DALLAS Unless you're a fan of techno, the whole Deadmau5 thing probably has scurried right by you.
First off, it's pronounced "dead mouse" and it's the stage name for Toronto dance music producer/mixer/performer Joel Zimmerman (just don't call him a "DJ," the mouse might bite because he doesn't like that). He wears a huge, over-sized mouse head and has amassed a large, rabidly loyal following for his particular brand of head-pounding thumpa-thumpa. He's the Pied Piper in reverse, and instead of playing a flute, he rocks the electronics.
Fans wear neon-green mouse ears to his shows, some even construct huge mouse heads of their own, no doubt not only obscuring their view but those of the less devoted around them. And they were out in full force Saturday night at a sold-out Palladium in Dallas, the first of a two-night stand where Deadmau5's two-hour set -- in all of its deafening, epilepsy-inducing glory -- alternated between tedium and transport.
At his best, his blend of progressive house, trance, grime, glitch, and dubstep (and whatever else is in vogue in the constantly changing world of electronic music) recalls the best work of Daft Punk and digs a deep, pummeling groove as on Some Chords, his big club hit Ghosts N Stuff, and the funky One Trick Pony with guest vocalist Sofi, leavening the night with a bit of M.I.A.-ish soul.
Still, while it mattered little to the hard partying crowd, often lost in their raver worlds of dancing, some of his music lacks personality, offering generic, numbing beats. It didn't matter that it was delivered from an admittedly impressive stage set (he stood way above the audience atop a huge deck) and was accompanied by blasts of strobe lights and visual effects (ranging from a Rubik's cube to video game imagery).
There are some things that even a giant mouse head can't hide.
