Here’s your best bets for the weekend, kids, according to our crack team of music snobs. We didn’t put Rock Lottery on the list, by the way, since we assume you already know about it. (If not, check Wilonsky’s excellent piece on it here .)
Beat the Devil Good Records (1808 Greenville Ave.). 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 5. Free. A nice, creepy way to start your Friday night, NYC’s Beat the Devil indeed sound like it could conquer the pitchfork-wielding horned one. A slow burn of almost burlesque groove weaves its way through the trio’s songs, as Shilpa Ray sings like a punk rock ghost.
The Backsliders, RTB2 The Moon (2911 W. Berry St., Fort Worth). 9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 5. Cover TBD RTB2’s Ryan Thomas Becker may be the closest thing to Jack White DFW will ever have. The singer/instrumentalist somehow mixes soul, classic rock and White’s raggedy wail into his vocals. The band’s music is a splendid mix of those genres as well, with tambourine shakes, organ fills and dirty reverb-y guitars that grab your attention and won’t let go. The Backsliders, who do double duty tonight, hightailing it back to Club Dada to play a late set, ain’t too shabby either, with their high-energy, kick-ass poprockandrollabilly, anchored by Kim Pendleton and Chris Bonnor’s scratchy rock n roll voices.
Mom Hailey's (122 W. Mulberry St., Denton). 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 5. No cover Glitch-y, textured and mellow, the appropriately titled Mom won’t scare your parents, but might lull them into a luscious slumber. With Mom, synths, violins, speckles of static and fragments of unidentified instruments swirl and copulate on top of a surrealistic pillow. Call it nu-age music.
Crowdus Street Festival Curtain Club (2800 Main St.). 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6. $15. Rocking harder than most fests that take place in the Deep Ellum area, Crowdus Street should be the perfect hangout for the types that wouldn’t dig Rock Lottery. Headliners Fair to Midland have made quite a national—international, even—splash this year with their prog-y, thoughtful metal, but other treats include the Vanished, an underrated local band that plays tight, smart hard emo and who put on quite a stage show, and openers Darby, who bust hard rock out of its usual restrictions.
The Lash Outs, Dragna Bar of Soap (3615 Parry Ave.). 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6. Free. The Lash Outs are an above-average punk band, but it’s Dragna’s scuzz-fuzz you should really watch out for. Featuring zippy slide guitar, dark blues backbeats and Halloween vocals, Dragna’s an updated classic—the eerie Southern boy rock/blues crew. -- Jonanna Widner
