Today: The KTRU Outdoor Show Fears No Rain (and Includes Ex Hex, Stalls, GoldLink, Deep Cuts, Fat Tony, & More)

Yep, it’s that time of year once again, when venerable, now-online/HD radio station KTRU throws wide its arms and has its big annual party, otherwise known as the KTRU Outdoor Show.

It’s been running for a mindblowing 24 years now, and it owns a small but bright chunk of my heart; honest, the Outdoor Show was one of my absolute favorite parts of being an actual student at Rice (way, way, way back in the day). I mean, c’mon, once a year there’d be an actual freaking music festival going on literally right across the street from my residential college, either outside the RMC (saw NoMeansNo there) or in my favorite field (saw Alejandro Escovedo there), which was subsequently devoured by the goddamn James Baker Institute for Screwing Over Small Countries. (Yes, I’m still bitter.)

These days, the ODS takes place in the main Rice University Central Quad, and yeah, I’ll admit that that’s probably a better place to have it than where we put it back when I was a student. So you can go, whether or not you’re an actual student, and check out some badass music you most likely wouldn’t be hearing or seeing otherwise, all for free, and maybe partake of some great food-truck food besides.

Here’s the actual schedule for the Show this year, although be warned that it could very easily change:

• 12PM — Fire Alarm (Rice student band & winner of the annual KTRU Battle of the Bands)
• 1:05PM — {Fat Tony} (Utterly awesome rapper, who’s smart and sharp-edged and funny as hell all at the same time, and who these days I think splits his time between H-town and NYC)
• 2:10PM — {Deep Cuts} (Fun, shiny, brightly-colored Tropicalia-pop, like Vampire Weekend if they were addicted to Afro-Cuban rather than Afrobeat music; “Cigarette Boat” gives me a stupid grin every time)
• 3:15PM — Heaven Spacey (Not positive, but I think this is the new electronic project of Lucas Gorham, ex-frontman for Grandfather Child and all-round musical genius; I’ve also seen it as HVN SPCY)
• 4:20PM — Stalls (Grimy, echoey post-punk rock from the Bay Area and from Sam Weiss, vet of a whole slow of bands from SF; rem. of The Raveonettes at points)
• 5:25PM — Ex Hex (Rough-yet-tuneful guitar rawk that twitches across the line between ’70s-style punk and ’90s-style indie-rock, from the utterly badass Mary Timony, formerly of Helium & Autoclave(!))
• 6:30PM — Objekt (Okay, so I believe this is Berlin-based producer TJ Hertz making experimental-yet-danceable electronic tracks; his management doesn’t have this on his list of upcoming shows, though, so…)
• 7:45PM — Bok Bok (Prominent grime/house DJ from South London; can’t say as I’m super familiar with his work, but I’m liking it so far…)
• 9:15PM — GoldLink (Ridiculously chilled-out rapper from VA, who deftly weaves vocal lines in and out of backing tracks that sound less like hip-hop and more like EDM)

There you go; if there’s not something in there that sounds appealing to you, well, your soul must be blackened and shriveled like a prune. (Or you only listen to country, in which case, yeah, you’re out of luck.)

Oh, and going back to the title of this little post, I hear there will be actual tents involved today, so you don’t need to worry about the show getting rained out. The festivities will go on, no matter the weather, because the KTRU crew is awesome. Get on out there, y’all.