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Thursday, July 3, 2008
Weekend Picks: Cartoonish metal, sultry vocals and summer festival fun
Friday: Andrew W.K. at Emo’s. The man in the white jeans who once screamed ‘Don’t Stop Living in the Red’ returns with all-new anthems, most likely urging you to party, believe in yourself or something similarly optimistic and loud. With Against Me’s Tom Gabel and more. 10 p.m. $10. - Joe Gross
Friday: Los Bad Apples at the Belmont. This hip-hop/reggaeton group got a big boost during the SXSW Music Festival when they landed an opening gig for rapper Ludacris at a private party. With their bangin’ beats, booty-movin’ grooves and witty rhymes it was a natural fit. The group is MCed by Zeale 32 with former Grupo Fantasma artist Joseph Serrato on the beats and sultry vocals from Anita Benner. They celebrate the release of their new video ‘Don’t Stop.’ 10 p.m. —Deborah Sengupta Stith
Friday: Kanko at the Continental Club. Speaking of ex-Fantasmanites, Grupo’s original frontman, Brian Ramos, heads the wildly adventurous project Kanko. A little ska, a little punk and a little bit of breakneck cumbia creates a great big sound. Charanga Cakewalk headlines. —-D.S.S.
Saturday: ‘Born on the 5th of July’ EXIT Music Festival at Waterloo Park.Exit Music Group presents a festival of Austin music and art. Participating bands include Black & White Years (for a story on the band, see page 10), Alpha Rev, Ricardo Sanchez, South Austin Jug Band, Patrice Pike and many more. Yes, there is a drum circle stage. Doors at 9 a.m., show 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. $12.25 (kids 10 and younger), $23.25, $56.25. - J.G.
Saturday: Ring the Alarm at the Parish. DJs Baby G, Jah Mighty and Jr. Vibes throw down the dancehall reggae for your bumping, grinding pleasure. —-D.S.S.
Sunday: Dethklok at the Austin Music Hall. The central characters of Cartoon Network’s hit ‘Metalocalypse,’ Dethklok is a real band sort of the way Gorillaz is. With less-animated (hah!) metal acts Chimaira and Soilent Green. 7:30 p.m. $25. . — J.G.
Sunday: Ulrich Schnaus at the Parish. His latest album, ‘Goodbye,’ has been one of this German ambient electronic artist’s most widely reviewed and one of his best received. Expect music in cloud form. With Austin’s shoegazing space cadets Experimental Aircraft and more. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 7 p.m. — J.G.
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Fleet Foxes at Mohawk
Fleet Foxes’ frontman Robin Pecknold felt compelled to explain his long-sleeve shirt and ski cap, what with it being summertime in Texas and all.
“I feel like I have flabby arms, and I just got an embarrassing haircut,” the skinny, long-haired Seattleite told a sold-out crowd Wednesday at Mohawk.
With hypnotic, extended-jam versions of “Sun Giant” and “Sun It Rises” already under their beards, the fivesome had established themselves as anything but a My Morning Jacket pre-“Z” cover band, a comparison that’s hard to deny after listening to Pecknold’s echo-chamber vocals on their deservedly buzzed-about, self-titled Sub Pop debut.
Now it was time for one of the many random discourses that routinely took place in between songs. Drummer Josh Tillman, a real ham, seized the moment to riff on his trip to Whole Foods earlier in the day.
“Can you ever have too many vitamins?” he queried before dropping into the mock tone of a shopper posed with the grocer’s infinite holistic offerings, and added, “Never heard of this before. Gotta put it in my body.”
Funny business aside, Fleet Foxes resumed with the trifecta of “White Winter Hymnal,” “Your Protector,” and “He Doesn’t Know Why.” In those three songs, the band showed off majestic four-part harmonies that sometimes ascended to the heights of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s as well as an ability to make subtle changes that translated into a multitude of genres, from sweeping epics built for Irish-countryside films to Americanized Buddhist chants to hippified tribal noodling.
For an encore, Pecknold took the stage solo and played the acoustic “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song.” Right before that, though, someone in the audience asked him to take off his ski cap. He begrudgingly obliged.
“See, it’s too short,” he said. “I got it cut too short.” Because of the new, weekday noise ordinance, so, too, was his band’s set.
Click here to view photos from the show.
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Live chat With Statesman pop critic Joe Gross at 2 p.m. today
Statesman pop critic Joe Gross hosts the first of weekly live chats about music (Austin music, Texas music and otherwise) today (July 3) at 2 p.m.
Topics includes July 4 music plans, Exit Fest on July 5, and the singles of the summer (by which we mean songs, not specific single people).
Chats will take place from then on in every Thursday at 2 p.m.
In the immortal words of Public Enemy “Consider yourself…..warned!”
