Looks like a fairly thin weekend on the live music front.... boohoo. Anyway, check back with us today, tomorrow and Sunday for updates to the list. If we hear about anything good, we'll be sure to post about it before 6pm the day of.

FRIDAY

You might want to start your weekend by heading over to Central Booking and downloading some party tracks from their En La Calle series. Everything they post is great, and their tastes are always about six months ahead of the coolest person you know.

Mates of State | Asobi Seksu (Sons of Hermann Hall)
Clearly the best rock show going on tonight. To me, the real draw of this show is Brooklyn's Asobi Seksu, who play a poppy and cohesive brand of spaced out shoegaze that can transition from sweet indie pop to melodic, out of control walls of guitar noise at the drop of a hat. Citrus, their latest record, has really grown on me in recent weeks, and I'm very interested to see if the band can pull off the energy and precision of their record in a live setting. And with another pretty good band on the bill, it might be worth your time to find out.

Pawn Gallery Grand Opening (2540 Elm Street, Deep Ellum, 7pm)
This new and somewhat promising gallery in Deep Ellum will open its doors with a show called Interior Landscapes, featuring the work of photographers Wafaa Bilal and Christine Taylor. Both look fairly interesting and just a little creepy. Add free wine, beer, and food and you've got a pretty good start to a Friday evening.

Art Conspiracy (Longhorn Ballroom, 216 Corinth, Dallas)
Apparently, over a hundred and fifty artists gathered somewhere in Dallas today to create one of a kind original works of art on 18x18 plywood squares, and will be sharing these works with the public tonight beginning at 7pm. Admission is ten bucks, and the art will be available for people to take in exchange for a $20 donation to La Reunion, an Oak Cliff based artist residency program. It costs ten bucks to get in, and the price of admission will include performances by Happy Bullets, Spitfire Tumbleweeds, Fishboy, Salim Nourallah and Peter Schmidt and his Gentlemen Scholars. And I believe the Longhorn Ballroom is the place where the Sex Pistols played during their one and only trip to Dallas, so it might be cool to check it out for that alone. All the proceeds will go to La Reunion.

SATURDAY

Klever | Dj Nature (ZuBar)
Nature's Zubar shows are always a good time, and you should know that by now. Don't know much about Klever, but I like what I've heard of his (mostly hip hop) stuff.

Improvised Silence (Firehouse Art Studio, 4147 Meadowbrook Dr., Ft. Worth)
Improvised silence is a monthly experimental music showcase out in Ft. Worth, and this month's edition will feature performances by P.D. Wilder and Oveo, who are a wonderful band to experience live. Starts at 8pm, and donations are requested.

And/Or Gallery (4221 Bryan St. Dallas)
Treewave's art gallery will be hosting a show curated by Vance Wingate and featuring the work of local artists C.J. Davis, Garland Fielder, Brian R. Jones, Jessica McCambly, and Noah Simblist. The reception goes from 6-10pm, and if its anything like the last one we attended, it will be a lot of fun. The few glimpses we've had at some of the art that will be on display make me think that the show could be pretty solid as well (Check the And/or website if you want to look), but we're really not sure what to expect from a lot of the artists. I'm pretty sure that free beer is involved.

Cartright | Red Monroe | George Neal (Rubber Gloves)
Cartright's CD release party. Cartright puts on an amazing live show, and I would really recommend seeing them even if the rough folk pop on their Myspace page doesn't really strike you right away. I've seen them live a handful of times and have really enjoyed it. Red Monroe's live shows have been getting better over the past few months, and I would expect them to be in top form these days.

Kettle Art (2714 Elm St.) will be hosting a benefit show and reception for formerly local artist/graffiti writer Tony Bones from 7-10pm. Tony has apparently had a little trouble with the law recently, and the gallery is trying to help him out. His childlike art reminds me of something in between Joan Miro and Keith Haring, and I dig it. I'd like to see what this is all about.

Stella Rose | Low Line Caller | Tame...Tame and Quiet | Rotary Downs (The Cavern)
This is a bill of varying quality to be sure, but you can rest assured that Tame Tame's set will be as solid as always, and you might also be interested in checking out the blurry, sugary space rock of Low Line Caller.

SUNDAY

Cannibal Corpse/Dying Fetus/Necrophagist/Unmerciful (Gypsy Tea Room)

Life is making it pretty tough for us to post today, so here's the best we can do for now:

Peaches | Quintron and Miss Pussycat (Ridglea Theater Ft. Worth)

Circle Jerks | Lower Class Brats | The Applicators | Max Cady (Gypsy Tea Room)
Go see the Circle Jerks and some of the awful bullshit that west coast hardcore helped spawn.

Lost Generation @ Doublewide: Wanz will be playing a lot of soul, funk and garage.

DJG 80's Night @ Hailey's

My idea of psychedelic rock doesn't necessarily have much to do with 60's counterculture, San Francisco, or any other particular time, place, or sound. Of course, I realize that much of what mainstream pop culture tends to classify as "psychedelic" shares roots in a particular era and a certain pallette of sounds and attitudes, but I've always felt that bands such as Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, My Bloody Valentine and Velvet Underground were essentially psychedelic too, albeit with a much darker outlook and a completely different approach than the earlier and more well known psyche rock icons. Utilizing techniques such as repetition, sensory overload, improvisation, confrontational performances and rejection of traditional song structures, the aforementioned bands seemed to tap into the same kind of base level mood altering vibrations that Pink Floyd and 13th Floor Elevators pursued, even though their musical output was strikingly different and often in direct opposition to the psychedelic sounds of the past. The textures might be harsher and darker than those found in traditional mainstream psychedelic rock, but the often transcendent listening experience is quite similar at a basic level that encompasses much of what was revolutionary about early psychedelic rock in the first place. Namely, the possibility of significantly altering the state of mind of the listener, for better or worse.

In that sense, Indian Jewelry is truly a psychedelic group, and a damn good one at that. Their performance at Rubber Gloves last night was in many ways the best kind of slap in the face: an aggressive, unsettling and raw display of caution thrown to the wind in front of an audience that didn't seem to know how to digest what they were seeing and hearing. And you can't really blame anyone for being confused either, because what was happening on stage is almost impossible to adequately describe.

The band started the show by turning off the house lights, flicking on some strobe lights, pointing them at the audience, and pounding on a set of drums that they had set up on the floor in front of the stage. It was an ominous beginning to be sure, and it set the precise tone of the evening in about ten seconds. As the simple, monotonous tribal rhythms of the live drums pounded and stomped their way through the air, electronic beats, waves of noisy guitar and various other harsh electronic sounds began to swirl out of the band's amplifiers, creating a powerful wall of chaotic sound that was exhilarating, frightening and at times quite hard to deal with.

But as the flicker of the strobe lights and the chaos of the noise became more familiar throughout the show, a compelling cohesiveness began to creep into the band's music that hadn't initially revealed itself. Certain sounds emerged in the forefront of many of the songs and locked in with the rhythms to nearly hold the rest of it together. As guitars were soaring and feeding back, muffled vocals could be heard dancing around the rhythms, reminding listeners that human beings were in fact producing the music they were listening to. Electronic blips stood out all over the place, and sometimes the music took on a loose, dance-like quality that seemed to be fighting for attention with the band's otherworldly noise assault. There were certainly some missteps throughout the set, and there were times where it seemed that the band was sort of just losing their grip on what they were trying to do. The live drums were often a bit sparse, and sometimes the noise seemed to be just that: noise without much of a purpose. But during the many moments in which everything locked in: the drums, the cold electronics, the samples, the massive guitar bursts and the distorted, broken vocals, the band was able to crawl under the skin, play with moods and challenge the mind to dig a bit deeper into the whole experience. And although they probably have more in common with Flipper than Jefferson Airplane, Indian Jewelry's performance was an undeniably mind expanding experience that could be called psychedelic in both the most basic and most important sense of the word.

Of course, DJ Nature is doing his Party at Rubber Gloves.

Wolfmother | Dead Meadow | Silversun Pickups (Gypsy Tea Room)
I think its now clear that Wolfmother have become this year's "Band to Hate" in underground circles, but I just can't get on board with all that. At least not all the way. When bands rip off other bands and try to hide it, it really pisses me off. But when bands are such complete rip offs of other bands that there isn't any way they can possibly hide it, it doesn't bother me as much as long as the music is good. Wolfmother isn't great, and many of their songs just seem to lack any of those intangible qualities that make rock bands worth listening to. But they're not as terrible as people make them out to be. Its just that they are the biggest Black Sabbath/Blue Cheer ripoff of all time, and it makes people mad. Thats fine. I just don't give a shit either way. Dead Meadow have played here a few times this year, and I would recommend them to anyone that likes the electric guitar. I feel like I've seen them play live 8 million times (I believe the first time might have been as an opener for Pavement in 99), and its usually a great show. Silversun Pickups are actually the most mediocre band of all time. Its a scientific fact. Go listen to their songs if you don't believe me. I'm pretty sure this show is sold out.

Pernice Brothers | Elvis Perkins (Hailey's)
Considering the influx of sweetheart indie pop bands that have been all the rage this year, I thought I'd be too tired to write a single sentence about the Pernice Brothers, even if they're too old to be a blog buzz band. However, I actually kind of like them, against my better judgment, and I apparently have the energy to write two sentences about them.

Oh, glorious December. What more can you ask for in a month? On the 25th, we celebrate the birthday of everyone's favorite Republican (who actually looks like he could be in Akron/Family). On the 31st, we celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next. Throughout the entire month, the media tries to convince us that the lines to see Santa at North Park Mall are more newsworthy than war. And this December, we're adding something else to the list.

We're very happy to announce that the nice people who run Art Prostitute have invited us to host a concert at their gallery to celebrate the secular giving of gifts during the holiday season. Its going to take place on the evening of Friday, December 15th, and its going to be fun. But instead of writing out a whole long thing about how great we are for doing this, I'll just give you the line up and some of the details, which will be just as effective in convincing you that we are in fact great. The line up:

The Great Tyrant
Faux Fox
Chief Death Rage
Krispee Ones
DJ sets by Nature, Sober and Select

These are just a few of the bands and DJs that we've really come to like over the past year, and we're very happy that they've agreed to peform. We still have some details to work out (such as the order of the sets and the exact time they will start), but we do know:

1. It will probably start earlier than the average show (say around 7 or 8)
2. It will cost $6
3. It will be all ages
4. Your $6 will get you in the door, and if you're over 21, it will also get you unlimited access to the free Shiner Keg that we'll have inside. Come in, grab a cup, and fill up as many times as you can. If you drink two, the cover charge pays for itself. All the alcoholics will be there early.

We'll give more details in the coming days, but be sure to look out for some totally cute Myspace event invites!

1. Indian Jewelry | Faux Fox | Bob White And The F-Electrics (Rubber Gloves)

A surprisingly good show for a Tuesday night. Indian Jewelry is an experimental-psych band originally from Houston who have a rotating cast of participants and are just as likely to change band names as they would members. According to Stylus Magazine, the band is-"Pushing further than any of their Texas-derived contemporaries (the Black Angels, the Secret Machines), Indian Jewelry have assumed The Lone Star State’s psych crown." Those are fighting words in some circles. The group has recently recorded for Monitor Records, who I distinctly remember being heralded as the Touch and Go of the new century a few years ago. Well, not quite, but they have released some good to great records. The delightfully snotty Faux Fox and Bob White and The F-Electrics round out the bill.

2. Lost Generation with DJ Mwanza (The Cavern)

Wanz keeps it interesting with a diverse set of underground savvy classics, old and new.

3. Hardin Sweaty and The Ready To Go | Brooke Opie | Glovebox | A Therapeutic Smile (Club Dada)

In Hardin Sweaty's best moments they remind me of midwestern power pop group, Hockey Night. A Therapeutic Smile play keyboard based music that I'm curious to see translated to the stage. The other acts feature more traditional singer/songwriter acoustic material.

4. TuPac Tuesdays with DJ Strangeluv (Ronnie's in Deep Ellum)

Damn it. If this was Biggie Tuesdays with DJ Strangeluv I would totally be there.

1. Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas
2. Joanna Newson - Ys
3. Benoit Pioulard - Precis
4. Shins - Phantom Limb
5. Jeremy Enigk - World Waits
6. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards
7. Icy Demons - Tears of a Clone
8. Radiant - We Hope You Win
9. Brand New - The Devil & God Are Raging Inside Me
10. Swan Lake - Beast Moans
11. The Polyphonic Spree - Wait
12. Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
13. Beach House - Beach House
14. Voxtrot - Your Biggest Fan
15. Damien Rice - 9
16. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
17. Micah P. Hinson - And the Opera Circuit
18. Johann Johannsson - IBM 1401-A User's Manual
19. Architecture in Helsinki - We Died, They Remixed
20. Beatles - Love

I actually kinda like that Swan Lake record... didn't think I would, but I do.

Of course, live Jazz is happening at the Amsterdam Bar tonight, with the usual rotating cast focusing mostly on bop favorites. Many of the musicians that perform at the Amsterdam on Mondays are part of a small circle of noteworthy local jazz standouts, and it really is a pleasure to listen to these guys effortlessly come together on great tunes time and time again. One of the best low key music nights you can find anywhere in Dallas.

This seems to be all that is happening this evening.