First, you can head over to Central Booking to check out the latest edition of the En La Calle series, a group of 11 tracks that the trio has posted for your downloading enjoyment. Its simply a collection of tracks that the Central Booking people have been digging on lately, and they're almost always good. One is a Mariah Carey song too, so take that!

Also, since its happening early tomorrow and the Gypsy show is sold out, I'll just go ahead and tell the two people that don't already know that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are playing a free instore at Good Records tomorrow at 530. Free beer too. If you want that beer, I would suggest getting there like really early.

For tonight, I haven't seen too many live shows that sound promising, so I'll just remind you of the usual Thursday night good stuff, including:

Zoo upstairs at the Cavern. These guys have really been picking up a good crowd in recent weeks, and the few times I've been in the past couple months have been a blast. Sometimes its just a few people sitting around watching really great videos, and other times its lots of drunk people jumping around and dancing their asses off to really good videos. Either way, you'll like it.

Also, DJ G is doing his 80's electro night at Haileys. In a town where the "new cool thing" changes from week to week and is usually never cool, the fact that G has been doing his Thursday night thing for so long should be more than enough evidence to get your ass up there.

And even if it isn't, you can hit up the late 80's/early 90's tip at the Slip Inn. This is another night that has been going on forever, and for good reason. Listening to some of the tracks off of Lupe Fiasco's latest reveals that the sounds of that era are making a relevance come back too, in addition to just being the sounds of the greatest time in the history of hip hop.

Oh, and watch this if you haven't already.

Adds:
1 BEACH HOUSE Beach House Carpark
2 VARIOUS ARTISTS Peanut Butter Wolf Presents Chrome Children Stones Throw
3 PERNICE BROTHERS Live A Little Ashmont
4 PORTASTATIC Be Still Please Merge
5 CHIN UP CHIN UP This Harness Can't Ride Anything Suicide Squeeze

Charts:
1 TV ON THE RADIO Return To Cookie Mountain Interscope
2 MY MORNING JACKET Okonokos: Double Live Album ATO
3 FOUR TET Remixes Domino
4 GRIZZLY BEAR Yellow House Warp
5 BECK The Information Interscope
6 THE KNIFE Silent Shout Mute
7 BONNIE PRINCE BILLY The Letting Go Drag City
8 ALBUM LEAF Into The Blue Again Sub Pop
9 HELLA Acoustics 5RC
10 SPARKLEHORSE Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain Astralwerks
11 R.E.M. And I Feel Fine... The Best Of The I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 Capitol
12 LEMONHEADS The Lemonheads Vagrant
13 JUNIOR BOYS So This Is Goodbye Domino
14 LOW LOWS Fire On The Bright Sky Warm
15 YO LA TENGO I'm Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass Matador
16 SANDRO PERRI Plays Polmo Polpo
17 SLUMBER PARTY Musik Kill Rock Stars
18 BEN KWELLER Ben Kweller ATO
19 MOUNTAIN GOATS Get Lonely 4AD
20 CHANGES Today Is Tonight AAM
21 SIRENS SISTER Echoes From The Ocean Floor Control Group
22 MASTODON Blood Mountain Warner Bros.
23 OVER THE ATLANTIC Junica Carpark
24 DUPLOMACY All These Long Drives 2024
25 WHAT MADE MILWAUKEE FAMOUS Trying To Never Catch Up Barsuk
26 TORTOISE A Lazarus Taxon Thrill Jockey
27 WIRE 154 Pink Flag
28 XIU XIU The Air Force 5RC
29 AKRON/FAMILY Meek Warrior Young God
30 INSTRUMENTAL QUARTER Traffic Jam Southern

You know, the new Junior Boys album is really shaping up to be one of my favorites this year, and its actually quite surprising to me that they aren't a bigger band than they are. Not every song on the new album is a club banger or anything, but there are a few that sound as if they could be really big singles. The MP3 below is one such song. The album is called So This is Goodbye. Listen to it.

"In the Morning" Click

Also, here is a video for Wire's "Ahead," off their 1987 album The Ideal Copy. I must admit, I haven't heard much of that record, although what I have heard sounds quite a bit different from the earlier stuff with which I am more familiar. Really great song:

Hey, sorry bout it, but I don't have time to do a lot of writing for the list today. I've got, you know, a life to live, plus I'm working on a couple features that will be ready by tomorrow or Friday. So do these things tonight:

Of course, you can hit up The Party with Dj Nature at Rubber Gloves, or

Matt & Kim | King Tuff | El Paso Hot Button | Everything Looks Better Upside Down (1919 Hemphill Ft. Worth) King Tuff sounds pretty damn good by the way and Matt and Kim too.... actually, I think I really want to go to this show. Check out the Myspace pages.

or

you can see Tame... Tame and Quiet with Bearegard and Sweetgrass at the Black Dog Tavern in Ft. Worth, as part of Scissor Socket Shocker's concert series.

Quick question for everyone: we've been trying to have the It Lists posted by no later 4pm, and we're going to try to have them by 3pm from now on. Would the earlier post times be more helpful to you? I know I'm setting myself up for some sarcastic comments, but people have sent us emails asking if we could post this stuff earlier, and I'm just trying to see if others agree.

Mastodon | The Bronx (Gypsy Tea Room)
Remember kids, this is an all ages show, and the doors open at 630. If I had heard Mastodon for the first time when I was 12, I would have thought they were the coolest shit on the face of the earth, just below Megadeath and Black Flag. Although I don't exactly feel that way now, it has been a while since I've heard a straight up metal/hardcore record that I've liked as much as Mastodon's latest. Its smart, tight, and most of all, it completely rocks while managing to avoid the traps of hipster irony. In fact, one look at the video below confirms that these guys probably want to kick your ironic hipster ass. You can dismiss it as flavor of the month hype if you like, and you would be partially right. Saying that you're into metal is as trendy as can be these days, but if you give the record a listen and try your best to ignore some of the more annoying trend marketing behind it, I think you'll find that you like it quite a bit, especially if you started off your rock n roll journey with metal and hardcore, which I'm guessing a lot of you did. And don't worry about going early to see The Bronx. You can do without.

I have yet to hear anything from Wanz about tonight's Lost Generation at the Cavern, but I'm going to go ahead and guess that its still happening until I hear otherwise. You're likely to hear Krautrock, soul, psyche, no wave, new wave, and anything else he feels like throwing your way.

Hotel Uganda | Oveo (J&Js Denton- Free)
Hotel Uganda is a huge improv project featuring members of Idi Amin and Hotel Hotel, and Oveo (or is the band called Dead Echoes, like the upcoming fest?) is an ambient drone project from the current performing members of You Are the Universe. This should be a great show, and I'm interested to see what these guys do with Austin's Hotel Hotel, a band we like quite a bit. These performances will be almost entirely new for the folks onstage, so you can expect the unexpected. I think it starts about 1030, which means that you can still catch this show after Mastodon if you live Denton way. And since its a free show at a great venue, why the hell not?

Mastodon's latest video, "The Wolf is Loose:"

You like how its supposed to be 95 degrees outside every day for the rest of the week? The reason I bring this up? Well, its simply because there isn't much to talk about today. And it really sucks.

However, you can certainly go enjoy a night of jazz at the Amsterdam tonight. I believe it starts around ten, and goes on until at least one. Most of the time when we go, we find a small rotating cast of musicians playing trumpet, sax, bass, keyboards and drums, with a focus on bop standards. Won't blow your mind, but its quite a lot of fun most of the time.

1. The Polyphonic Spree - Wait
2. Sparklehorse - Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly of a Mountain
3. My Morning Jacket - Okonos
4. Red Monroe - Red Monroe
5. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Letting Go
6. Ghostland Observatory - Paparazzi Lightning
7. Darkel - Darkel
8. The Album Leaf - Into The Blue Again
9. Mars Volta - Amputechture
10. The Evangelicals - So Gone
11. Ratatat - Classics
12. My Brightest Diamond - Bring Me The Workhorse
13. Cat Power - The Greatest
14. Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye
15. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
16. OOIOO - Taiga
17. Yo La Tengo - I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass
18. The Whitest Boy Alive - Dreams
19. Wovenhand - Mosaic
20. Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther