store," she teased the audience before launching into "Fuju-san." She introduced Banga's "This is the Girl" as being about Amy Winehouse, adding a darker shade to a beautifully rendered song about the girl "who yearned to be heard."

While her bandmates played acoustically, you could really hear Smith and how gracefully her voice has matured, sounding natural and unstrained on the newer material and projecting the wisdom of years onto her classics. She strapped on a guitar for a snarly rendition of "Banga" — but not before asking why AMC dropped The Killing. "I'll be back at 2 in the morning, we'll talk about really serious stuff," she quipped on the night of the Vice Presidential debate.

On Oct. 31 Amoeba Hollywood will begin its Halloween celebration at 2 p.m. with DJs, a dog costume contest and more.

From 2-4 p.m, Amoeba DJs DJ Fang Face and DJ Lew Siffer will spin cool scary tunes. And starting at 4 p.m., Amoeba will hold its 2nd Annual Dog Costume Contest. Bring your dog in costume and you can win a grand prize gift basket of dog-friendly treats from Catts & Doggs. Or just come and watch, if you can handle the unbearable amounts of cute. Just look at the photos from last year’s contest. Bat dog! Ramones dog! Can’t handle it.

Amoeba has an exclusive We Are Scientists download, a live version of their hit “After Hours,” as part of its full-album download of College Radio Day – The Album.

While the album (and track) is available on CD ($14.98), only Amoeba.com includes the download of the We Are Scientists track, which comes on the limited edition CD. The entire album download is $9.98 on MP3, and also available on either ALAC or WAV file (that’s fancier fidelity, for non-audiophiles) — as opposed to $11.98 on iTunes in MP3 only, and without that bonus track. The sale is limited, so if you’re thinking about picking it up, do it soon!

The album is a two-disc set featuring songs from The Civil Wars, Umphrey’s McGee, Delta Spirit as well as a score of unsigned artists recorded live at college radio stations around the country. Proceeds from the album go toward the College Radio Defense Fund, putting money toward things like new equipment, repairing existing equipment, supporting promotional events and other much-needed help.

Album Picks:

Tame Impala – Lonerism

LP $19.98

DL $9.98

CD $11.98

Whereas Tame Impala’s awesome first album, Innerspeaker, was all about muscle, on Lonerism the Australian band tends to build its psych-rock songs more deliberately, more delicately. But they still kick ass, and hard. “Be Above It’s” titular refrain is whispered over a tumbling drumbeat until Kevin Parker takes off with a simple, Beatlesesque melody and he and his cohorts supply fuzzed out psychedelic flourishes. Thanks to Parker’s high, nasal voice, those comparisons to John Lennon keep coming, on songs like “Apocalypse Dreams,” where Parker’s vocals and melodies certainly are reminiscent of the Fab Four, but musically they’re no mere worshippers at the psych throne, more interested in squeezing strange, new sounds out of familiar territory and taking their arrangements through multiple tempo changes, broiling them through effects, laying moogs and synths over them and then looping back to the original melody like deja vu. Tame Impala also prove adept and producing the straightforward rock single on “Elephant,” which may draw comparisons to The White Stripes for more than just its title, but whose bass-heavy sound really pulls more from psych originators like Blue Cheer — just hookier. Parker, who produced the first Tame Impala record, as well as the recent, excellent release by Melody’s Echo Chamber, finds perfect sonic kinship in David Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev), who can be known for helping to dramatically change a band’s sound (Sleater-Kinney’s mindblowing The Woods, for instance) but who mostly seems to help Tame Impala sound even fuller, allowing the band’s punchiness to come through in tracks like the pop psychedelic wonder of “Music to Walk Home By,” but thickening it with layers of space-rock sound. The end result is that Lonerism hits hard but leaves a lasting impression, leaving the listener to wrap his or her head around all the wondrous sounds of the record and immediately wanting to track back and listen again.

MellowHype – “Grill”

Here’s the next song from Odd Future’s MellowHype, which will be on their album Numbers, out Oct. 9. The duo’s warped hip-hop is on fine display on “Grill,” as their doubled vocals spell out their name and rap smoke circles around everyone else. Out next week, you can preorder Numbers here.

Trash Talk – “Exile on Broadway”

Speaking of Odd Future, sounds like OFWGKTA associates Trash Talk are trying to become the hardcore Rolling Stones with “Exile on Broadway” and the Exile on Main St. referencing album art for 119, which is out Oct. 9. Lofty goals, but you can’t argue with the quality and ferocity of a track like this. Stream “Exile on Broadway” here, and preorder 119 here.