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Wednesday, March 11, 2009
SXSW: Side parties! Free drinks! Oh yeah… and music.
Times being tough as they are it’s understandable that plenty of the thousands invading next week for South By Southwest will be on the hunt for as many free drinks and meals as they can muster. It’s rough out there, yo. But please, in your quest to two fist for 12 hours straight don’t forget the bands doing their damnedest to rock your face off.
In that spirit, more additions to our SXSW side parties list:
Louisiana Showcase
Clash vs. Relentless
Four Square Punk
AAM SXSW Extravaganza
Indie Ambassador
SPIN (updated)
Cheapo Discs
Platform One Entertainment
Musebox Day Party
Anarchy at SXSW
End of the Road
New West Records
Sound On Sound (in-stores)
Bands, Burgers and Beers
MySpace Records/Family Happy Hour
Lost In Texas
Bay Area Hip Hop Showcase
More to come soon…
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Behind the Buzz: Playing For Change
The video seen seven and a half million times on YouTube starts off with Santa Monica street performer Roger Ridley strumming the simple chords of “Stand By Me” and singing the first verse. Grandpa Elliott of New Orleans takes over on the second verse and then he’s joined by soul belter Clarence Bekker of Amsterdam on the chorus. The Town Eagle Drum Group of New Mexico adds their touch, as do the guitarists from Italy and Venezuela, the Russian cello player, the Congo drummer, the Israeli singer, the eight-piece South African vocal group and more. All wear headphones that play everything that’s been recorded up to that point.
The group, Playing For Change, which makes its live debut at SXSW on Thursday, March 19, at Momo’s, is the international stew stirred by Mark Johnson, a recording engineer/ producer who had a vision in a New York City subway station 10 years ago that music was an underused unifying force in the world: “There were two monks, painted white from head to toe, playing music amongst all the commuters. One was playing a nylon guitar and the other was singing in a language I didn’t know. There were about 200 people, of all types, just mesmerized by this music. Normally they’d be rushing past each other, but the music brought them together.”
Like his heroes John and Alan Lomax, Johnson and his crew sought out indigenous musicians all over the world.
“Music shows us what we have in common, not what is different,” says Johnson, who honed his love of world music as an engineer for Paul Simon. To record Bob Marley’s “War/ No More Trouble,” Johnson brought together, at least on tape, musicians from Israel, India, Ireland, the U.S. and several African nations to back the vocals of Marley and U2’s Bono.
One treasure they found, through a newspaper article about finding solace through backyard jams, was bassist Pokei Klass, who lives in a village of shanties in South Africa. Two months ago, the Playing For Change Foundation, funded by donations, built the Ntonga Music School in Klass’ village. Next is the Mehlo Arts Center in Johannesburg, later this year.
“The musicians have the sense that they’re playing for something greater than themselves,” says Johnson. “There’s been very little ego involved.”
At SXSW, the Playing For Change band will be a nine-piece, with members from the Congo, Israel, the U.S., Zimbabwe and Holland. Hear Music will release a CD/ DVD on the project April 28. Click here for more info.
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Behind the SXSW Buzz: Floyd Dakil
Floyd Dakil is about as humble as they come. The 63-year-old Dallas native has generally turned down interview requests from folks writing books on Texas music history in the past, because he felt his contribution did not warrant such attention.
In giving the world “Dance Franny Dance,” one of the greatest garage rock numbers, recorded in Dallas a year before the Beatles played Ed Sullivan, the Floyd Dakil Combo has achieved bar band immortality. The hard-driving tune with the irresistible chord change has been kept alive in Austin by a host of bands, including the Leroi Brothers and Eve and the Exiles. That latter group will back Dakil when he plays the Ponderosa Stomp showcase on Friday, March 20, at the Continental Club.
“So many younger people come up to me or e-mail me and tell me how much they love that song that I’ve started thinking that, you know, maybe my music did have some value,” says Dakil, who runs his own commercial real estate business.
Although he has rarely performed since the mid-‘80s, Dakil says “there’s something that music does when you get older — it rejuvenates you. I’m just rarin’ to play.”
Although a treasured 45 for collectors, “Dance Franny Dance” achieved only regional success, which was not matched by follow-ups “Bad Boy,” “Stronger Than Dirt” and “One Girl.” Dakil is technically one hit short of being a One-Hit Wonder, but in terms of influence “Dance Franny Dance” was a smash.
Dakil wrote the song after a high school pool party, in which the 2-year-old sister of the hostess started shimmying to a song on the jukebox and all the kids started chanting “Dance Franny Dance.” The next day, Dakil started strumming a B chord and singing “Dance Franny Dance” and then he went into the G chord that gives the tune a catchy lift-off.
An accomplished guitarist, Dakil was recruited to join Louis Prima’s band in 1972, but that gig ended after eight months when the band leader was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Dakil stayed in Las Vegas, where he played the lounges and opened for the likes of Bill Cosby and Phyllis Diller.
By 1984, however, Dakil retired from the music business and took a job in finance. “I don’t know how Dr. Ira (Ponderosa founder Padnos) found me, but he did,” Dakil says of his unlikely road to South By Southwest. “I guess I’m gonna go down to Austin and play like I’m 25 again.
“The music has that effect.”
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Mess With Texas 3 line-up
Here is the line-up for Mess With Texas 3, the Saturday-of-SXSW (which means Mar. 21 this year) party thrown by Transmission Entertainment at Waterloo Park. It is free, all ages and open to the public. Doors at 11:30 a.m.; the show will be over by 9 p.m.
The Black Lips
The Circle Jerks
Kid Sister
Cursive
Monotonix
The Thermals
Akron/Family
Lucero
King Khan & the Shrines
Soft Pack
Jason Lytle from Granddaddy
The Bronx
Vetiver
B.O.B
Busdriver
Vivian Girls
Crystal Antlers
Abe Vigoda
The Death Set
Japanther
Howl
Sleepy Sun
Red Cortez
Trash Talk
Jason Lytle
Cut Off Your Hands
Sleepy Sun
Dono Band
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CD review: Riverboat Gamblers: Underneath the Owl
Riverboat Gamblers
Underneath the Owl
(Volcom)
Over the past four albums and 12 years, the Riverboat Gamblers have gotten amazingly good at what they do.
A little punk explosiveness here, a few glammy metal guitar solos there, Mike Weibe’s energetic vocals and world-class stage presence holding it all together. From the wonderfully titled “A Choppy, Yet Sincere Apology” — a pop-punk chestnut that deserves its own single on Lookout Records time-warped back to 1993 — to head-smashingly excellent “Catastrophe,” “Underneath the Owl” (a reference to the Frost Bank Tower) reinforces everything everyone loves about these guys.
There are even signs of depth: “Keep Me From Drinking” can’t figure out whether it’s sincere or not, which is probably fitting for a party-hearty band whose lead singer sees 30 in the rear view mirror. Yet again we have to ask: Why the heck aren’t these guy absurdly famous?
The Riverboat Gamblers play two official showcases during South by Southwest: midnight March 20 at Buffalo Billiards, 201 E. Sixth St. and 1 a.m. March 21 at Emo’s Annex, 600 Red River St.
Watch the Riverboat Gamblers at Waterloo Records on Tuesday night:
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