"I tend to play a mixture of danceable stuff from the '70s on, plus some things from the Nuggets era. It's gonna be interesting," Miccio said. "My stuff's a little trashier than hers."
Smith chooses to draw only one distinction between her and her would-be competitor.
"Certainly I think that my taste is better than his," Smith said. "I guess it tends to be a little bit more eclectic, not necessarily fitting in with the typical Roustabout! Britpop thing."
Smith threatened a little "Mr. Roboto" action, too, which Roustabout! organizer and The Bullet Parade center square Jeff Van Fossan quickly shuddered at.
"The people who beat me up in junior high had Styx patches on their leather jackets," Van Fossan said. "There might be some repressed memories opened up during the DJ sets at the Roustabout! [tonight]."
After the DJs, though, there'll be bands. Bands like ¡El Toro!. Bands who some, like this reporter, were grasping at straws to put into words.
" 'Space-emo?' That's funny," ¡El Toro! bassist Marcus Price said. "I always have trouble describing our sound. I'm not sure if this helps, but we tend to call it 'dram-rock,' like, dramatic rock. It's really mellow at some points, but at other points it's very thick and heavy."
Scrapping a few earlier descriptions of ¡El Toro! of his own, Van Fossan finally likened the band to such cerebral northwestern favorites as Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse.
"If I had to make a comparison, that'd be a better comparison," Van Fossan said. "You can call The Bullet Parade a 'ruckus fiasco' if you want."
¡El Toro!, which recently released its third EP in 12 months, is looking forward to breaking up its constant touring with a bout of recording rite of passage starting soon: the start of their first full length release.
"We're going to record it in October, then tour like monsters after that," Price said. "I think we'll pretty much tour nonstop until we run out of money."
With all that touring, one might think ¡El Toro! would get a little ragged on the road. Not so, Price assured.
"If there's only 20 kids there, we'll do everything we can to put on an excellent show, so people will come back the next time and bring their friends," Price said.
In fact, the otherwise modest Price said, his band's energy is the stuff of legends.
"I don't want to toot my own horn, but I'll do it anyway," Price said. "Our show is guaranteed to be one of the most energetic things people have ever seen. We're really known for that. I mean, we don't sacrifice music for chaos, but we figure people come wanting to see a show, so that's what we give them."
