Miss Kittin and the Hacker (The Loft)
Monday night in Dallas is pretty much a total bummer setting for a show in which "sex with movie stars" will be a primary lyrical focus, but I guess a lot of people would argue that the novelty of "electroclash" is a pretty big bummer too. Of course, picking on electroclash has sort of become like picking on a retarded kid in elementary school, hasn't it? Yes, anyone who has picked up a single lifestyle magazine in the past six years knows that electroclash was a flash in the pan, but really, was it as insignificant as people like to claim? I don't know, but I have a hard time imagining that any of the trends that we've seen in dance music over the past several years would have occurred in the same way without the influence of people like Miss Kittin and Felix Da Housecat, for better or worse. They kind of served as a gateway drug for moody indie kids to finally accept the fact that dance music was ok to listen to even if you didn't take Ecstasy. And whether you're happy about what has become the dominant and single most significant development in American and European underground music in the past decade (the embrace of electro), you can hardly call it insignificant, and you can't say that tracks like Miss Kittin's "Frank Sinatra" didn't play a noteworthy part.

The Queers | The Independents | The Lash Outs (Doublewide)
This is the coolest show I've seen booked at Doublewide in many months, and obviously, that isn't saying much. Oh and by the way-- the Independents have been touring pretty much non stop since 1995, and they refer to themselves as a "horror ska" punk band, which is so awkward that its even hard to make fun of. Uh, Nelson Mandela is already free, mkay Danzig?

Cool Out (The Cavern)