I missed the last three opportunities to catch Howells (Feb@Vinyl, Aqua/Giant party@WMC, and Made in BED @ WMC) and they were all awesome parties, by all account. I would definitely see Howells over PVD this Saturday if I were in town ...
I agree with you the NY economy is in a recession and I would venture to say that the situation here is second only to San Francisco. I haven't heard of cover falling in SF, so I doubt it'll happen here.