Recent Barsuk signees Ra Ra Riot are quirky even by the "anything goes" standards of modern day rock. That's not because they're a weird band, but it's because they know their instruments like true pros and can mix strings with Moogs and dance beats and produce some of the smartest songs you'll hear all year. No wonder every major music outlet, British or American, has been onto these guys for some time. Ra Ra Riot's debut, The Rhumb Line, will arrive in mid-August, so you should have plenty of time to polish up on their brooding jams before they make the Loft. Fun!

This show's really a three-for-one deal. The Morning Benders and Walter Meego are also super tight -- surely not just "openers" -- so get their early make an evening of it.

Doors @ 8:30p.m. • $10/$12

What's in a name? Los Angeles' Shiny Toy Guns wield synths and distorted guitars over a thick electronic stew for a catchy and sometimes aggressive reinvention of NIN-like rock that's beginning to make serious waves in the music world. Employing many weapons of choice, Shiny Toy Guns are true masters of drama unafraid to craft dark, brooding tunes with the loud-soft-loud climactic ebb and flow made so famous by their forefathers. This year, we will see the release of their "Season of Poison" LP, an evolution of the group's sound that's already been in heavy rotation on FUSE TV.

We'll see you there.

In their words: "80's ROCK! Clad in leather and 80's glam, LC Rocks has energy and attitude to get your party rockin'! LC Rocks plays a variety of music, but is best know for 80's Rock -- Guns 'n' Roses, Bon Jovi, Def Leppar, AC/DC, Journey, and more! LC Rocks has been performing for top Austin clubs and private parties throughout Central Texas since 2002 and has earned the reputation as Central Texas' most popular 80's rock band!"

Never too late to grab a pair of leather pants YALL.

ALL LC ROCKS SHOWS ARE 21+

VIP tables available with the purchase of bottle service. Great for birthday celebrations & bachelorette/bachelor parties! Contact rachel@theloftdallas.com for more information.

Nikka Costa was a global sensation probably well before you ever heard of her. The daughter of famous veteran producer Don Costa (and goddaughter of Frank Sinatra) spent her youth globetrotting between LA, Japan, and Europe before topping the German charts in her teens and ultimately settling down in Australia, where she became a big deal in her mid-twenties. In 2000 and 2001, Costa's super raw single, "Like A Feather" propelled her to huge, newfound success in the States that left her in a league of soul all her own.

This year, Costa will release "Pebble to a Pearl", a collection of tunes that builds on her sultry funk proclivities and establishes this sexy redhead as a tour de force in the world of adult, urban rock, funk and soul.

Nikka brings it to the stage unlike almost anybody we've ever seen. So find someone and take them along for the ride.

You may have seen A Place to Bury Strangers opening for NIN, or read about them on Pitchfork Media, or seen them at SXSW, or read about them in Spin and purchased their self-titled record because it's super ill. However which way, these Brooklyn natives will find a way to turn their psychedelic new wave into trance-inducing nirvana when their roadshow hits the Loft come mid-October.

Openers the Sian Alice Group are much softer and more experimental than their touring partners. Taking cues from groups like Stereolab and My Bloody Valentine, among many others, the UK quintet sounds much smaller and reserved than their size would suggest. Sian Alice's tunes are expansive, but full of space, linear, yet structurally all over the place.

With local indie heroes Red Monroe opening, it's going to be a splendid time. A full course meal, if you will.

Doors @ 8:30p.m. • $10/$12

When Robert Pollard put his legendary Guided by Voices to rest in 2004, no one believed for a second that he was gone. Everyone knows that dude doesn't quit. Seven albums later -- yes, seven since 2004 -- we now have the Boston Spaceships, Pollard's latest supergroup/distraction that just so happens to feature a few ex-GBVers. Behind Brown Submarine, their first album together, Pollard and Co. stay very true to form. Hooky, Lennon-esque melodies accompany a backdrop of lo-fi fuzz and Pollard's characteristically alcohol-fueled witticisms to form yet another collection that will only further his place in the indie canon. Productive as he may be, he's also meticulously consistent, even when the minute-long noise experiments just come and go.

Pollard has always been outstanding live, and this will be no different. You'd be crazy to miss this legend when he's in our midst.

Doors @ 8:30p.m. • $14/$16

Everlast is a guy who's found success with each new exploration in a career that takes as far back as 1990, when he was a member of Ice-T's Rhyme Syndicate Cartel. That was just a phase. Then there was House of Pain and the ubiquitous "Jump Around" which put him on the global map and in countless ads, movies, etc. When that famously proud Irish hip-hop trio fizzled out when they couldn't repeat earlier successes, Erik Schrody returned in 1998 as Everlast. With the huge-selling "Whitey Ford Sings the Blues", the dude had done mad soul-searching and returned with thoughtful acoustic rap perhaps most apparent in the smash single "What It's Like." This year Everlast will drop a direct reflection on that debut with "Love, War, and the Ghost of Whitey Ford", a collection of rap-influenced mood rock with denser arrangements and a brilliant cover of "Folsolm Prison Blues". See what it's all about when he hits the Loft this fall.

Doors @ 8:00 p.m. • $17/$20

The indie pop outfit Uh Huh Her don't wear their PJ Harvey influence on their chest as much as one might expect and, instead, traverse a lush world of Ladytron meets Annie Lennox new wave, something more reminiscent of Annie with a Cure/Kelly Clarkson bent rather than what you'd expect of the Eurythmics. Uh Huh Her's tunes project a warm romance and glistening pop sensibility that will be extremely radio friendly once the right ears take note. We say that only because this year's "Common Reaction" on the right now sounds like an undiscovered and accomplished gem with certifiable hit potential all over it. More power to this dynamic LA duo for being so authentic and bl0ggable, yall. See them at the Loft so you can say you saw them when...

All you need to know about 21-year-old singer-songwriter Kerli is contained in the songs to her debut Island Def Jam album, Love Is Dead. Born in Elva, Estonia, a tiny, then-Soviet occupied town of 5,000 people in the forest, Kerli grew up with a dream to escape from her surroundings. "Little creepy girl/Oh she loves to sing/She has a little gift-an amazing thing," she declares on the autobiographical, world music beat of "Walking on Air. "She will go and set the world on fire/Nobody ever thought she could do that."

File under: Wailing, earnest, anthemic Long Island, New York, alt rock. Your favorite kind.
Don't make the mistake of missing out on Bayside's friendly rockers, if not for the simple fact that their new album is just damn good stuff.

HALLOWEEN + KLEVER + THE PARTY

Hometown alt rockers Miser busted on the scene last year with a raucous cover of The Cranberries' "Zombie", a reinterpretation of the radio classic that put these dudes on the national radar and earned them a big slot at last year's Edgefest. Chock full of original material, this year's just released self-titled record fleshes out what was only hinted at in their breakthrough and exhibits an arsenal of chops and rock and roll melancholy that should only take them to uncharted new realms.

Courtesy of AEG Live, one of the more absurd television shows of the last 35-45 years fishtails its way to the Loft.



Watch more Tim & Eric here and here.

Kathleen Edwards rides a fine line between pop and alt-country that's somewhat confounding given her versatility and undeniable potential. Country roots shape everything the Canadian songstress has ever done, but her dapper looks and vocal range/songs/influences suggest there might be a more conventional pop star beneath the veil. Regardless of what she does next, this year's "Asking for Flowers" is her best release to date -- as you probably know by now -- a pensive, lovelorn affair that shows off uncanny melodies and an extremely mature sense of alt-country songcraft. The record, produced by Whiskeytown's producer, has an airy self-awareness that unravels the depths of Edwards' irrefutable talents and opens doors for who knows what's next.

We are terribly excited to have her here at a little old place called the Loft.

The King Khan & BBQ Show is the most revered band in their scene, and there are many reasons why. It all started in 2003, BBQ visiting King Khan, and jamming out their black magick in his Nazi-bunker rehearsal space. Songs flowed endlessly like blood from a cancerous abcess. They took it easy, honing their craft, playing sporadically to crowds outraged by their incredible sound and nasty live show. Orgiastic, anarchic, hypnotic and personal are the shows to this day. Blow-jobs and blood, pick-ups and puke, dancing and laughing. Two guys. Mark Sultan (BBQ), smashing snare, bass drum and tambourine with his bare feet, molesting his guitar and singing like a possessed angel. He is often cited as having one of the finest voices (think Sam Cooke) and greatest songcraft in the world. The other, King Khan, is nearing legendary status for his advanced nuttiness and unpredictability, as well as top-notch showmanship and musicianship. He spins and howls like a freak while belting it out on his guitar like a masher. What does it all sound like? It sounds like five men. Really. And it is very difficult to peg the sound. It really is a cross-section of amazing bands, places and energies. This is soul. This is punk. This is psychedelic. And who do you think started this whole sock-hop/doo-wop revival? Sultan and Khan. This is the Death Cult. This is ROCK'N'ROLL. The show? A mess. Tear-jerking love songs, punkers, improvised riot-starters, dance-floor shakers, sing-along stompers, wild rockers – you name it. They always drench the crowd in raw energy, and they’re always the last ones dancing and drinking at the bar. They are international antiheroes and rock'n'roll ambassadors of the highest calibre. They've toured from Europe to Brazil to Israel to outer space and beyond, because they are two spiritual, intelligent icons on a very specific mission. It is obvious that they are true blood-brothers of the telepathic order. Yin and yang. Complete opposites. Real, real tight. And very capable comics. The two were even asked to co-host their own show in Canada. (via the Windish Agency)

Atlanta's Deerhunter, darlings of Pitchfork and 42% of all music critics, are nothing if not polarizing, yet are a band unquestionably all the more memorable for it. Fronted by Atlas Sound's Bradford Cox, Deerhunter's mystifying, highly productive recorded output takes noticeable cues from My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Brian Eno, among others, but does not rely on rehashed influences to makes it mark. Not wont to rest on their laurels, Deerhunter are, in fact, a band with a seemingly endless palette of ideas and an ambition that will likely fend off the apathy that often times sours "next big thing" type acts. After a show in NYC, Stereogum once declared Cox to be one of the most enthralling, dynamic performers in music today. After Atlas Sound's stellar "Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel", released in February, and Deerhunter's recently dropped "Microcastle" (also remarkable) it's hard to argue otherwise. These dudes are just insanely talented and never mind you the fact that their live shows are reported to be legendary.

Openers Times New Viking are no slouches themselves. The Columbus, Ohio, group has ridden a worthy wave of crtical, bl0ggable indie rock buzz on the strength of a fabulous handful of releases, including the forthcoming "Stay Awake" EP. "Nordic thunder" has never been used to describe their sound as far as we know, and we hope it stays that way even though it's sort of true.

Remember to see these beasts before the winter in early December.