Hex has finally posted more concrete details about this year’s Nerdapalooza. There’s good news and bad.

The good news is that Nerdapalooza is returning to a two-stage format, setting up in the newly-remodeled Orlando Airport Marriott, which is hoped to reduce the downtime between performances and the resulting, notorious schedule drift that was such a problem at last year’s event. Be sure to check out the event rates for rooms at the hotel in this post.

The bad news is that this required rescheduling the entire event, so that it is now on Saturday, July 17 and Sunday, July 18. The reason that’s unfortunate is that it meant Dual Core was forced to withdraw from the bill due to scheduling conflict. Dual Core’s most recent album, Next Level, was one of our picks for 2009′s Essential Listening, so naturally I’m bummed about the news.

You can find the always up-to-date list of performers on Nerdapalooza.org. Personal favorites among them are MC Frontalot, Schaffer the Darklord, Captain Dan & The Scurvey Crew, and Random.

A few of the names I’m hoping to see appear on the list soon are The Protomen (their current tour dates only extend through May), Scrub Club (especially Kabuto the Python and Dr. Awkward), and Metroid Metal. To be honest, I’m on the fence about flying across the country for it this year (I was nearly local, last) without the addition of a few more of the performers I’m interested in seeing.

There’s an unfortunate lack of organized information on the official site, but you can find concise venue info on the Facebook event page, and info about the artists on this page of the official site. For anything else, you’ll have comb their blog, and failing that, contact the organizers directly.

Dr. Awkward’s Next Gen EP is one of the most promising indicators that nerdcore hip-hop is growing up and destined to go places.  Awkward has his delivery down and he succeeds at giving us a great hip-hop release without sacrificing his geek identity, as documented in the introspective Geekquilibrium and displayed in the brutally nerdy track, Clan War.

He also killed it at Nerdapalooza ’09.  Showing up his labelmates during the Scrub Club set and coming close to straight out stealing the show.  Dr. Awkward is working on new material now, and as far as I’m concerned, the new release can’t get here fast enough.

Dr. Awkward – Geekquilibrium
Dr. Awkward – F.U.F.

Download the whole EP FOR FREE from Scrub Club Records!