Plea for Peace Tour

This six-week traveling package tour couldn't have its heart in a more righteous place. Ten percent of the money made from ticket sales goes to benefit the National Hopeline Network, a Virginia-based suicide-prevention program that aims to give people in trouble easy access to instant telephone counseling, "regardless of where in the U.S. the call originates." The foundation, working with California indie labels Asian Man and Sub City, has even assembled a budget-priced double-CD benefit compilation featuring many of the tour's participants, 5 percent of whose sales will go to NHN. So it's a shame that Dallas is getting the short end of the lineup stick when the second annual Plea for Peace hits the Gypsy Tea Room on Friday night: Turgid New Jersey emo copycats Thursday headline a bill also featuring overheated Nebraska dramatists Cursive, Florida metalheads Poison the Well (who sound like Cave In minus the killer space-rock vertigo) and Chicago rockers the Lawrence Arms (who sound like Jawbreaker minus about a decade of development). Post-Operation Ivy skate rats Common Rider aren't bad, but where are Le Tigre and the (International) Noise Conspiracy and Jimmy Eat World, all of whom played tour stops elsewhere? Or, shit, even the Promise Ring? Take the opportunity to prove that some things are more important than music.