It's 1985 on Thursday nights, assuming you go to the Casba after 10 pm.

Let me begin by saying I know very little about hip hop. I was raised on oldies: things like the Four Tops and the Turtles. Suffice it say that I like oldies so much that, when our band wanted to cover the Crystals' "He's a Rebel," I started belting out the tune with the kind of love only nostalgia can ignite.

And then high school hit and some kid I hung out with listened to ska. Stop laughing. He also listened to punk. Thus my prep school self was propelled into rebellion. Or at least what I thought was rebellion. Through punk and ska, I learned all about rock and roll and reggae and 80s music. I like to think I listen to lots of music, aside from classical and pop country.

And hip hop. I'd always thought that hip hop was a genre much like punk, sprouted from a desire to rebel, perhaps not from authority, but from the system that sprouted it. Hip hop seemed to be about acknowledging the society that sprung it and unifying its participants. And while I couldn't empathize with the idea, I could certainly sympathize. I liked the idea of hip hop, but knew nothing about it.

So when my friend Kurt asked if I wanted to go to the Casba some Thursday night for Ground Control - designated hip hop night - I was hesitant. It wouldn't be like the loud punk shows I was accustomed to, nor would it be like the indie rock clubs I went to in London. And, frankly, I thought I'd hear the pop hip hop from the radio you hear blasting out of the clubs on the strip in Broad Ripple. But I was very wrong.

Ground Control Thursday is home to DJ's Topspeed and Disco Dave, spinning things I'd never heard of, never been exposed to. It was like walking into a hip hop club from the early 80s (I can assume, anyway - I wasn't alive for the early 80s, but, hey, I've watched enough VH1 Behind the Musics to infer what it might've been like). After going several Thursdays in a row, I began to sense the skill of the DJs, the difficulty in mixing one song after the next, of laying a beat on top of a track to make the song more breakdanceable. Because, yes. Yes. There are break dancers. B-boys. B-girls. Whatever.

A breaking group called the United Soloists routinely visits the Casba on Thursday nights specifically to hear the kind of underground hip hop spun there. There's a slab of linoleum duct-taped to the Casba's dance floor just for the break dancers. I don't know any of the names of the moves they do, the spinning on the head or the holding-yourself-in-the-air-with-your-legs-outstretched-with-only-your-right-hand move. It is literally absolutely amazing, however, to watch.

The beautiful part about those that dance there, though, is that they welcome newcomers. They invite the trying, seeming to value the effort itself.

It's a fantastic change from my punk shows, where frat boys think moshing is about punching the smallest kid in the face, or my indie rock clubs, where they judge you if you don't have a cigarette and a scowl. I think that a big part of the appeal of Ground Control - the lack of judgment. Everyone trusts that the music and dancing will be good, that the evening will be fun. And with that trust comes a lack of judgment. It's comforting, and new, and intriguing for me.

So, even despite my "real" job, with its 8 a.m. mornings, I'll keep going on Thursdays. I need to get my weekly dose of hip hop education somewhere, right?