Three Days To Rise || January 19-21

FRIDAY

Club Dada: Rolling Stones Hoot Night
The last Dada/Callithump Hoot Night forced a lot of young bands to cover the Beach Boys, which was probably the worst way to start the club's new concept out. BB harmonies are just too demanding. But the Stones make sense--the group's extensive catalog and simple, bluesy base gives tonight's acts a lot of angles to choose from, so we're looking forward to Stones takes by Sean Kirkpatrick, The Naptime Shake and Fort Worth's Stanton Meadowdale (who, according to one recent review, was destined to play this show anyhow).

Rubber Gloves: Mix Tapes & Baby Fights
Frequency Down's Frank Hejl is moving to New York in a few days, so he bids his Denton empire farewell with one final edition of his comedy/music smorgasbord. Hejl lucked out on this one, pulling Portland's talented Laura Gibson into his schedule (who sounds a boatload like Canadian singer Sarah Harmer, and that's a good thing), while Fishboy will be on hand to "go electric" (though we're not quite sure what that means). Local comedians are on the bill as well, including some fellows from The Cooperation Corporation...we're clueless about area comedy, though, but the stuff will be in the Aziz/Stella/Comedians of Comedy mindset, so snarky left-wingers will almost certainly giggle and feel smug.

Darkside Lounge: Lazer
We're starting to grow fonder of Plano's favorite pseudo-Euros as time passes, though the rest of this Darkside bill is the pits...particularly the presence of the biggest douche at 102.1 The Edge, Ayo, as DJ. Our guess? If it's anything like his DJ gig on the air, he'll play Offspring songs for most of the night.

SATURDAY

Good Records: Crain For Mayor CD Release party (free, early)
We were hoping to score a copy of this CD before the show to review it for you fine folks, but Crain's promotional crew screwed up big time in not responding to my repeated e-mails. No matter--the target audience will buy this in droves without my help, as the two-disc release is the most ambitious local compilation released in years. To celebrate, Dove Hunter and Baboon play at Good Records (at 4 and 5, respectively)...we've said plenty about them recently, so we'll instead shine our spotlight on Dayton, OH's Heartless Bastards, a bare-bones blues-rock trio that does so much with so little. Show up at 3 p.m. and you'll probably wind up wanting to see the band again when it headlines Sons of Hermann Hall later that evening, and with Pleasant Grove supporting at our fave venue in Dallas, no less! Hot damn.

Granada Theater: ...it's sold out, anyway. Either you're going or you're not.

Barley House: Rose County Fair
One of our picks for best live band in town opens for the ho-hum semi-local Todd Deatherage at SMU's favorite fake ID bar, so if RCF's breath of fresh alt-country air doesn't entice you, perhaps some underage ass will. Perv. Show up by 10:30 if you want to see RCF's set in its entirety...and you do.

Absinthe Lounge: The Jump-Off
Live performances by three of our fave hip-hop acts in town, hands-down: Steve Austin, Pikahsso and Thesis. It's like they copy+pasted one of our wishlists! Looks to be a DJ-driven dance event for the most part, so go for the party and stay for the show.

Hailey's: About 5,000 bands
Stuck in Denton for the night? This $5 show might prove to be the sleeper of the evening, with Dd faves Comrade (with help from Midlake's Eric Nichelson, no kidding) leading off a pack of eight 'tween-friendly Dallas indie-popsters from the Postal-'Play generation (Dignan being the most promising act of the pack, though we're only guessing based on MySpace samples). Seems like the meathead/butt-rock infestation of the early '00s has given way to this unassuming-yet-booming scene of down-tempo, melodic, piano-craving (and sometimes even--gasp!--Christian) acts around town, and quite frankly, Dallas could have things much worse. Though Hailey's lists Comrade as the headliner, they actually play early in the evening, so schedule yourself accordingly.


SUNDAY...nothing? Always sucks when an overcrowded Saturday is followed by a disappointing Sunday, but if you need something to do, go meet Gordie Howe at NorthPark Center around 3 p.m. Mr. Hockey!! -SM