It List: Thursday

Cool Kids/Flosstradamus/Ricky Blaze/The Party (Granada): One of the bigger shows of the week (obviously) featuring three huge names in the eclectic dance/hip hop scene that has been fueled and nourished by publications like Fader and XLR8R for a few years now. First things first-- if you wanna go to this thing, just head over to this corporate website and RSVP. You'll want to do it now, and you'll probably want to show up early too, as this FREE event will get packed pretty quick. I promise. Cool Kids' nods to late 80's early 90's hip hop should come off as cliche hipster fodder on paper, but somehow their tracks are almost universally successful due to fantastically minimal beats and a solid flow that answers any style over substance the right way pretty quickly. Chicago's Flosstradamus caught my ear a couple years ago with a fantastic mash up (I know, I know) of Twista's "Overnight Star" and a Sigur Ros track (don't recall the name, but it's #2 on their first album) that actually worked as an emotionally charged hip hop dance track, if that makes any fucking sense at all. Ricky Blaze is a young, pop oriented dance hall MC from Brooklyn who made waves with this video last year, and I'm sure his cuddly crowd pleasing anthems will go over very nicely with The Party's crowd . I'm not sure if Central Booking put this show together or if corporation in question just had them added to the bill, but either way, props to them for being involved in such a huge show.

Intronaut/Mouth of the Architect/Behold... The Arctopus (Club Dada): In the strange times we live in today, where self aware mid period flashback retro hip hip competes with hardcore and metal for a hipster audience thats supposed to be listening to I love You Barcelona or whatever the fuck that band is called, Parade of Flesh might have their work cut out for them on the eve of the big Granada show. However, this will end up having more to do with the shortage of hipsters in Dallas more than anything else. Intronaut is a fairly interesting prog metal act from LA that treads the line of slickness without ever crossing the line into doucheness. It's not my thing exactly, but those who are into melodic song structures and huge riffs and bands like High on Fire and Mastodon will dig it for sure, especially if said people are also into Rush and stuff. Mouth of the Architect sounds like they do something similar but a little less successful, while Behold the Arctopus sounds like they really like to fuck with odd time signatures like a heavy metal Yes. Totally. Being a dork IS cool again.

Greg Ginn and the Taylor Texas Corrugators (Fred's Cafe, Ft. Worth)

Steely Dan (Nokia): See? I told you.

ADD: Check the Rubber Gloves website for details on the theatrical performance taking place there tonight in addition to a Dirty Diamond performance.

80's Night with DJG (Hailey's)