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Thursday, March 13, 2008
Surprise! It’s Serj Tankian
If you’re one of those folks constantly checking the Internet during a night of partying, it may be of interest to you that Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down, is playing a surprise show starting very soon at La Zona Rosa, according to the SXSW SMS system. Cover is $10. Rock!
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SXSW scene: Alexia Bontempo
It was a laid-back scene when I showed up at the world music showcase at Copa around 10 p.m. The crowd was clustered in a half circle around the stage with the front row seated on the floor as Alex Cuba finished his set. Cuba was working the crowd well, leading his diverse group of enthusiastic fans in a call and response before bringing his set to a climax with a wild thrashing of his acoustic guitar.
Disappointingly, I realized that the electronic act I was looking forward to O Quarto das Cinzas had canceled.
Video: Alex Cuba at SXSW
As the stage was set for Alexia Bontempo a somewhat younger, predominantly male and (interestingly) shorter group jockeyed for good vantage points at the front. When the modelesque blond vocalist took the stage, it started to make sense.
Closing her eyes, clutching her heart and oozing sensuality, the half-Brazilian, half-American vocalist launched into a set of easy, laid-back bossa nova. Her clear voice was lovely, and the backing ensemble played beautifully intricate rhythmic and melodic patterns. And while a good group of the audience drifted in and out, perhaps confused, like myself, about the lack of Quarto, those who stuck around received Bontempo warmly.
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SXSW review: The Life and Times
Are you sick for brutally awesome power trios? Does your heart palpitate during math rock time signature changes? Does your soul long for in-your-face progressive rock birthed from the late 20th century underground indie rock scene?
If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you should have witnessed The Life and Times — your next favorite band — play an ear-punishing set on the Wave Rooftop during their 9 p.m. SXSW set.
The Life and Times — vocalist/guitarist Allen Epley, bassist Eric Abert and drummer Chris Metcalf — worked their way through broken guitar strings and a static-ridden amplifier backline to pull-off a crowd pleasing set.
Musically, The Life and Times are very similar to Epley’s previous band, the criminally under-appreciated shoegazing math rock band Shiner.
During the entirety of the set, Metcalf’s polyrhythmic stop-and-stutter bass lines cushioned Epley’s adrenaline-packed rock while Metcalf whirled his four limbs around the drums as if he were fulfilling a blood vendetta. Epley’s vocals were ethereal. Sigur Ros, Sweredriver, The Doves and My Bloody Valentine have all slipped a dose of influence into Epley’s songwriting ether, but the The Life and Times synthesized their inspirations into textures and soundscapes that are much more profound and original than the typical amalgamation of influences.
“My Last Hostage,” from their full-length album “Suburban Hymns,” proved a jaw-dropper; the middle-eight section circled like a six-string screeching cyclone and left nothing in its wake (except smiles from newfound fans and likely a little fear from any of the bands that had to follow up their performance).
Musicians in the audience appeared to love The Life and Times; you could see them inching closer to the stage to watch what chords and tunings were being used. Here’s hoping their fan base grows into music for the masses. Thursday evening’s SXSW set to an international crowd was definitely a leap in the right direction.
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SXSW review: Blues Control
The eponymous (and second) album from the Queens, N.Y., band Blues Control, is the best music-to-write-to I’ve heard in a decade. I crashed on a whole mess of work last week to that record; its waves of distortion, deep focus piano and tape loop percussion were mighty conducive to extreme focus.
I don’t recall this material, or maybe it was songs from their earlier effort, “Puff,” making much of an impression at last year’s Siltbreeze Records showcase. Then again, there were about eight people there last year and we were all a little tired. This year,for reasons that absolutely pass understanding, the Soho Lounge is packed for what has to be some of the most willfully obscure music performed at this year’s South By Southwest. Heck, maybe every single one of these people is absolutely stoned out of his or her gourd, but it seems unlikely. Maybe they just hide it well — this is Austin after all.
Nevertheless, Blues Control’s rapturous drones are greeted with wild applause. Russ Waterhouse, his day-glow T-shirt and ball cap suggesting a refugee from a Hootie and the Blowfish cover band, strangled his four-string Ibenez like it owed him money, slowly coaxing out sheets of distortion the tonal color of smoked glass. With canned, distant rhythms in the background, he and keyboard player Lea Cho delivered a haze for the ages. Ladies and gentlemen, we are floating in mud, and it feels so good.
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SXSW review: Pyeng Threadgill
Singer Pyeng Threadgill won critical acclaim for her 2004 debut, “Sweet Home: The Songs of Robert Johnson,” but at the Elephant Room Thursday night, she stuck to newer, original material that showed a sinuous, cerebral melodic sense that sometimes recalled Patricia Barber.
Threadgill, who pronounces her first name “pie-eng,” is the daughter of jazz giant Henry Threadgill. With a backing band that featured deft coloration and texturizing from Kevin Louis on trumpet/percussion and Mike Gamble on guitar, Pyeng Threadgill melded jazz with echoes of soul, blues and light funk. Her alto was warm, lovely and assured, her phrasing easy yet elegant.
Threadgill still seems to be developing as a lyricist, combining some cliches — roads leading back to you, the climbing of mountains — with some very interesting ideas. She introduced the new “Igloo” by explaining “Igloos really bug me out.” With Gamble playing wintery, languid fills, she sang ‘How can snow keep me so warm?” “Mining for Sapphires,” she explained, was inspired by friends who wanted to take the ultimate do-it-yourself route to designing wedding rings, but since they couldn’t find a gem mine in New York, they ordered dirt with sapphires in it and sifted through it in their living room. In the chorus she mused “All you do is dream and dream — drive yourself crazy.”
In the percolating “Inner Lining,” from her last album, “Of the Air,” Threadgill sang the oblique line “No money — lots of time — my man must be some kind of gold.”
Threadgill sometimes took a turn at the keyboards, where her playing didn’t have a great deal of presence. However, she showed more of an instrumentalist’s intuition as her voice interacted with Louis’ jabbing trumpet on “Igloo.” There were no great revelations in the set, but Threadgill is an appealing performer who shows considerable promise as a writer.
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Day party madness: lines, booze and bands
So many day shows, so little time. I was standing in the Mohawk yesterday afternoon at the Austinist day party, the highlight of which had to be local band Shearwater, who played their beautiful moddy brand of rock for a packed house, their sound supplemented by Scott Brackett (Okkervil River) on trumpet and Kevin Schneider (Black Before Red) picking up duties on guitar. I hope to have some video of the band up tomorrow, featuring some sweet hammer dulcimer playing by percussionist Thor Harris. The band’s sound reaches a sort of ethereal beauty punctuated by the falsetto of banjo and guitar-playing lead Jonathan Meibrug and the lush sounds of the enchanting Kim Burke that at times resembles something akin to a more traditional pop sound blend of Antony and the Johnsons and The Decemberists. It seems only a matter of time before the band starts to get the same national recognition as their friends in Okkervil.
Anyhoo … my point was, at that party, I saw a guy approach a lady friend of his. To her, in a complete deadpan, “You’re alive. Congratulations.” That’s how most of us feel throughout SXSW, and there is no rest for the wicked. After a long night of showcases, it’s out to day parties, which have become over the years one of the main draws of the fest, especially for the badgeless.
I headed back over to Mohawk today, and despite the fact that there were simultaneously dozens and dozens of parties being thrown simultaneously, the line for the Rhapsody music party stretched down Red River. And this was for an RSVP-only party. Oh, the madness. Once inside, the most popular place at the party was the most popular place at every party this week, the free booze. In fact, that jockeying to get upstairs caused quite the stir itself, as I spotted many friends grouping and trying to slide off VIP wristbands to perform the ol’ pass-em-downs, thus ensuring all of their friends could convene on the rooftop deck. It’s not just who you know at these things, it’s who you know that has what you need. And during SXSW, if you’re not looking for free food and beer, you’re looking for the next hot act, as evidenced by the wild text messaging, of which I am always willing to partake.
After chatting with local juice and smoothie purveyor Matt Shook of the Daily Juice (pictured), who was in full irony attire with his Pebble Beach hat and Austin Country Club golf shirt, it was off to Emo’s to check out the Onion A.V. Club party, where Canadian rockers Tokyo Police Club played their jauntily syncopated rock outside. Inside, it looked like a band of fresh-faced teen hooligans. As it turns out, that may have been pretty close to the truth. The very young-looking Welsh septet with the Spanish name, Los Campesinos, just weeks ago released their debut album, and their energy, bravado, nontraditional instrumentation and coed membership will likely start to bring them more and more attention over the coming years, I would imagine. (Watch Tokyo Police Club at Emo’s here.)
Riding on the melodic wave of Phosphorescent, it was over to the Paste Magazine Party (more free food! Although I seem to never take advantage of said) at Volume Night Club on Sixth Street for some music from Swede Peter Moren of last year’s SXSW uber-buzzy Peter, Bjorn and John. After dealing with some technical issues, Moren took the stage about 30 minutes late inside the rather sweltering club, performing his first tune, which sounded, not surprisingly, rather Beatles-esque. (Watch Moren at Paste Magazine party here.)
The night closed with the man himself finally taking the stage. Following a song by Moby, Reed joined the bald turtablist on stage for a version of “Walk on the Wild Side.” (So that’s who got to play that one.) Reed must have figured if one song was good enough for MMJ, he could do the same, and left the stage, after making a proclamation of his place in punk rock history, to more fans cheering and jeering for more music. Some people are never satisfied. Fortunately for them, there are about 1,000 shows left over the next 60 hours or so. No rest for the wicked. Or weary.
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Video: King Britt
I had just finished a brief interview with DJ Rekha, host of NYC’s internationally renowned Bhangra Basement parties, when Philadelphia’s King Britt rounded the corner from Club 115. You might remember King Britt from the excellent ’90s hip-hop/jazz fusion group Digable Planets. He’s hosting a big blowout event tomorrow night on two stages at the Beauty Bar. Live bands will perform outside while DJs spin in the house. Expect to hear a multitude of variations on reggae, hip-hop and house. But I’ll let him give you the full spiel himself. Check out the video below.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Incidentally, DJ Rekha will be spinning Bhangra tonight at Club 115, and your girl is amped about it!
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Spotted at SXSW …
Rolling Stone co-founder Jann Wenner, perusing his schedule, on Congress Avenue between Fifth and Sixth streets.
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SXSW scene: R.E.M ‘Austin City Limits’ taping
Who would have thought the hottest ticket in town during South By Southwest wouldn’t have much of anything to do with SXSW?
“You know how lucky you are to be here, right?” “Austin City Limits” producer Terry Lickona asked the crowd at R.E.M.’s taping Thursday afternoon.
The studio audience, pretty much all of whom knew somebody on the inside, whooped appreciatively. It was a chance to see the band that was like Wednesday night’s premiere showcase but in an intimate venue (“I can’t believe I’m 15 feet away from Michael Stipe,” one fan said) with primo sound and nobody’s badge blowing in the wind and whacking you in the face.
The set list, however, was similar to Wednesday’s Stubb’s show — long on material from their upcoming album, “Accelerate,” which, based on the selections they played Thursday, is going to be a powerhouse. Vocalist Stipe introduced “Houston” as an updating of Jimmy Webb’s “Galveston” and “Electrolyte” as “a valentine to the 20th century.” And unlike a lot of SXSW venues, where sound is mixed on the fly and a lot of attendees seem more interested in yacking through even the quiet stuff, you could hear everything. For instance, the inexplicably cool lyrics to “I’m Gonna DJ:” “Death is pretty final/I’m collecting vinyl/I’m gonna DJ/At the end of the world.”
The new material has a certain winning buzz and grit that they haven’t quite gotten right for a good while, and it’s an improvement over the distressingly tepid live album/DVD from last year (which included “I’m Gonna DJ”). Guitarist Peter Buck enjoyed assistance from longtime pal Scott McCaughey, late of the Young Fresh Fellows, and looking none too young but reasonably fresh, and some of the new material is plainly if obliquely anti-Bush and anti-Iraq war. But even though Stipe never met a liberal cause he didn’t like, there was no bludgeoning.
What there was was stopping and starting. Stipe was chatty and laughed at himself for flubs that were all but undetectable. “I’m gonna make more mistakes like that but it’s going to be charming and make it more fun,” he said after a small goof on “Man Sized Wreath.” And they played another new one, “Supernatural Superserious,” twice because of another (also undetectable) slip.
There were sops to old fans. Most welcome was “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry). Stipe recalled, “The first time we performed this song on television in…1983? It didn’t have a name.” (Stipe didn’t name the program, but it was “Late Night With David Letterman”.) Other oldies: “Drive,” “Man on the Moon” (Stipe doing Andy Kaufman doing Elvis is still a gas), “Fall On Me” and, of course, “Losing My Religion,” the song they can’t get away with leaving off the set list even after they’ve long since put “Radio Free Europe” in a drawer and forgotten about it.
“I’m not going to keep you here,” Stipe said after “Fall On Me.” “I’m sure everyone is hungry and has to pee.”
But honestly, nobody wanted to be anywhere else Thursday afternoon. And nobody had a better time than two young boys named Simon and Eliot (sorry if I misspelled your name, Eliot), whom Stipe invited onstage toward the end.
“Is this your first time at a concert?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“What do you think?”
“You’re awesome!”
And so they were. If Simon and Eliot see a better show any time soon in their young lives, they’ll be lucky. And if anybody sees a better show at SXSW, it’ll be a miracle.
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SXSW review: The Hard Lessons
Five o’clock is the new 9 o’clock. That’s the verdict of The Hard Lessons guitarist/singer Augie Visocchi after the Detroit trio’s headlining spot at a Thursday afternoon party at Darwin’s Pub, where the early hour and daylight didn’t stop the rock band or packed crowd from reaching an almost revelatory interplay.
That it was actually 4 o’clock - guess they’re still on Michigan time — didn’t matter a bit once keyboardist/singer Korin Cox started things a cappella on the almost country/soul balled “Love Gone Cold.”
Cox has a dynamo voice that suits the band, no matter its forays into straight rock, indie pop or and combination thereof, and played perfectly off of Visocchi as he climbed into the crowd and on top of the bar, or leaned out an open window on Sixth Street, coming back with a mascot horse head from an observer outside. As the crowd clapped and chanted to the band’s dozen-plus hooked-filled tunes, The Hard Lessons threw in an apt cover of Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My” that had Visocchi, Cox and most in attendance screaming along that “Rock ‘n’ roll will never die!” Safe to say that it’s not going to on The Hard Lessons’ watch, no matter what time it reads.
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2 minutes with James Monger of Great Lakes Myth Society
First thing you notice about Detroit’s Great Lakes Myth Society, besides the quintet’s tuneful, bygone era pop rock that crosses Okkervil River and Simon and Garfunkel, is the suits. Even in Texas afternoon club heat, there they are in subtle pinstripes, jackets and tie clips, giving off a turn-of-the-century, Westward Expansion type vibe. Guitarist and backup singer James Monger was game for stepping into the men’s room after GLMS’s Thursday show at Darwin’s Pub to talk about snakeoil salesmen, getting naked in the woods and the relative merits of Febreeze.
360: So I’m interested in the interplay between the suits, your music which is kind of old-timey, and this whole snakeoil salesman vibe you give off. Monger: It’s the only thing we had that was the same outfit, so from there it turned into a snakeoil salesman thing. I like the idea of a bunch of guys who get out of the van and you just go right up into the club in these suits. It makes you seem more formidable.
360: So do you wear them all the time? Monger: We come in with them. Yesterday we had to hop out and get dressed at this rest area because we were so late for our show - we’re kind of out there naked in the woods getting ready for the show.
360: That’s rock ‘n’ roll, I guess. How’s the festival treating you? Monger: It’s been good. This is day two. We spent most of the first day at a Dodge dealership in Oklahoma City fixing our van. We rolled in here just in time, like an hour from the set.
360: How many suits do you have? Monger: I only have one suit, but I have like 15 white shirts. We all just go into Salvation Army and buy whatever we can. And, yeah, it stinks. We go through gallons of Febreeze.
360: They should be a sponsor. Monger: You have Febreeze on the side of your van, that’s not very cool. The Febreeze pace car never wins at Daytona.
360: Do they have a Febreeze pace car? Monger: I don’t know, but if they do that guy gets his [tail] kicked all the time.
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SXSW scene: Vice Saves Texas party with Enslaved, Naplam Death, High on Fire and Motorhead
The color of choice for the Vice Records/Magazine/media empire’s “Vice Saves Texas” metal show Thursday afternoon at Stubb’s? None more black, of course. With a bill that included Norwegian “viking metal” band Enslaved, grindcore vets Napalm Death, stoner metal dudes High on Fire and the almighty Motorhead (the king of ‘em all, y’all), did you expect anything else?
“People were lining up at 5:30 a.m.,” Vice records general manager Adam Shore said. (Doors opened at noon.) And indeed, the folks at the front of the line sure looked like they had.
Enslaved went on first, their music pile-driving complicated riffs on top of occasionally oddly lush keyboard parts. The highlight was “Isa,” the rampaging title track to one of their better albums.
Napalm Death was up next. The 27-year-old band has gone through more line-ups than Spinal Tap has drummers, but this seems like one of the better ones. And word to bassist/longest serving Napalmer Shane Embury for sporting a T-shirt for Houston metal act Insect Warfare, a band who owe more than a little of their sound to Napalm. There’s an earnest, everyday streak that runs through the band (and vintage grindcore in general) that’s weirdly touching. Singer Mark “Barney” Greenway did some good old fashioned ultra-left-wing yakking between songs (pro-free-thinking, pro-choice, anti-God, the usual). It was a strong set, but sounded slightly underpowered.
No such problem with High on Fire. You think their galloping metal, part Motorhead, part Blue Cheer would get old after awhile. It doesn’t; they’re both one of the most surefire live acts in metal and one of the few whose song writing seems to be getting stronger with every album. Guitarist Matt Pike (T-shirt = absent) seems to find endless variety within the same basic framework, which is metal that makes you want to charge the gates of something, possibly with flaming swords. A homerun every time I’ve seen them.
Motorhead on the other hand are simply in a class by themselves. It’s hard to think of another rocker, let alone another regular human being, who could get away with Motorhead leader/singer/bassist Lemmy Kilmister’s stage get-up: black shirt, tight black pants tucked into custom black and white cowboy boots, a spaghetti western-style cowboy hat and a bolo tie around his neck (as in not around his shirt).
The dude has been living rock ‘n’ roll since he was a roadie for Hendrix, then in Hawkwind. People forget he was 29 when he launched Motorhead; they been slaying ever since. That said, it takes a true pro to tell lots of the songs apart. I heard “Stay Clean” and at least one Thin Lizzy cover, but mostly I was floored by the power this trio is still able to generate. After all, Lemmy’s amp says “HAMMER” for a reason. A band to end all bands and easily a highlight of this year’s day party scene.
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SXSW scene: Clipse at Mohawk
Perhaps thanks to a terrible history with their record label, the Virginia Beach, Va., hip-hop act Clipse (who headlined the Rhapsody party Thursday afternoon at Mohawk) realized awhile back what everyone else in hip-hop needs to realize: The music no longer sells itself.
For the past decade-plus, hip-hop sales have been (quite literally) money in the bank for major labels. The acts didn’t even have to tour all that much — just make a hit record and the fans will flock to it. This is no longer the case. Hip-hop took a 30 percent hit in sales last year, more than any other single genre. But the Clipse are prepared. They tour like crazy and, as a result, have a tight live show that only seemed slightly off due to a late arrival into Austin (for which they apologized — when was the last time you heard a hip-hop act admit they weren’t on their A-game; mostly they just yell at the soundman).
Malice and Pusha-T drew on their mixtapes with the Re-Up Gang (Re-Up member Ab-Liva joined them at one point) and their amazing 2006 album “Hell Hath No Fury,” including the smart cocaine-dealing allegory “Keys Open Doors” and the slightly snide lament “Momma, I’m So Sorry.” They tossed in their verses from New Orleans rapper Baby’s “What Happened to that Boy?” and “Hot Damn,” their track from the Neptunes’ “Clones” album.
The Clipse work it and it pays off.
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SXSW panel: Thurston Moore and Steve Reich
Although Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore might have more name recognition, minimalist composition maestro Steve Reich did the majority of postulating and theorizing during their hour-long discussion Thursday at the Convention Center.
While Moore played the role of interviewer, Reich explained how he began his career experimenting and manipulating analog tape recordings.
One of the few comic moments of the mostly academic discussion emerged as Reich explained how he created his own pair of stereo headphones during the mono-oriented early ’60s.
“Do you still have those?” Moore asked.
“No,” Reich answered adamantly. Then he turned toward the audience and said in a matter-of-fact aside: “This guy is (trying) to buy me out!”
Reich also revealed that the bassline from Junior Walker’s “Shotgun” was a turning point in his compositions. “It is a tune that said ‘stay put’ harmonically and it created a whole different kind of musical energy,” Reich said.
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SXSW panel: Music Supervisors
The full house at Thursday’s ‘On Set with Music Supervisors’ panel offered testimony to the panel’s central theme: With the record industry in the dumps, music licensing now represents one of the few major income streams an artist can hope to tap into.
It used to be uncool or controversial to sell a song for commercial use, as moderator Jason Cohen noted, before asking “What was the tipping point?”
“Bands got more and more broke,” said Lyle Hysen of Bank Robber Music, who represents artists and labels in licensing matters.
Jennifer Czeisler, VP Licensing for Sub Pop Records, noted several advantages to placing songs in television, ads, movies and other commercial media.
“They’re not subject to illegal downloads, and those companies track what they’re using. They have to pay,” Czeisler said. “It’s a more steady and guaranteed income stream for artists.”
In addition, licensing a song while it’s hot can add to an artist’s momentum, Czeisler said. “It keeps the music in people’s ears and keeps it alive on the air and in sales.”
The panel members noted that the world of licensing and music supervision is fairly small, and in addition to conversing about how television placement had aided artists such as Sia and Band of Horses, they traded humorous war stories with the sometimes ribald humor of a barroom bull session. They discussed the necessity of revealing up front to an artist if a scene where their music will be used contains something objectionable, which led Gary Calamar, a DJ and music supervisor for GO Music Services, to reminisce about trying to get rights to a Manu Chao song for the cable series “Weeds,” about a pot-dealing suburban mom. It turned out not to be a problem, he said: “He is a marijuana enthusiast.”
Perhaps the most useful advice for artists came from Alicen Schneider, VP of Music Creative Services for NBC Universal Television Music. A musician in the audience had a question about having licensed a song to a company that insisted she give them the publishing rights.
“Don’t give away your [stuff]!” Schneider exclaimed.
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SXSW scene: The Raveonettes at Red-Eyed Fly
Even though they’re playing close to a dozen shows this week — and that’s just the ones that were previously scheduled — getting close to the Raveonettes has been a tough task — lead singer Sune Rose-Wagner even begged off an interview request prior to Thursday’s packed show at Red-Eyed Fly.
Chalk part of that popularity up to the great return to noisy, ghostly rock that is the latest record “Lust, Lust, Lust” (Vice) which the crowd that began swelling an hour prior got to hear lots of. Doing business as a three piece these days - Rose Wagner, primary member Sharin Foo and a female drummer - the Danes sounded great on new tunes like the somehow optimistic “Dead Sound.” They’re worth your time, especially since they seem to be on a quest to play every club and street corner in Austin these week. Just make sure to get there early.
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SXSW scene: Seymour Stein panel
Sire Records founder Seymour Stein spoke in the laid-back cadence of a retired grandfather as he detailed many of the stories behind how he signed some of the most influential bands in the history of rock ‘n’ roll.
Some of the highlights from his interview with David Katznelson of Birdman Recordings included Stein explaining that the Pretenders were originally supposed to be called the Chrissy Hynde Band. Stein also recalled how the graffiti in New York club CBGB’s bathrooms used to be as informative as a newspaper. “It read ‘Seymour Stein finally signed a good band, the Dead Boys.’ I loved it,” he exclaimed while poking fun of himself.
Stein — who was a main impetus in helping break the Smiths, Madonna, Echo and the Bunnymen and pop punk pioneers the Ramones — reminded the young (younger than him) audience, “If you don’t know (who) the Ramones (are), leave the room!” He continued that the band played 18 songs in 15 minutes during a private show, whereupon Stein signed them minutes later.
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SXSW panel: Through the Lens: Photographers On Musicians
In a digital era when anyone with a cellphone camera can be a “rock photographer,” the journeyman pro who makes his or her living shooting for magazines and newspapers or album covers or live events is “the last of the cowboys.” Thus spoke Tom Wright, who made his bones photographing the Who, the Eagles and Rod Stewart. Wright was one of the participants in the Thursday morning panel “Through the Lens: Photographers On Musicians” at the Austin Convention Center.
Besides Wright, the panel featured Autumn de Wilde, best known for her stylized portraits of Beck and Death Cab For Cutie, Paul Natkin, who began photographing for Creem magazine and went on to photograph Prince, Bruce Springsteen and the Jacksons, and Tom Weschler, who went from being Bob Seger’s road manager to shooting some of the biggest stars of the day.
The three (along with moderator Michael Azerrad) agreed that the advent of digital photography and the Internet utterly transformed — either by democratizing or debasing — their profession.
“Now anybody can create a blog and say they’re the chief photographer for that blog and have the same access as me,” Natkin said. “Anyone with a $300 point-and-shoot,” he said, can aspire to the same legitimacy as a professional with thousands of dollars of camera gear and a professional assignment. Natkin cited the lack of civility in the photo pit at last night’s R.E.M. show, which he likened to “a rugby match.”
The front row of the audience “doesn’t watch the show,” de Wilde said. “They watch it through their phone.”
Though they vary in technique and approach, the three photographers tacitly agreed that watching cultural history being made through a lens is an intoxicating way to go through life. Weschler, who began his career taking snapshots of the Beatles off a TV screen summed it up: “I wanted to document what was going on. … A little kid takes his camera out and tries to impress girls, and … bingo!”
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2 minutes with Call Me Lightning’s Nathan Lilley
Fans of Milwaukee’s Call Me Lightning better be in store for some big changes on the punk trio’s next record. At least, that’s the impression the band’s blistering set at the Mohawk on Wednesday gave, full of big guitar chords, bridges and hooks instead of standard stop/stop/yelp songwriting. To discuss the band’s development, singer-guitarist Nathan Lilley humored us for Two Minutes in the Bathroom With … Nathan Lilley.
360: The thing that hit me is the difference in new songs as opposed to the old songs. Where was your head at with the new stuff?
Lilley: The first thing is we have a new bass player (Kriss Maedke-Russell). You know, it’s hard to be serious when you’re in the bathroom.
That’s kind of the point.
Right. Well, we simplified the songs because we lost our bass player so me and the drummer (Shane Hochstether) wrote the songs together. They became a little more chord based, a little more guitar rock kind of sounding and simple versus being strictly post-punky. Our name comes from the Who, so now we’re starting to sound that way. I was never much into being jammy, because I love punk music. But punk music is guitar based.
Will the next record be that big of a departure?
I don’t know. It’s not done yet. We’re recording in the spring and hopefully it’ll be coming out in the fall.
Do you think people will take to the change very well?
I don’t know. We’re not that popular anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
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Lou Reed’s keynote: Take a walk on the dry side
“I feel like Tony Soprano and his shrink,” producer Hal Willner told South By Southwest keynote speaker Lou Reed Thursday morning at the Austin Convention Center. “So last time we were talking about your anger toward your mother…’” Willner had to try to do something to loosen up Reed, the former Velvet Underground member and indie rock godfather who’s been famously cranky since he was, oh, 4 years old.
But with the guidance of Willner — a friend and sometimes collaborator — Reed relaxed into what turned out to be a freewheeling conversation about Julian Schnabel’s film of his “Berlin” show, the lousy sound of MP3s and the mysteries of songwriting.
“I’ve never understood how they get written,” Reed said. “If I knew, I’d have ‘Son of Wild Side’ and have an island in the Caribbean or something.”
He did, however, say he was inspired by writers such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, fusing gritty themes onto songcraft. (Perhaps Mr. Reed should check out the new Beats exhibit at UT’s Ransom Center.)
“I saw an opportunity to write about things that thematically no one was anywhere near,” he said. “It was an empty continent.”
Reed seemed at times to dwell on perceived slights and failings — where “Berlin” wasn’t or won’t be staged, which of his albums were out of print and the reviews that his drug- and jealousy-soaked 1973 suite received on its release.
“Worst album ever made,” he deadpanned (there was a lot of deadpan). “Most depressing album ever made. ‘Berlin’ was used in a lawsuit against me by management to show why I shouldn’t handle my own affairs.”
Reed, who’s been chasing the perfect guitar sound his entire career, also got wound up about digital music.
“With MP3s, you have a very bad sound,” he said. “The tradeoff is you have a lot of them available to you and they sound bad … It’s like technology is taking us backwards. It’s making it easier to make things worse.”
(Photo by Jack Plunkett/Associated Press)
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SXSW Review: R.E.M.
R.E.M. - at one time the biggest rock band in the world - entertained a filled-to-capacity crowd at Stubb’s during the Athens, Ga., band’s midnight SXSW slot that had fans young and old bopping and swaying to vocalist Michael Stipe’s every body contortion. The concert was recorded and presented live on National Public Radio in what appeared to be a SXSW first.
The songs were all up-tempo and inspired; they shot forth from the opening moments in rapid-fire succession. Old-school rock ‘n ‘roll veterans - vocalist Michael Stipe, bassist Mike Mills, guitarist Peter Buck - have figured out all of the tricks that make their trade work worldwide (pop song structure and sing-a-long vocal melodies). Buck’s black Rickenbacker guitar tone was much more crunchy and distorted than the clean tone guitar jangle that predominated his tone back in the day. Meanwhile bassist Mills and his angelic backing vocals and harmonies on the choruses made you realize just what an essential part of the trademark R.E.M. sound he has always been.
Among the old hits, “Drive” got an enthusiastic response from the audience. Likewise, “Fall On Me” - the 1980s song that proved R.E.M. was environmentally conscious before it was politically correct to be - unexpectedly appeared mid-way through the set and received what appeared to be the most spontaneous and enthusiastic applause of the entire evening.
By the end of the set, new songs and tunes from late in the band’s career dominated, “Electrolyte,” “Until the Day Is Done,” and “Bad Day” were all full-on rockers.
Stipe has transformed himself from the original Mumblecore vocalist into a clear-word-enunciating, political protest singer. During Stipe’s between song banter, he paused to relate that one new song was about former first lady Barbara Bush’s off-the-cuff response to Hurricane Katrina evacuees at the Houston Astrodome.
Later in the set Stipe said, “I don’t want to sound like,” and then he trailed off. (Could he have meant, “I don’t want to sound like Bono”?) Ultimately, his pause didn’t stop him from introducing various songs as the lyrically themed political protest songs that they were: one new song was dedicated to being sick of politicians “telling me what to be afraid of,” while another was dedicated to “a man who heard it and loved it…Heath Ledger.”
Despite their lyrically political slant, the band ultimately was the same old R.E.M. (minus original drummer Bill Berry) that fans from the past quarter of a century know and love.
Later in the set, Stipe intoned, “I know that Austin came out strong for Barack Obama. I want to salute you for that.”
Although there was a line wrapped around the building waiting to enter before the band began, by the end anyone with a wristband or badge was able to glide right in the door. Audience members didn’t make a mass exodus out of the venue during their hour-and-a-half set, but they did trickle out of the door. The newfound room to move and breathe was welcome.
(Michael Stipe photo by Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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SXSW Review: Bun B
Like many venues at SXSW, it was a weird combination of luck, timing, luck, patience and luck that anyone at all got in to Fuze after about 11 p.m., the site of the early, early morning set by Bun B, the surviving member of the Houston hip-hop duo UGK and an increasingly mythic dude in his own right.
At SXSW, hip-hop shows are either packed (thanks to the relative scarcity of hip-hop) or empty (poor Sway, the excellent UK rapper whose ’07 showcase was all but empty). This was one of the former.
At times, the crowd outside was so thick it didn’t look like anyone could get in. At other times, badge holders could walk right in. But the club itself was packed virtually all night. A surprise appearance from Geto Boy Bushwick Bill yielded a line from “Mind’s Playing Tricks on Me” a couple of freestyles and few minutes where he seemed to morph into the host (“The next artists ain’t here so Bushwick Bill gonna have some fun!”)
Austin MC Gerald G killed it with sharp verses over a spare beat from Rapid Ric - we need to hear more from that guy.
Eventually, after some more freestyles, a couple of tributes to Bun B’s late partner Pimp C, including moments of silence, (unlikely, given the packed crowd), various chants of “Pimp C, Pimp C, Pimp C” and “Texas, Texas, Texas” (much more likely) and a few SXSW officials saying “If you’re not with Bun B, you got to get off the stage” (again, kind of a tall order considering how packed it was) Middle Fingaz knocked out a quick song.
When will we see Bun B, long promised as right outside?
Suddenly there was Bun B at 1:29 a.m., no fanfare, no nonsense, dressed in black, holding a mic and reminding everyone how charismatic live hip-hop can be in the hands of a good M.C. (The filling-shattering bass didn’t hurt.)
Bun flew through verses from his solo joint “Trill,” line from UGK songs and more, even as technical problems with Bun’s mic were clearly frustrating him (“Let’s not make this an issue tonight”).
Surrounded by Texas MCs who knew the words to all of his hits - as well as the British MC Dizzee Rascal, who tore it up in the middle of Bun’s set while some technical issues were sorted out - Bun was what Texas insiders have for years insisted he was - an elder statesman who still seems to have plenty of great years left.
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SXSW Review: White Williams
The overflowing crowd at Antone’s, on hand to see the midnight set by The Kills, mostly cleared out by the time New York’s White Williams came on, which was unfortunate, as the band’s poppy, electronic sound set the stage for quite the dance party.
Lead singer Joe Williams had trouble with the sound on stage throughout the set, but that did not impact the music, which seems to pull from some obvious places like David Bowie and even at times West African Paul Simon material, but not so much that it doesn’t have a life of its own.
Williams’ cool detachment from the songs adds an arty element to the music at points, but he doesn’t overdo it. The energy of the crowd and the music died down a bit as the end of the night approached, but people left with smiles on their faces.
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SXSW Review: Blue Mountain
There’s nothing like burnout and a breakup to put the spring back in a band’s step. That, at least, appears to be the story behind the reinvention of Blue Mountain. The Oxford, Miss., trio, which performed Wednesday at Pangaea, went their separate ways in 2001 after an onset of Perpetual Tour Fatigue Syndrome and personal disarray.
Six years of side projects and reconciliations proved however that, in Ian Fleming’s playful phrase, “nothing propinks like propinquity,” and the band reunited in June of last year. They came to Austin with a satchel full of new material from a forthcoming album to be released in May.
A forthright guitar/bass/drums trio, Blue Mountain romped through a nine-song set that bounced between material from their five previous albums and new songs from their reunion effort.
Coming as they did on the heels of Daniel Lanois’ insular and inward-looking set, songs like the amphetamine-paced hoedown “Jimmy Carter” and the twangy, easy-rolling “Myrna Lee” sounded particularly fresh. “Skinny Dippin’,” a new tune featuring Cary Hudson’s slippery bottleneck guitar, “Generic America,” a rant against the mall-ification of the continent, and a radio-ready jukejoint travelogue, “Midnight In Mississippi,” also sounded engaging and energized.
Hey, maybe these guys should break up more often…
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SXSW Review: Times New Viking, Yeasayer
There was less of a crowd than I expected by the time Philadelphia’s DJ Dave P, whose set for the Free Yr Radio pre-show party at La Zona Rosa included entertaining dance mixes of Stones’ tunes like “Emotional Rescue,” wound down to make way for Times New Viking.
The punk trio from Columbus, Ohio, didn’t waste time, jumping into a set of short lo-fi songs with a sound that was hard to pin down — at times the band stuck to a classic punk style (albeit more melodic), but some of the songs had more of a 90s alternative feel to them, which, as one member of the audience pointed out, the band’s roots point to Pavement and Guided by Voices (another Siltbreeze label alum). Although the stage was dark, making it difficult to get a good look at the band’s setup, it was a strong set, bolstered by a pretty cool light show.
A larger crowd assembled for the second band of the evening, Brooklyn’s Yeasayer. Riding on the strength of last fall’s “All Hour Cymbals,” it comes as somewhat of a surprise that, except for a recent New York Times story, there isn’t as much hype surrounding this band as there is with certain other New York City band that incorporates West African percussion and draws from late 70’s/early 80’s influences (although a quick survey of the crowd said that Vampire Weekend lived up to the hype).
Coming across a bit grungier than expected (I was thinking more David Byrne, less Jimmy Page), the set put the full range of the band on display as they moved energetically through songs with haunting, layered vocals and rocking synth and drum licks.
The band moved through its songs with the feel of a group that has been playing live together for quite some time, and loving every minute of it. The audience certainly loved it. Also, more kudos to the person working the lights on stage.
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SXSW Review: Air Waves
Things got off to a slow start Wednesday night at the Mohawk, when Brooklyn-based Air Waves, who were supposed to go on around 9 p.m., didn’t get on stage until almost 9:30. Once things did get started, however, the indoor room filled quickly to hear the trio’s edgy, driving songs.
It’s a shame the set didn’t last longer, as the band’s sound — a folky punk at times reminiscent of the Pixies — perfectly complemented lead singer Nicole Schneit’s compelling songs. One of the many impressive things about this group is their lack of pretension. There are no wild fashion statements or rambling declarations to the audience, just music, and good music at that.
As the attentive crowd bobbed their heads to Schneit’s vocals and guitar work, a friend in attendance compared the band to a tighter, harder rocking version of the Moldy Peaches. I would definitely wait for them again.
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SXSW Review: Jeffrey Lewis & The Jitters
Jeffrey Lewis is a New York artist able to find a happy medium between folk and indie rock.
His most recent album, “12 Crass Songs,” is a collection of acoustic covers of Crass songs. Crass was an English punk band who all but invented the ultra-left wing subgenre “peace punk,” a brand of hardcore that often seemed convinced that the apocalypse or the revolution of the proletariat was just around the corner (either one would have been acceptable).
Lewis is probably the only person on the planet who thought these tunes would work acoustically, but work they do. Lewis, thinning hair combed straight forward, drew on this album for some of his set at Club De Ville, declaiming the lyrics as much as singing them, which fit the music nicely. His (amplified) acoustic guitar was joined by bass, electric guitar and drums now and then, his distorted acoustic providing shambolic rhythm for his more conventional songs.
The highlight was the weirdly compelling fan favorite “Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror”” a shaggy dog story about running into indie rock icon Will Oldham (a.k.a. Bonnie Prince Billy, Palace, etc.), whose spare, folkie albums embodied indie-folk for an entire generation. Lewis is on his way to re-master an old album when he spots Oldham, or someone who looks just like him, on the subway. Lewis suddenly has a crisis of faith about rock’s relevance, his place in the world and art in general (“Is it worth being an artist or an indie-rock star or are you better off without it?”).
He accosts Oldham, demanding answers. In the song, Oldham responds by, well, beating Lewis senseless, tying him up and sexually assaulting him. It’s such a jaw-dropping turn and Lewis’s delivery is so matter of fact about the assault (thanks to the pure absurdity of the obviously fictional situation) that it comes off as funny rather than anything else. Nobody who heard it is likely to forget it any time soon. Same with Lewis in general.
(Photo by Bret Gerbe/For the American-Statesman)
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SXSW Review: Night of Pleasure
Wednesday night is sort of the experimental night of SXSW. Not as in music, but as in presentation. For example, there were no lights at the Lambert’s Patio, so the Columbus Discount Records showcase got started about 45 minutes late. By that time, Night of Pleasure, the Columbus punk outfit that was supposed to hit the stage at 8 p.m., was chomping at the bit to go out.
As soon as the lights arrived, they hit the stage and blew everyone away, pounding out classic Ohio burn in the tradition of such 1990s Midwestern standouts as Gaunt and New Bomb Turks.
Except the P.A. didn’t work. And the band was relying on stage volume only. Which, for a small space such as the Lambert’s Patio, can sound amazing. Singer Jim Cowman, hurling himself around the stage, finally grabbed a wireless mic that worked decently and gave his vocals an extra layer of decay and crackle.
Then the band blew out the power, right as one tune was hitting an obvious climax. Now so many things had gone wrong it got a little funny. The Night guys headed off stage, hung out, power was restored and they literally dashed back on stage to finish out the set. The punchline is that it was a fantastic performance, energetic without being obnoxious, riff-filled without seeming poppy. Gaunt and V-3 would be proud, guys.
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SXSW Review: Paul Kelly
There were pounding basslines bleeding through into Esther’s Follies from some nearby venue during Paul Kelly’s set Wednesday, but the Australian singer-songwriter was so mesmerizing, the noxious booming soon ceased to be distracting, as it seemed to be happening in an entirely different world from his sharply etched characters and tightly spun tales.
Kelly has been around since the ‘70s, but first enjoyed U.S. success in the mid-’80s with his old band the Messengers, and roots-rock hits such as “Darling It Hurts” and “Before Too Long.” His more recent material hasn’t gotten much play stateside, but proved just as exceptional Wednesday as the still-fresh ‘80s single “Dumb Things,” with its litany of mistakes including the extraordinary line “I’ve melted wax to fix my wings — I’ve done all those dumb things.”
Kelly’s songs frequently have such literary allusions, while maintaining a completely down-to-earth simplicity. The lovely “Gift That Keeps on Giving,” from 2002’s “Nothing But A Dream,” was a homespun distillation of one side of the Song of Solomon. Adam and Eve conversed as married couples do in Kelly’s “Stolen Apples Taste the Sweetest,” from 2007’s “Stolen Apples,” which Kelly said dryly had been a little delayed in its U.S. release — “How surprising.” (For now, you can get it on iTunes, he noted.)
One of the most stunning songs was the understated “They Thought I Was Asleep,” from Kelly’s 2005 bluegrass album “Foggy Highway.” The narrator is a child becoming accidentally aware that there’s something very wrong between his parents.
After opening solo, Kelly brought out his nephew, Dan Kelly, to accompany him on acoustic and electric guitar and sing beautiful high harmonies. The humorous rapport between the two was delightful. The uncle half-boasted, half-teased about the high notes which his nephew, among only a select few residents of the southern hemisphere, might very well be able to hit, even after a 26-hour flight — “So wish him luck!” The contrast between Kelly’s rough-hewn but powerful vocals and his nephew’s sweeter voice was lovely, and the younger Kelly proved a superb colorist on guitar.
Paul Kelly was exceptionally funny and engaging between songs, right down to his expression of admiration for the aquatic decor of Esther’s Follies, which he said stemmed from an appreciation of swimming pools that had led him and Dan to a wonderful swim at Stacy Pool earlier in the afternoon.
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SXSW Review: Martha Wainwright
Martha Wainwright may be less theatrical than her (at least temporarily) more famous brother Rufus, but her voice is just as distinctive as his, in its own way. Her tone is honeyed when she sings soft and low, but when her melodies rise or her she starts to sing with more intensity, her vocals have an intriguing lemony quality. The acidity suits her tendency to deliver alarming lyrics — such as “My heart was made for bleeding all over you” — with a certain nonchalance.
At Club de Ville Wednesday, Wainwright announced that it was her first show together with her new four-piece backing band, and claimed they hadn’t rehearsed very much. However, they sounded extremely tight and appeared to be having a grand time. With Jim Campilongo (of the Little Willies) on guitar and Thomas Bartlett (a/k/a Doveman) on keyboards, songs from Wainwright’s forthcoming “I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too” seemed to belong everywhere and nowhere on the spectrum from country to folk to rock to pop. When she wailed “I’ve been calling since four o’clock last night” in the hooky new “You Cheated Me,” it could have been a big rock moment, but there was a kind of lurking sense of triumph, as though she were gloating to be proven right, that kept the song from being an ordinary done-me-wrong rocker.
Toward the end of the set, Wainwright said “Let’s do something maybe someone will recognize,” into which category fell another song full of subtle ambiguity, “When the Day is Short,” from a 2005 EP.
Wainwright reminded the crowd that the new album is due out June 10, and thanked them “for serving as guinea pigs” for the new material. Experimental subjects are seldom so well treated.
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SXSW on $50 a night, or ‘no wristband? no problem’
We sent our intern out with $50 in cash and a one-sentence instruction: “See what you can get into.” This is his report.
I headed downtown Wednesday evening with the goal of having the best South by Southwest experience possible as a member of the general public. The hierarchy was pitted against me — with badge holders getting first pick and the wristband holders getting the remaining scraps. Essentially, I was to forage through the dog’s leftovers.
Before the first bands took the stage, Sixth Street already was enjoying a steady stream of traffic comparable to any other moderately busy downtown night. Skateboards and bicycles abounded, one of which almost knocked me over.
At 8 p.m., a line exceeding 50 like-minded cash-holders was ready to throw down the $20 cover at Emo’s. Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears were playing inside. The queue was moving along at a steady clip, about 15 people every 5 minutes. Speaking with some of the people in line revealed a trend: Most attendees without a wristband or badge seemed to be interested in seeing only a single act, not an entire showcase. “I’ve lived here for so long that I’m just trying to pick and choose, and I have an unlimited amount of time. So if I was going to go all four days, I’d definitely consider a wristband,” Matt of Austin said.
The seemingly lonely downtown bars not participating in the festival actually serve an important purpose. They typically don’t charge cover and serve drinks considerably cheaper than those found at official showcases. There’s also a clear path to the generally available bathrooms. So available that some gentlemen I ran into in an unnamed bathroom felt it discreet enough to smoke weed in. When nature calls, popping your head in these bars between shows is a wise decision.
Besides Emo’s, I encountered no lines at the many venues I checked out (mostly on Sixth Street). Cover at the different showcases varied, but averaged about $10 a pop. Logic dictates that if you plan to attend more than 16 shows during the festival, a $165 wristband (at press time) would be a good investment. The coveted things were on sale Wednesday at Emo’s and a couple of other joints.
That is not to say all of those bands are worth ignoring. The Fat Fox Music showcase (15$, at Latitute 30) was a perfect example. Kitty, Daisy & Lewis are a rockabilly family band from London. Though plagued by a poor, exhausting sound check, the outfit got a great audience response from their sound. After the show, Daisy said the band made the trip to Austin “just to get people to hear our music.” Experiencing Austin nightlife was out of the question. “We’re all so young that we can’t really get in to the clubs and bars,” the 19-year-old explained.
Even if you run out of money or are snubbed in favor of a badge holder, there are still things to see and performing acts to meet in the streets. Multi-instrumentalist Phil from SXSW artist the Hanks (of Los Angeles) could be found promoting his band’s showcase with a large sign. “Basically, we want to get signed and become so huge that we’ll eventually break up because we all hate each other. But, you know, that’s every band’s goal I think,” the musician said about his goals for the festival.
Wednesday is not the biggest day of SXSW, but the food chain of festival-goers still left cash customers out of key shows in three places I checked out: Stubb’s snubbed everyone not wearing a wristband of a badge outright, with many fans already lined up for the highly anticipated R.E.M. show. The UGK Family/Hot 93/Ozone Magazine showcase at Fuze turned out to be my biggest disappointment; I could have gotten in before 10 p.m. for $15, but badge-holders were the only ones getting in after 11:30 p.m., when I had hoped to wait for Bun B’s 1:15 AM set. Lastly, the Black Keys’ performance at Emo’s Main Room was a tease for those paying cash — the venue allowed us to wait, only to watch a line of wristband holders watching a line of badge-holders that was actually moving.
The night had a good ending. With most of the people in the vicinity scrambling to get into the nearby Black Keys show, Esther’s Follies cut their cover in half for Australian singer/songwriter Paul Kelly, who played a beautiful set.
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SXSW Review: Daniel Lanois
Daniel Lanois has demonstrated many things in many musical arenas—as a producer (of U2, Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Bob Dylan, among others), as a musician in his own right and as a magnetic figure of iconic stature (a documentary about Lanois screens this week at the SXSW Film Festival).
Wednesday night, at Pangaea, he seemed determined to demonstrate one thing more: If you come to his music, you come to it on his terms.
Joined by his longtime cohort, the superbly swinging and tasty drummer Brian Blade, Lanois spent a good chunk of his set — five songs over about 40 minutes — with his back to the audience, communing with Blade and finding his way into and out of melodic byways.
That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Listening to Lanois noodling around (not the way he would characterize the process, surely) until his musical figures resolved into, say “The Maker” or “The Messenger” is probably as close a glimpse as we of the Great Unwashed will ever get into his creative process.
On the other hand, he wasn’t so in-the-zone that he couldn’t interrupt “Still Water” to mediate a dispute between a musician cohort and a Pangaea security man.
Alternating between guitar and pedal steel guitar (which he appeared to play without fingerpicks, a new wrinkle in this reporter’s experience), Lanois labored to create dense and dreamy soundscapes full of shifting tonalities and textures. A couple of atmospheric instrumentals — at least one of which was still a work in progress, he noted — further contributed to a slightly dreamlike environment in which Lanois (nearly anonymous in a black leather jacket and black cap) seemed just one more dynamic element.
It was fascinating to watch the guy work; His imagination and instrumental proficiency are beyond reproach, and his track record speaks for itself. But his inward-looking performance seemed to leave a slight chill in the air.
(Daniel Lanois photo by Kelly West/American-Statesman)
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SXSW Review: Kitty, Daisy & Lewis
Being unusually gifted can be a liability on a small stage at SXSW. The three teen siblings in Britain’s Kitty, Daisy & Lewis had so many instruments that setting up at Latitude 30 after the previous band ran late proved something of a nightmare, with stage crew members tripping over each other and the monitors, cords going missing or acting up and family members (including stand-up bassist mom, Ingrid, and accoustic guitarist dad, Graeme) conferring nervously and trying to sort things out as the crowd grew restive over a 35-minute delay.
But once Kitty and Daisy crammed together at a single mic to open with an a capella version of the racy ‘50s R&B favorite “The Walkin’ Bllues (Walk Right In, Walk Right Out)”, the crowd hushed and all was forgiven. The sisters had a lovely blend and snappy phrasing. Their individual voices were terrific as well, with the older Daisy unleashing rockabilly yelps in her solo spot on their original “Oo-Wee” and Kitty powering her way through “Honolulu Rock-a-Roll-a” and Johnny Horton’s “Mean Son Of a Gun” like a latter-day Janis Martin.
Lewis revealed a strong voice as well, and even had a bit of an Elvis curl to his lip when he sang “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” But he was even more impressive slinging rockabilly licks on a hollow-body Gretsch guitar or pounding the keyboard like Jerry Lee (perhaps his namesake). He played a sort of boogie-woogie rumba on “Buona Sera,” where Kitty not only sang but added a hearty trombone solo. Kitty also wailed away on harmonica on several songs, and if you closed your eyes, you might have thought you were listening to an old bluesman from Chicago.
You wouldn’t want to close your eyes, however. The whole family played with exceptional verve and animation, especially the two girls as they took turns on the drum kit, and their mom as she slapped away at her bass. And the dark-haired, dark-eyed, olive-skinned siblings could have been the stars of some Bollywood version of an Elvis movie — Lewis with the King’s pompadour, the girls with ponytail versions — although the girls’ short-shorts and black tights were more punk-rock than Ann-Margret.
The set had to be cut short for time, and Lewis said plaintively that they’d be playing a lot of other shows around SXSW, “where you’ll actually be able to hear all the instruments.” But although sound problems did break the momentum, and the banjo, lap steel and ukulele never got their due, the band had invested so much heart in each song that the crowd buzzed with excitement as it spilled outside.
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SXSW Review: Fatal Flying Guilloteens
The sign outside the Mohawk might as well have said Shawn Adolph and the Fatal Flying Guilloteens since Wednesday’s performance proved the TNT in tight jeans singer is practically a show in and of himself.
As soon as the Houston five piece began its two-guitar, barbed wire angular punk attack, Adolph fell/leapt into the crowd and kept his arms, legs and torso pretty much in perpetual motion the entire 40 minutes. It’s clear Adolph has more than a little in common with former Dennis Lyxzen — one-time barker for hardcore punk favorites Refused — and it’s more than just a way with a scream, like the sarcastic, sly way Adolph introduced his band: “Hi, we’re the black sheep of French Kiss (Records)” in reference to the band’s label and presenter of Wednesday’s concert.
FFG’s blazing performance last year at South by Southwest, at Red Eye Fly with label honchos Les Savy Fav, made them a band people are looking out for, particularly because of the impossible intensity the whole band brings and how it’s invigorated angular post-punk the same way The Gallows rescued hardcore last year. A huge bit of credit for this goes to bass player Roy Mata, whose bouncing, rumbling lines add a sense of danceability and size to songs that would otherwise zip by. It’s a testament to FFG’s songwriting and musicianship that not a beat was missed when Adolph and guitar player Michael Bonilla switched roles for two songs that were different but no less vicious. Kind of like the Fatal Flying Guilloteens in a nutshell.
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SXSW review: Centro-matic
Denton indie rockers Centro-matic’s 1 a.m. set at Friends on Wednesday night was rife with sweaty bodies and an overflow of passionate, contemplative, country-soaked rock ‘n’ roll which easily confirmed they are one of the best (and sadly, most under-appreciated) underground bands in Texas.
There was a line of wristband holders still waiting to file in at 1:30 a.m. because the inside of Friends was wall-to-wall with Centro-matic fans watching, dancing and singing-along to frontman’s Will Johnson’s unique soulful vocals. Johnson was so earnest and humble in his delivery that he made the packed club feel like he was performing on a backwoods porch.
Soaked in perspiration, the overwhelming claustrophobia in the tiny club felt entirely worth the trouble by the time the band played their poignant heart-melter, “Flashes and Cables.”
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SXSW review: Foot Patrol
Austin’s favorite foot fetish funk group, Foot Patrol, took only a few songs to prove that they are not just a foot-worshiping novelty act. Foot Patrol’s 8 p.m. opening set brutalized the audiences’ ears with funk grooves, punk spirit and even more highly danceable shake-the-junk-in-your-trunk rhythm and blues soul music that energized the Beauty Bar on Wednesday and released the venue’s soul from its all too familiar stoic hipster, arms-folded, cool pose.
Initially audience members might have thought that frontman/keyboardist T. J. Wade was pulling on pant legs as song after song lyrically unfolded into anthems obsessed with the worship of human feet and foot fetish parties. Wade’s singular “smellabration” of feet finally leveled certain members of the audience into curious “Is this guy for real?” and “I think this guy is for real” outbursts.
Foot Patrol has grown from a two-piece featuring bassist Hang Nguyen and vocalist Wade, into a nine-piece ensemble including three super-tight horn players and “The Tone Deputy Dance Squad” (two female go-go dancers).
The band and their dancers were clad in fake mustaches. Other members wore wigs and the guitarist even wore a prison orange jumpsuit. The band repeatedly toyed with audience expectations and performance conventions, but the tenor of the vocal performance and the power of their inescapable rhythms — more James Brown than Parliament Funkadelic — was enough to make you surrender to their outrageous presentation.
Midway through the set, the audience appeared to come to terms with the fact that Wade was stone-face serious and 100 percent committed to his would-be/could-be hit songs concerning his fondness for female feet. Dropping rhyme upon rhyme with the tonal precision of Stevie Wonder and Prince, Wade simultaneously revealed moments of his classical piano virtuosity in quick, subtle flashes on his electronic keyboards. And as good as the kid is on keys, when he does a blurry-fast run, you get the impression that he’s almost reigning in his skill for the measured poppy funk of his band.
The “S.W.A.T.” theme song received a pretty reverent interpretation (although its poignancy and irony seemed to be lost on the predominately under-30 crowd). Wade and band likewise sampled bits of the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” during their memorable original “Such A Pity.”
If only an adventurous advertising mogul were in the audience: There must be a shoe/sock/sandal maker in the world that could create a “perfect storm” of pop cultural candy by combining a Foot Patrol song with just the right images. Out-of-towners should note that as weirdly original and inspired as Foot Patrol is, their freak funk claims underground Austin music scene lineage to local punk and funk juggernauts the Big Boys, the Butthole Surfers and Brown Whornet.
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SXSW review: Bonnie Bramlett
“Push the Aretha button!”
Thus spoke Bonnie Bramlett to her soundman before her Wednesday night set at Pangaea. But truth be told, there was little need to juice the voice that once beguiled Eric Clapton and Leon Russell and helped bridge the gap between Etta James and (to cite but one example) Susan Tedeschi.
There might have been too much echo added to Bramlett’s voice in the sound system, but her warmth and immediacy transcended any technical shortcomings. She’s old school, referring to Marlboros and such as “cig-a-rates,” effusively praising her bandmates and the songwriters whose material she samples and the audience she seemed determined to entrance.
Along with mixing up her set between driving, Muscle Shoals-flavored rockers and ballads, Bramlett also found time to dip into the songbooks of Stephen Stills (“Love the One You’re With”), Delbert McClinton (“Sure Got A Way With My Heart”) and her brother Randall Bramlett, who also accompanied her on keyboards.
There were some flat spots—a deliberately paced rendition of Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen” that illuminated nothing new in the material, and a heavy-handed topical song called “Some of My Best Friends”—but Bramlett changed mood and tempo as though she were channel surfing. And, no, that’s not a criticism.
A certain piquant pleasure was to be had in watching Pangaea’s regulars, in a roped-off VIP section, sipping premium-priced champagne as Bramlett employed some soulful Dixie body English to wring the last bit of juice out of a lyric.
It’s the sort of ironic tableau that seldom works in a song, so she just took a running start and used that still-formidable voice to punch a hole in another new tune entitled, appropriately, “Shake Something Loose.”
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Spotted at SXSW: Elijah Wood
Actor Elijah Wood was nothing less than cordial with the handful of fans that noticed him registering for SXSW at the Convention Center Wednesday afternoon. When queried about what bands he was looking forward to seeing, Wood opportunely replied that the main band he was concerned with was Heloise & the Savoir Faire. He recently signed them to his label, Simian Records.
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SXSW review: Call Me Lightning
Who says a punk band can’t play jam music? Apologies to George Clinton, but it’s a question that deserves asking after Call Me Lightning’s eye-opening, virtuosic set Wednesday at the Mohawk. A more-than-competent angular punk band in previous years, the Milwaukee trio had all the tricks seemingly necessary for a band on the French Kiss Records roster; start/stop guitars, unrelenting rhythmic tension and build-and-release vocal histrionics.
All the was on display for the passable if unremarkable first half of the band’s set, but it was the new songs written prior to the arrival of new bass player Kriss Maedke-Russell where Call Me Lightning showed real growth and suggested they’re ready to set themselves apart. Full of two-part vocals and patient, almost classic rock guitar from singer Nathan Lilley, it’s as though the band has spiked its early sound with a dose of Creedence Clearwater Revival or Kings of Leon — with his long locks and scruffy beard, Maedke-Russell already looks the part.
It seems the new direction has spilled over into CML’s previous material as well, judging by a five-minute-plus version of the title track from the debut record, “Soft Skeletons” where Lilley was often head down working his strings like a ’70s rock pro. And while the new stuff was mostly a step down in energy, the presence of a crowd that swelled throughout the set suggests this new turn is headed in the right direction.
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SXSW review: Van Morrison
There was a moment there, when Van Morrison swung into “Don’t Go To Nightclubs Anymore,” a song from his forthcoming album, “Keep It Simple,” when a flicker of ironic disbelief might have ignited behind the singer’s gold-tinted aviator glasses.
After all, just the night before he had played around the corner at the Austin Music Hall, singing for the swells who could spring for tickets that started at a hundred-bucks-and-change. Now here he was, back playing in a former transmission repair shop — La Zona Rosa in its current incarnation — for any snot-nosed punk with a SXSW badge or wristband.
Perhaps he was chagrined by his sudden change in fortune. We snot-nosed punks, however, thoroughly enjoyed the rare chance to savor one of Ireland’s greatest and most enduring exports up close and personal.
Morrison and his 11-piece band mostly confined themselves to tracks off the new album, ranging from the tough, street-gritty old-school R&B of “How Can A Poor Boy” to the more rural, ethereal, Tupelo Honey-esque entreaties of “Keep It Simple” and “Song of Home” and the canny, seemingly effortless pop of “That’s Entrainment.” He also tipped his hat to a native Texan with his affecting rendition of Johnny Bush’s whiskey-soaked anthem, “There Stands the Glass.”
Striking a James Cagney pose in a fedora and tailored gray suit, Morrison moved between saxophone and (who’d of thunk?) ukulele as he and his spit-shine band moved between older material such as “Magic Time” and “This Love of Mine” and a lovely new set-closer, “Behind the Ritual.”
For this listener, whose most recent glimpse of Van Morrison was via a distant video screen far across a field at the Austin City Limits festival the year before last, his La Zona Rosa set was an anomalous episode to savor.
(Many thanks to Bernard Vasek of Music Mania, who provided song titles and other essential information.)
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SXSW review: Walter Hyatt tribute
Those of us fortunate enough to have heard Uncle Walt’s Band, and their indelible renditions of the songs of UWB co-founder Walter Hyatt in the little hole-in-the-wall on Congress Avenue named the Waterloo Icehouse, felt a surge of gratification at hearing his memory and his sublime and elegant music celebrated by a multitude Wednesday night at the Austin Music Awards.
Hyatt died in a tragic commercial plane crash in 1996, but his graceful, Dixie-inflected music lives on in the persons of Lyle Lovett, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, David Ball (the surviving member of the Uncle Walt trio) and his descendants, both literal and musical.
All of those and more were on hand to celebrate Hyatt’s legacy as the kickoff of the annual music awards show at the Austin Music Hall.
The segment began with Ball and the late Champ Hood’s son Warren and nephew Marshall, essaying one of Hyatt’s songs. The onstage population soon swelled with the addition of Jimmie Dale Gilmore (and his son, Colin), followed by Ball’s daughter Audrey and Walter’s son Taylor (channeling Capt. Jack Sparrow, to judge by his coiffure). They were followed in short order by the group the Belleville Outfit, and then Lovett and his accompanists.
Listening to the ensemble render Hyatt originals like “Deeper Than Love,” “Going To New Orleans,” “I’ll Come Knocking,” “Desiree, “Going To New Orleans” and (the final all-hands-on-deck ensemble number) “As the Crow Flies” is to be reminded once more of what a graceful and timeless composer he was (his peer, to my mind, is Johnny Mercer). His songs, at their best, are both playful and stately, redolent of the South (it’s humid music) — light-footed, courtly and ever seeking a state of grace.
Walter is missed, lo these dozen years later. His music, happily, continues to resound.
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SXSW: Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and Witch
Please pardon the cliche, but Black Joe Lewis & the Honey Bears lit a fire under Wednesday’s SXSW. There was a good-sized line outside Emo’s well before 7:15 and the house was quite close to full when one of Austin’s favorites took the stage at 8 p.m. Two tenor saxes and a trumpet player (never overpowering, that horn section), great grooves and a stomping Stax-Volt sound. … Nobody wants to know what kind of baby Otis Redding and James Brown would have made. But I have an idea. The band needs to work on its showmanship, only to match its huge sound, but what a way to begin the week: Austin felt like Muscle Shoals.
When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth: They look like such nice boys. And lots of facial hair, too, almost rivaling My Morning Jacket. But Austin’s noise rock freakoids, with two drummers for extra heaviosity, felt like a modern-day Scratch Acid Wednesday night, only without the humor and the charisma of David Yow. Huge and sludgy and always tight, their set nonetheless felt as dutiful as a snowplow. “Business Casual” was cool; I don’t know what “a song about Alec Baldwin” was about.
OK, J Mascis is a fierce drummer. Seeing the dude from Dinosaur Jr., with his big grandma glasses and long, white grandma hair behind a trap kit twirling a drum stick has got to be one of the small, sublime treats of this year. And he can really, really play the drums (his first instrument, as we all know.) Did I kind of say that already? Fans of Witch got a big taste of their new record. And I do hate to be reductive but yes, it’s ’70s stoner metal. But I meant that in a nice way.
(When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth performs at the Red Eyed Fly Wednesday night. The band features two singers, George Dishner (left) and Jesse Hodges (right). Photo by Bret Gerbe for the American-Statesman)
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SXSW: The Steve Reich showcase
From the looks of things in the upstairs recital hall of St. David’s Episcopal Church Wednesday night, SXSW’s first foray into classical music was a hit. A capacity crowd of “new music” aficionados responded enthusiastically to performances by members of the Austin Chamber Music Center, the SOLI ensemble from San Antonio, guitarist C. E. Whalen and the New York-based group So Percussion.
Sponsored by publisher Boosey & Hawkes in collaboration with Gramophone magazine and Nonesuch records, the program featured music by John Adams, Michael Torke, Elliott Carter, Elena Kats-Chemin and Steve Reich, who was in attendance. The showcase explored a broad spectrum of contemporary chamber music, all of which was exciting stuff; but the highlights of the evening had to be the Reich pieces played by So Percussion. Who would have thought that sticks and human hands could move at the speed of hummingbird wings — literally turning into blurs, from which emerged amazing sounds.
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Spotted: Lou Reed at Pangaea
Spotted at the Daniel Lanois showcase at Pangaea: Lou Reed, a few hours after screening of “Lou Reed’s Berlin” at the Paramount. Not sure what time he left, but we hope he gets some sleep before his 10:30 a.m. keynote speech Thursday.
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