The Flyer's music writers tell you where you can go. Everything that's great about P.W. Long can be heard in one song. "Aw Bruiser," the second cut from the ex-Mule singer/songwriter's 1997 album, We Didn't See You on Sunday, is an aching lament to his dog Jelly sung by a man too far from home -- too displaced to even remember much about home except for the pup that's wondering where in the hell his master could be and the reason he can't be there for him. The song should be insufferable, a syrupy slip of the tongue from the saddest sack of tears at the end of the bar. Somewhere between the pain in his voice and the sincerity of the lyric, though, "Aw Bruiser" defines Long's artistry as well as anything in his formidable body of work. Mule were always better on paper than on record, but Long's two solo albums -- the aforementioned Sunday and 1998's Push Me Again -- establish him as one of the five or six best songwriters currently toiling in unjust obscurity. He's best heard on his own, with just that rough, weary voice and a guitar that echoes the torment and turmoil of his finest songs. But even with a band, Long's broken-hearted angst comes through -- on raging rockers such as "Eagle Eye" and pained exorcisms a la "Say It Ain't So" and "Fly Trap Lair." He's playing Saturday at the Last Place on Earth, with a full band and a possibly empty promise of a few solo shots as well. Either way, no one with a soul or a heart would dare to miss him. -- John Floyd You're a better band than I am, Gunga Din. The quintet the Gunga Din does have a reputation for being a better band than most on the crowded New York music scene. Formed in 1998, the band quickly gained a reputation for its noirish cabaret rock and was soon being called upon to open for such visiting acts as the similarly dark Nick Cave and Helium. Often compared to Manhattan scenesters of old, the Velvet Underground, the Gunga Din filters that group's sleepy seediness through post-punk funk-inflected pop. Add weary chanteuse Siobhan Duffy's Edith Piaf-on-heroin vocals and you've got a truly intriguing sound that, on the band's debut album, the well-reviewed Glitterati, suggests a less-produced PJ Harvey. The Gunga Din are playing the Young Avenue Deli Monday.-- Mark Jordan