Starting Thursday night and rolling on through Sunday, Washington D.C. will be treated to a series of free (FREE!) concerts, courtesy of the Kia Soul Collective Tour. Yes, that KIA, better known for mediocre motorcars than music, mirth, and mayhem.

No comment on the cars, but as for the music, they brought the goods: five of the rockinest, the groovinest, and the dancinest acts in the world, including MGMT, Wale, and Dan Deacon. Just check the lineup, pick your night(s) and show up!

Tickets are free (FREE!) but, fair warning, the MGMT show may cost you your dignity: to get tix, you’ll have to test drive a KIA car. And for the Thursday show, you’ll need to RSVP and have an ID that says you’re 21. But for all the rest, just show up to 3330 New York Ave NE and get on with it!

As many of you may know the new Kid CuDI C.D. has leaked, which means the blogosphere is ablaze with his various singles.  I’ve decided to highlight a couple of tracks for you this week: his collaboration with Ratatat and MGMT entitled “Pursuit of Happiness,” and the scandalously titled “Up, Up, and Away (The Wake and Bake Song).”

Although slightly disappointing, “Pursuit of Happiness” is still a very solid (if a little mellow) track. MGMT comes in for a pseudo-chorus, Ratatat throws down his usual beats for the instrumental, and Mr. CuDI simply condones drunk driving (“Hand on the wheel, driving drunk I’ll do my thing”).

The second CuDi track, “Up, Up, and Away” continues with his genre-bending style. The guitars and synths on his instrumental could easily be taken from an up and coming Indie-pop outfit. Surprisingly, Kid CuDi makes it work. I cannot say whether it’s a ploy to sell more CDs, or an honest effort at creating new forms of musical expression. Who cares about the motivation, though: the music is catchy.

I can’t in good conscience leave party goers/song lovers lacking some sort of up-beat song. The solution to this problem is Chiddy Bang’s Kids (also featuring MGMT). I was convinced that the MGMT craze was over, people would stop playing them at parties, and they would slowly crawl their way back into the annals of time next to Postal Service. Apparently, for better or worse, it’s not. But in Chiddy’s defense, they do take this over-done song, cut it up until it’s just barely recognizable, and create a fresh instrumental out of it.

Hope you all enjoy these tracks as much as I have. Download ‘em, share ‘em, and dance your weekend into oblivion.