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Saturday, March 21, 2009
SXSW Scene Report: The Knucklerumbler with Rollingstone.com party, Peckerheads
3 p.m. was a little early, it seemed, for the die-hard Lady Sovereign fans to queue up for an opportunity to see the pint-sized British hellraiser Saturday. Lines were nonexistent at Peckerheads, where she was slated to play at 5:30 p.m..
That meant getting in for two of the festival’s biggest buzz acts, Janelle Monae and the Love Language, was shockingly easy. Say what you want about Peckerheads — while the ventilation may be poor, the beer selection questionable and the floors stickier than a suburban movie theater, they know how to put on a show. With a genius dual-stage setup that let the venue toggle between artists with practically no lag, the day ran smoothly.
Monae took the stage on schedule at 3:30 p.m., with a band member announcing her as “from Kansas City by way of Atlanta, one of the most astonishing performers of our time,” which would have seemed conceited had it not been clearly true.
Bursting onto a stage adjacent to a fog machine — which are entirely too rare at SXSW — the Grammy-nominated artist bounced from corner to corner of the stage like a human pinball for the next half hour. A mere three songs in 30 minutes, the set was heavy on instrumental jams, but the ever-snappily dressed Monae electrified the tiny room with her blend of modern hip hop hustle and old-school soul swagger.
North Carolina’s the Love Language, a jangly eight-piece indie rock ensemble, took the stage next. The group’s self-titled debut album is one of 2009’s strongest under-the-radar releases this year, a messy, sweeping, enthusiastic effort that sounds a bit like something the Arcade Fire might make if they got drunk on whiskey. The set’s highlight was single “Lalita,” currently a mainstay on Austin Powell’s local and new music program “Next Big Thing,” on 101X. The band took advantage of their final SXSW show to throw themselves into the crowd, sweat buckets and generally let loose with wild musical abandon.
By then, of course, Lady Sov.’s devotees had begun to take over Sixth Street, as the venue hit capacity and a line extending west had begun to form. One can only wonder if they noticed Monae exiting the venue — sporting her best formal wear and tailed by her entire musical entourage — and pondered what they had missed.
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SXSW scenes: Notes in brief…
— Everyone who saw the Circle Jerks on Thursday night at an utterly packed Beerland was floored.
“Really, really fun,” No No No Hopes/Camp X-Ray bassist Mark Grady said. “All old stuff.”
“The last bit was all old Black Flag songs,” Transmission co-owner Graham Williams said. (Circle Jerks singer Keith Morris did time in Black Flag.) “It was like a weird dream, like you’d tell someone ‘Yeah, I had this dream where I went to Beerland, but Max wasn’t at the door, it was this other girl stamping your hand and for some reason the Circle Jerks were playing.’”
Circle Jerks played the Mess With Texas fest Saturday evening and Morris was spotted backstage in a Beerland T-shirt.
— Was that Kanye West checking out Kid Sister’s set Friday night at Club De Ville? Observers said whomever it was, and those who danced up closer swear it was him, say a wig was involved, but so were two large bodyguards.
— By the way, if you can’t make it to the Kanye show tonight at Fader Fort, know that it is streaming on fader.com.
— It seems to have been a good year for old people, by which I mean bands with members older than, say, 35. Strong buzz is out there for the sets from Obits, Flower Travellin Band, DEVO, Absu, Slough Feg and others.
— For a band known for having a sullen lead singer, Echo and the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch should be given some sort of award for not punching Echo touring rhythm guitarist Gordon Goudie while on stage. Goudie displayed some of the most annoying, distracting hey-look-at-me rock movies of the entire festival, non of which fit with the band’s music. Dude, nobody needs to look at you. They are here to see Ian and guitarist Will Sargent. Now, I admit that those two dudes don’t move much and your guitar adds much needed noise to the proceedings. Still, as the kids said back in the Bunnymen’s ’80s heyday, take it down a thousand.
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SXSW panel report: Wax Attacks!
The gist: Vinyl is making a comeback. Speakers from the pressing plant to the record shop discuss how they cater to the crate diggers and casual fans.
The panelists: Moderator: John Kunz, owner, Waterloo Records; Douglas Hanners, owner, Austin Record Convention; Jay Millar, marketing director, United Record Pressing; Monti Olson, senior vice president, Universal Music Publishing /Interscope; Mason Williams, director A&R, Rhino Entertainment; Sandy Bitman, owner Park Avenue record shop, Orlando.
The lowdown: According to Jay Miller of United Record Pressing, the plant has been producing vinyl since 1949. “Vinyl was king,” he says, “but it died off in the 1990s. I wasn’t even purchasing vinyl back then. It was mostly dance and hip hop DJs buying 12” records, and for a decade that’s what kept us afloat. But the rise of digital has led to a resurgence. As soon as I got my first iPod I was looking at my walls and walls of CDs and didn’t want to let go of all that artwork and those liner notes. And that’s exactly what I liked about vinyl, so I started selling my CDs and putting the money back into vinyl. People wanting artwork are turning to vinyl.”
Sandy Bitman, owner of Park Avenue record shop in Orlando, says for DJs, the 12” is all but dead. “They don’t come into our store any more. Instead it’s people wanting to buy LPs. It’s fun to watch kids of 15 or 16 competing with guys in their 50s and 60s to flip through the vinyl and get to the next letter.
Monti Olson of Universal Music says if consumers are going to spend 30 to 50 dollars on a record they demand a piece of art. “They’ll ask questions before buying a record, like ‘does it come with the original poster’, ‘is it a gatefold’, etc. Artwork is increasingly important to the audiophile market … there’s a social issue with playing vinyl. With an iPod you can’t really have a friend over to listen to music, but with an LP you can put it on, look at the sleeve. And I think we’re going to see more of that.”
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SXSW scene report: Mess with Texas
It’s rare to see Transmission Entertainment principle James Moody looking nervous, but checking out the massive line outside of Mess With Texas at 3 p.m. Saturday afternoon, you could understand his concern.
“More people that we thought came out today,” Moody said as he waved folks in after they received their drinking-age wristbands. “But we’ll deal with it.”
While Mess with Texas didn’t have as many stages as Fun Fun Fun and didn’t take up as much of Waterloo Park as that autumn rock fest, it felt about as big. Thousands of Austinites showed up for the free concert, from crusty punks looking for a beer to families with babies wearing ear protectors to hipsters taking a break from the Red River party on the last say of SXSW 2009.
“I thought people might be lining up around 5 p.m., but I was not prepared for a long line early in the afternoon (because we didn’t have huge names),” Transmission co-owner Graham Williams said. Williams, backstage, carried around the bag of payouts for the bands; it might as well have had a big dollar sign on it, cartoon bank style. Occasionally a band manager approached him and received an envelope. “I ended up calling a bunch of Transmission folks as soon as I got to the park: ‘Hey, can you come down and help get the line moving?’” By 3:30 p.m., the line seemed under control, though a steady stream of folks kept arriving as the afternoon wore on, through surprisingly energetic sets from acts such as Cursive and Abe Vigoda.
Backstage, there was definitely a feeling of the festival winding down and sense of camaraderie between the bands. As Vivian Girls set up on the main stage to play their umpteenth show of the weekend, they asked for some help.
“Are the Coathangers here?,” Vivian Girls bassist Kickball Katy said to either nobody in particular or the entire crowd. The Coathangers are an Atlanta band; everyone who has seen them seems to love them.
“We just saw King Kahn earlier and he had a dancer so we asked the Coathangers to dance with us but they’re not here,” Katy said before launching into the band’s increasingly popular indie garage-pop. Ah well.
Acts slated for later in the day included buzz bands Akron/Family, Kid Sister, the Thermals and the Black Lips.
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SXSW interview: Langhorne Slim
Langhorne Slim narrows the divide between folk and soul by fueling timely tales with timeless grooves. The New York-based songwriter - born Sean Scolnick in Langhorne, PA - scored David Letterman’s endorsement and a national television debut last year. “(That acknowledgement) certainly makes you feel good and that you’ve come further than you were before,” he says. Catch Langhorne’s final SXSW appearance this evening at Purevolume.com. He’s scheduled to perform at 6:45 p.m. Second and Trinity streets.
American-Statesman: How’s your SXSW been going?
Langhorne Slim: Since I got here, I’ve left my laptop at the last place that we played and my phone in an old friend’s car. Hopefully, both will come back to me.
Have your shows gone better?<br>
They’ve been the most fun that we’ve had out here to date, that’s for sure. We’ve pretty much been doing our stuff. I haven’t seen the Avett Brothers, but their sound guy who we’re good friends with is now going to do the rest of the tour with us.
You have different style than the Avetts, but your energy level is pretty high, too.
Well, we give it our all just like those boys do. Our stage presence is different, but it’s coming from a similar place.
It landed you that gig on Letterman last year. How’d that impact your career?
Obviously, it was a dream come true for us. It’s kind of great and ridiculous at the same time. That gives you a sort of validity you had before, even though you’re the same band playing the same music. When people see you on a show like that it furthers people’s interest. It makes people take you more serious, which is silly. But I’ll take it happily.
Is there any self-validation involved?
That’s a good question. Absolutely. To give you an honest answer, yeah, there is. For a lot of us, this is who we are and what we do. We’re not going to quit over a negative review or something. But when it’s these songs you write and play all the time, it’s the same self-validation you get when you have a great show and people are freaking out and dancing and feel passionately about your music.
How has the state of the economy affected you as a touring musician?
We put out our record last April and toured about nine months straight on it. Then we took a well-needed break. So, when the economy was struggling, we weren’t getting hit on the head as much in the news with it. I wasn’t really seeing the effects because I was out in the country with my girlfriend, you know, walking dogs and trying to get better at playing piano.
What about your fellow musicians?
I hear from an (expletive) of friends and people we’re meeting, “Yeah, I just lost my job.” It becomes far more tangible when you’re meeting people and hearing them say, “I can make your show Tuesday night because I just got laid off and don’t have to wake up tomorrow.”
So, more people are coming out?
I feel as if the crowds are just as big, if not bigger. I’ve also heard that in bad economic times artists and entertainers often do better than before. But maybe that’s a cliché.
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SXSW Panel: Doug Sahm’s “Mendocino”
(Noon Saturday, Austin Convention Center)
It’s been 40 years since the gleeful yelp of “The Sir Douglas Quintet is back!” kicked off “Mendocino,” one of the signature albums of the incredibly fertile era of the late sixties. And, in many ways, it encapsulated the fusion of grooves that Doug Sahm synthesized throughout his prolific career.
A Saturday panel at the Austin Convention Center brought together producer and record exec Bill Bentley, who has co-produced a tribute album to Sahm, who died in 1999; Austin Chronicle writer Margaret Moser; author Jan Reid, who is penning a Sahm biography; SDQ alumni Augie Meyers and Harvey Kagan; and Doug’s son Shawn to discuss the enduring impact of “Mendocino” and its creator.
“Most people never understood what a beautifully layered song that was,” said Moser, citing the mixture of hippie pop and Chicano soul that characterized the song.
“It went pretty quickly,” said Kagan, the Quintet’s bassist for the sessions. “Most of it was first takes. Doug never was the type of person to do things over and over.”
“That song was as simple as could be,” said Shawn Sahm. “Dad traveled a lot and he had girlfriends all over the place. I had more stepmoms than anybody I knew. And he was in Mendocino with this young chick and that sparked the song.”
The album helped make Sahm and the Quintet celebrities in the Bay Area, but his heart was always in Texas, and he moved back to Austin in 1973 and immediately galvanized the fledgling country-rock scene in town.
“Doug’s arrival turned Austin around. We were all amateurs, bar-rats,” said Bentley, who was drumming with a band at the time. “He turned everybody on to the professionalism that he had. We all knew that here was the one guy who really knew how to play. And at the same time, he would hang out and play with us and encourage us.”
Meyers recalled the Quintet touring America and Europe behind Mendocino and hiding their pot in microphone stands. “So we went on the road with 25 or 50 mic stands,” he recalled with a laugh.
“He’d call me up at my farm out in Bulverde, Texas, and say he was coming over for enchiladas,” Meyers said. “And he’d show up with Bob Dylan. And then the next time, it would be Jerry Garcia.”
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SXSW scene report: Gary Louris and Mark Olson at Jo’s Coffee
The Jayhawks are back together. The Jayhawks are back together. The Jayhawks are back together. Seriously, you’d have thought John Lennon came back from the dead to reconcile with Paul McCartney, what with the throng at Jo’s Coffee spilling out onto South Congress Avenue for the seminal alt-country duo’s Friday evening set.
Truth told, only the Jayhawks’ principal players, Gary Louris and Mark Olson, have reconvened, after Olson bailed on Louris 15 years ago. The duo played from its new album, “Ready for the Flood,” but the crowd wasn’t there for any of that business. They wanted to hear golden oldies from the albums “Hollywood Town Hall” and “Tomorrow the Green Grass.” They wanted to sing along to the song “Blue.” Well, they got what they wanted.
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SXSW Review: Still Flyin’
(1 a.m. Saturday, Independent)
At least a couple of the 50 or so people who hung around until nearly 1:30 in the morning for the San Francisco collective Still Flyin’ are going to look back on cell-phone photos of themselves dancing like total goofballs and feel a wee bit embarrassed. Such is the guilty pleasure of this reggae-inspired jam band that’s calculatedly off-the-wall to the point of hip.
To not boogie along to the baker’s dozen — composed of back-up singers, a horn section, countless percussionists, a dedicated dancer in the style of a pogo stick, and a “guru” who switched off from manning the smoke machine inside the tie-dyed “mystery tent” to doling out beers from his fanny pack — is to not, um, live.
Word has spread about Still Flyin’ ever since Okkervil River’s Will Sheff told Pitchfork it was essentially his new favorite band. Now, “hammjamming,” the term frontman Sean Rawls and his merry pranksters use to explain their half-serious, half-joking approach to settling into a groove, is becoming as in-the-know as the secret handshake of the Skull and Bones society.
If all of this sounds over the top, it is, but that doesn’t mean musicianship isn’t there. Take a song like “Good Thing It’s a Ghost Town around Here,” with its gleeful, breakneck pace, and you sort of start feeling like you’re watching descendants of Afropop legend Fela Kuti.
Photo by Kathy Hoinski
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SXSW Review: Deer Tick
(Habana Backyard, 1 a.m. Saturday)
As people were filing out of the Habana Backyard following a set from Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, I heard one couple talking about how glad they were to have stayed for the former Drive-By Truckers guitarist’s set.
All I could think was — You have no idea what you’re about to miss.
Call it folk, country, rock, folk/rock, alt-country or Americana, the young members of Rhode Island’s Deer Tick write and play some of the most soulful, inspired music around, littered with lyrics as sharp as a shot of whiskey and rapid-fire guitar solos strong enough to blow the dust off your boots.
Though the band’s Wednesday night performance at Club Deville exploded immediately, Deer Tick found its footing on Friday night a few songs in with a galloping rendition of “Art Is Real (City of Sin).”
“There gotta be some old recipe/’Cause I gotta get drunk/I gotta forget about some things,” the loopy-eyed frontman Joseph John McCauley crooned in his raspy howl, cigarette stuck between his guitar strings.
But that was one of the only songs the band played from its 2007 release “War Elephant.” The rest were a tantalizing preview of the forthcoming “Born on Flag Day,” due out in June.
Some, like the soft “Blowin’ in the Wind” inspired “How Can a Man” hit hard with simple truths — “It couldn’t be much fun being a millionaire of one/’Cause a million’s just a million of one thing.” Others, like “Dance of Love” and the blues-rock closer ripped through frantic vocal delivery and tight interplay between the guitars and drums.
It was only one of the many SXSW shows Deer Tick had played and was yet to play, but it showed little sign of fatigue.
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SXSW Scene Report: Benjy Ferree at Okay Mountain
Benjy Ferree broke out the pixie dust at eastside gallery Okay Mountain Friday. His new folk-rocker, “Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee Bobby Dee,” is a concept album about Disney golden boy Bobby Driscoll, who experienced childhood fame as an actor and as the voice of the animated Peter Pan before booze cut his adult career short and led to a premature, penniless death. Ferree might have been over-thinking it when he came up with the idea of packaging songs as a chronicle of Driscoll’s rise and fall, coupled with the rite-of-passage themes from Peter Pan, but all of that was irrelevant in the live delivery.
Ferree - sans the beard, glasses, and hobo hat he wore at last year’s SXSW, perhaps as a way to inhabit the ostensibly clean-cut Driscoll persona - was joined in duet by lost boy Drew Mills. They breezed through songs like “Big Business,” about the hard knocks of Hollywood, and “Fear,” wherein Ferree stretched his Jack White voice to sound more soulful than bluesy. Along the way, the duo interspersed a lot of synchronized whistling, and Ferree shouted out, over and over again, “Peace, love, and all that,” to the sparse crowd. It was almost as if he’d been smoking the pixie dust before he started spreading it.
Photo by Kathy Hoinski
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SXSW Review: Beach House
(Cedar Street Courtyard, Friday night)
There’s a reason Beach House is so frequently dubbed “dream pop.” From the moment Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally took the stage at the Cedar Street Courtyard, the narrow performance venue and bar carved out of the space between two buildings, they made every effort to give their set the same ethereal and otherworldly energy that characterizes REM sleep.
Setting the tone with the slow, methodical “Gila,” off of last year’s “Devotion,” Legrand’s lilting voice and Scally’s understated guitar quickly established an atmosphere of quiet beauty. Underneath soft green lights and surrounded by walls covered in ivy on either side, Legrand’s voice was buried underneath layers of reverb that made her sound less like a live presence and more like a voice in your head.
The tempo changed three songs in, with the comparatively driving “Used to Be,” off October’s 7-inch single. Legrand picked up the pace and Scally was granted the occasional guitar solo, though they served more to punctuate the lyrics than anything else. The addition of that most quintessential of upbeat instruments, the tambourine, to Legrand’s arsenal signaled a transition to a slightly more pop sound that took hold through the rest of the set.
By the time they closed with the catchy “Master of None,” it was clear Beach House’s atmospheric take on pop had struck a chord — a previously uppity audience had put down the iPhones, lowered the cameras and been swept up in waves of bittersweet pop melodies. In retrospect, between the punk rock stylings of preceding band Pete and the Pirates and the later frat guy reggae of Bedouin Soundclash, it had all seemed like a particularly poignant dream.
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SXSW Review: The Ettes
(Friday night, the Mohawk Patio)
In a world that can often be very male-dominated, it’s refreshing to see women. The Ettes, a Nashville-based punk outfit consisting of two women, singer/guitarist Coco and drummer Poni, along with male bassist Jem, definitely rocked the Mohawk Patio on Friday night.
Poni’s drumming was nothing short of explosive, adding an addictive energy to the songs that made the band another highlight, along with Gringo Star and the Hold Steady, of what was one of the strongest showcases of the week. Likewise, Coco’s inspired vocals proved that she was worthy of comparisons to Blondie and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
She noted that the band had been fired up by the Sonics earlier in the night, and although the Ettes weren’t exactly covering Little Richard, there was definitely a similar excitement in the air for the set, especially on the songs “Reputation” and “I Get Mine.”
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SXSW Review: Asobi Seksu
(1 a.m. Saturday, Habana Calle 6)
After a late start, Brooklyn dream pop band Asobi Seksu (meaning “playful sex” in Japanese) headlined the Polyvinyl showcase at Habana Calle 6, rocking tracks from their new album “Hush” as well as a few older songs from their previous two critically acclaimed studio albums.
The band’s unique spacey, expansive sound - complete with the creaks and grinds of two glaciers colliding - emanates from the strengths of its two members: keyboardist/lead vocalist Yuki Chikudate and guitarist James Hanna. Saturday evening the band was filled out by two of their friends, drummer Larry Gorman and bassist Billy Pavone. And although the rhythm section was tight and at times quite inventive in their ability to turn the beat around, the Asobi Seksu sound is grounded in its two essential elements: Hanna’s dreamy, washed-out guitar-work and Chikudate’s ethereal voice mixed with her inventive keyboard flourishes.
Chikudate was all business throughout the eight-song set. Her voice sounded more relaxed, more emotional than their records, as she toyed with the melodies, tastefully dancing across multiple octaves mainly in falsetto. The band played several tracks from “Hush,” which was released last month, including “Meh No Mae,” “Sing Tomorrows Praises” and the supersonic “In the Sky.”
A close listen to “Familiar Light” revealed Asobi Seksu’s still pushing the bounds of dream pop, adding math rock and classical elements - complete with alternating rhythms and descending melodies - that rival Sigur Ros in their ability to create mood through ornate arrangements and lush, ambient soundscapes.
During the outro of the set closer, “Red Sea,” Chikudate moved from the keyboards to drums, bashing out a slow, powerful beat that was heavier than you’d expect her 5 foot tall, 95 some-odd pound frame would be capable of pounding. Then with white noise blasting from Hanna’s guitar as it echoed far from the Habana Calle 6 patio stage and into the night sky, Chikudate allowed a half-smile to slip out as the band successfully wrapped one of the most experimental, stunningly provocative sets witnessed during SXSW.
In comparison, many of the indie rock bands at this year’s SXSW sound similar in their race down the wide and deep well of mediocrity. Asobi Seksu’s ability to challenge conventional sounds and arrangements in rock music leave them with few peers that can match their creativity. (Let’s just hope it doesn’t take another three years to pass before their next release.)
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SXSW Scene Report: Mohawk surprise
Sometimes SXSW can offer up pleasant surprises.
Seattle-based rock trio The Blakes canceled their 9 p.m. set (no word on why) at Mohawk on Friday and were replaced by Gringo Star, who apparently dragged their gear across town at the last minute to appear.
The Atlanta-based foursome knew what they were doing, with an eclectic sound that pulled not just from no-frills psychedelic rock, but punk and even at points jazz. Despite the obvious influences, at no point did the band come across as knockoffs. Their well-crafted songs all seemed to contain something that kept the listener interested, including the piano parts on “Come on Now” and “No Man,” or the thumping bass on “Rebel Kind.”
Similarly, the various members of the band, who shared singing duties, brought a tongue-in-cheek intensity to the music that made it an entertaining live experience.
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SXSW Review: Loney Dear
(Habana Calle 6, Friday night)
“We love the Paramount,” frontman Emil Svanangen of Sweden’s Loney Dear said near the end of his band’s set at the Polyvinyl Records showcase on Friday night. “We were there a few weeks ago. It was freaking marvelous.”
And indeed, everything about Loney Dear’s opening gig for Andrew Bird at the Paramount last month was freaking marvelous — the venue, the sound, the band.
The band’s South by Southwest performance wasn’t bad, but it was certainly different. Svanangen had a few less members and thus a few less instruments backing him. Paired with the lack of the Paramount’s stunning acoustics, Loney Dear sounded less like a twinkly, floating folk with charming melodic sensibility than stripped-down, hard-driving rock backed by electronic samples.
And unfortunately for audience members near the back of the venue, the door to the bar had to remain open for the majority of the show because of fire hazard restrictions, so the sounds of the pounding blues band inside collided with Loney Dear’s melody-driven music to create an awful mess of sound.
But that was hardly the band’s fault, and near the front of the stage, the samples that backed songs like “Airport Surroundings” and “Everything Turns to You” from the band’s latest album, “Dear John,” raced forward and got the crowd moving, while the backing vocals from the new female keyboardist resonated with a haunting echo.
Other songs, like the ambient “I Was Only Going Out” just sounded out of place at a venue that gave the music such a rough edge.
It was a decent performance by Loney Dear, but it definitely highlighted the difference a venue can make.
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SXSW Review: Sam Amidon
(Friday, 18th Floor of the Hilton Garden Inn)
Sam Amidon doesn’t write his own songs, but instead rearranges traditional folk numbers. The result is a somber, sobering trip to centuries past, where life’s hardships and heartaches seem slightly removed from today’s.
If that sounds heady and slightly depressing, it is. But at Amidon’s Friday performance at the top floor of the Hilton Garden Inn, the twenty-something musician offset the seriousness of his music perfectly with a bizarre brand of deadpan humor.
Amidon began the set with his somber acoustic version of “Wild Bill Jones,” a usually upbeat bluegrass number about a murder committed in cold blood out of jealousy for another’s love. At the peak of the song, just as Jones is shot down, Amidon sang, “He let out a dreadful moan.”
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR,” he then screeched with a straight face for a good minute. When he finally dove back into the song, the befuddled audience erupted in laughter and applauded.
The set was full of similar surprises. During a bluesy banjo number, Amidon repeatedly asked, “Whaddya say, banjo?” before his smooth-moving solos. At the end of the song, he walked to the back of the stage and asked, “Whaddya say, pushups?” Then he did twenty or so. Again, the audience ate it up.
Humor aside, the music and the stories behind it were captivating. In “Saro,” an immigrant to the United States pined for the love he left behind, while in “O Death” the speaker pleads with his inevitable end to “Spare me over just another year.”
To wrap things up, Amidon enlisted the audience to help him sing the words to “Relief” by R. Kelly: “Isn’t it a relief/That we are one/The war is over/There’s an angel in the sky/Love is still alive.”
“It’s not true, but I guess it’s a nice thought,” he said.
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SXSW Review: Superdrag
(11 p.m. Friday, Pangaea)
Superdrag, Knoxville’s perennial underdogs of power pop, blasted through a short set of three-and-a-half-minute pop nuggets during their powerful set at Pangaea.
The “ultra lounge” with bottle service appeared to be one of the most unlikely places to catch a band that spent the better part of the last two decades traveling around the country in a van, living out of the lint in each other’s pockets, but there appeared to be fans in the roped-off area that were taking advantage of the club’s exclusive (and expensive) bottle service. The attention to alcohol was quite ironic considering frontman John Davis’ reported battle with alcoholism and his re-born Christian sobriety that suffuses its way into his newly penned lyrics.
Superdrag reformed last year after a 5 year hiatus; their set included a sampling of songs from their lengthy career and several new tracks off their new album “Industry Giants,” which was released on Tuesday. Retooled (and seemingly quite sober), the new Superdrag actually featured the return of the original lineup: vocalist / guitarist Davis, bassist Tom Pappas, guitarist Brandon Fisher and super-steady drummer Don Coffey.
The band opened with “Slow to Anger,” the opening cut from their new album. With Davis repeatedly scream-singing “slow to speak, slow to anger” during the verse, the lifted biblical passage transformed into a mantra, appearing aggressive in tone instead of a plaintive adage.
“Keep It Close to Me” and “Down on the Inside” followed quickly, cracking forth out of a glowing tube-amp distortion squall from their dual guitar attack. Davis diced up buzzsaw leads on his Gibson SG during the bridges and choruses, recalling the elements that allowed Superdrag to put the power in power pop.
The band also made sure to include their 1996 radio/MTV hit “Sucked Out.” The song blasted with fury and contempt of a music industry that is now taking it hard on the chin just as Superdrag is elevating like a fiery-winged phoenix. After a rollercoaster ride of a career that began in 1992, Superdrag is clicking right back up the hill again.
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SXSW scene report: A concert for one
Jason “Jug” Costanzo owns and operates Sound on Sound Records on E. North Loop and plays bass in the excellent Austin band the Young. He had a couple of parties this year and played a few himself. He works hard and runs a good store that’s become a rock-solid part of the Austin punk community.
He threw his second of three days parties Friday. Though slated to appear, Mexican psych-punk act Los Llamarada, one of the underground breakout bands from last year and one of Jug’s faves, didn’t make the show. (They played a terrific set at Sound on Sound during SXSW last year.)
They showed up around 7 p.m., a good hour after everyone had gone home. “There were maybe two people here,” Jug said Saturday morning. Jug told Los Llamarada that the party was long over.
The band asked if they could play anyway.
“Sure, I guess,” Jug said.
So they set up. Then they asked Jug to join them on bass, which he did. Again, virtually nobody in the store, just one band jamming with a good local player who also happened to like them a lot.
Jug said he had an amazing time.
“I got my own little SXSW show just for me,” Jug said. He totally deserves it.
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SXSW Review: Kylesa at Red 7
(Red 7, midnight Friday)
OK, ow. Man, I’m getting old.
There were a couple of reasons the Savannah, Ga.-based metal band Kylesa’s set worked so, so well at Red 7 Friday night.
First, they are, in general, an absolutely top flight metal band, blending thrash, doom, bullet-belt hardcore and whatever language Neurosis made up into something startlingly heavy and absolutely perfect for running into each other. Their new album, “Static Tensions” (Prosthetic/20 Buck Spin) might be the smoothest yet admixture of these elements, codifying them into that which sounds like nothing except Kylesa.
Second, their bass player since the first album, Corey Barhorst, is back in the band after a hiatus from rock for greater than a year. This is crucial. While guitarists/screamers Philip Cope and Laura Pleasents are the only consistent members, Barhorst has been there since nearly the very beginning and his hard-swinging bass and on-stage energy is crucial to making their live set as good as it can get.
Third, two drummers, sometimes in lock step, sometimes playing off each other, both setting up rolling thunder for the other three players to vibe off.
Add it up and it makes for thrilling, visceral metal, enormous, crashing riffs, some of the head-banging-est music at SXSW (word to Metallica, I guess). It also makes for the most kinetic pit I’ve been on the edges of in quite some time. From life-long metal heads to hardcore Kylesa fans juiced to see their best frontline back in action to guys who just like running into each other … well, my back is killing me. And I was just on the edge.
But I’d do it all again. No question.
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SXSW Review: Tricky at Austin Music Hall
(Friday night, Austin Music Hall)
Oh, Tricky. What the heck was I thinking?
I blame myself, really. Your debut album, “Maxinquaye” is without question one of the best albums of the 1990s - dark, sexy, druggy, weird, smart beat-science and atmospherics, a sweaty, one-night stand of an album suffused with languorous menace. The follow-ups, the even-druggier “Nearly God” and the excellent follow-up “Pre-Millennium Tension,” were nearly as good.
Then the wheels kind of came off over the next few records and by the millennium we all moved on. Dude’s tried to come back a couple of times, but last year’s “Knowle West Boy” got OK reviews. Friday night at Austin Music Hall, maybe my man could deliver the show I’d always wanted to see.
Um, no.
“Rocking out” has never quite been one of Tricky’s skill sets, as much as he might like. At Austin Music Hall, he alternated between letting his backup singers do the work (the classic “Karma Coma” didn’t sound quite so classic here) and bellowing into the mic and jumping a round a bit. So the rocking was a little weak by default.
The other problem is his best music has always been deceptively detailed and that couldn’t have worked at the still-mostly-lousy sounding Austin Music Hall either. Most of the songs came off as early 90s industrial dance music - big beats, big sounds, not much else. Even classics such as “Karma Coma” were roughed up by the sound and presentation. The closer, “Vent,” a scary juggernaut on album, felt overlong at the show, straining under the effort to make it transcendent, Tricky, shirtless and wearing suspenders, doing his best ranting like a madman.
As one local musician put it on his Facebook status, “(I) did not know live music could be as bad as Tricky was tonight.” I wish I could say I disagreed. I really do.
Photo by Jay Janner
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SXSW Review: The Hold Steady
(Midnight Friday, the Mohawk Patio)
The Hold Steady probably didn’t need to come to SXSW. They enjoy a cult following of people who think they are the best band in rock ‘n roll, as evidenced by a crowd on hand for their Friday night set at Mohawk that sang along to every song as they pumped their fists in the air. There was crowd surfing, flying beer and even a guy who showed off a tattoo on his back that read “damn right he’ll rise again” — the same tattoo belonging to a character in their song “Your Little Hoodrat Friend.”
The fact that the band maintains that kind of hold on their audience is impressive. Constantly on tour, they play Austin at what seems like six-month intervals. Their set lists, pulled mostly from last year’s release, “Stay Positive” and 2006’s “Boys and Girls in America,” don’t vary much, but for as many times as they play signature songs such as “Stuck Between Stations,” “Party Pit” and “Massive Nights,” these guys always seem to make it seem louder and more passionate then the last time they played it.
“Killer Parties” is almost always the closing song, with Craig Finn giving the same goodnight speech about how we’re all the Hold Steady, and the crowd always eating it up. Finn has taken the Bruce Springsteen comparisons to another level, as they are at the point where, like the Boss, they can draw energy from the fact that the crowd knows exactly what to expect from the performance.
This all happened Friday night/early Saturday, and with the exception of some technical problems with Galen Polivka’s bass gear and some newer songs that weren’t quite as epic as the rest, the show was another highlight of the festival. “Constructive Summer” and “Sequestered in Memphis,” both from the most recent album, have both reached a similar status as the crowd-pleasers from “Boys and Girls,” and the organizers of the showcase gave them an extended hour-long time slot in which to stretch out, which made it feel less like a SXSW showcase and more like a Hold Steady show.
Photo by Jay Janner of The Hold Steady at a day party at Red 7 on Thursday, March 19
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SXSW Review: Laura Marling
(Central Presbyterian Church, midnight Friday)
In retrospect, the soaring nave of the Central Presbyterian Church was the perfect venue for English singer-songwriter Laura Marling. Propelled by a clear and elegant voice that swooped and darted like a sparrow through the vast, A-framed space, Marling’s songs, crowded to the bursting point with verbiage and imagery, had room to breathe and expand.
A performer who came highly recommended on the basis of two EPs and a debut album, “Alas I Cannot Swim,” Marling has only been performing since 2006 and is, as they say, in her tender years (her SXSW bio states that she is just 18). Nonetheless, she conducted herself with aplomb, putting the audience — many of whom seemed vaguely discomforted sitting in church pews after a night of drinking and carousing — at ease with gently self-deprecating humor. “I feel like I should say something important that would change your lives,” she said at one point, “But I don’t have anything.”
Partnered with a multi-instrumentalist accompanist, Marling put wings to subjects both light and dark in songs like “Ghosts” and “My Manic and I,” punching the keystone lyrics with extra emphasis. In her crystal tone and delivery, there were hints of both Joni Mitchell and Sandy Denny.
Marling’s body of work is small, her breadth of experience limited and her lyrical tools not yet wholly sharpened (I, for one, would like to see her pare down her verbiage — there’s too much to absorb for proper reflection). But she seems self-assured, talented and she has time on her side. A church seemed like a good place for her and her listeners to count their blessings.
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SXSW Review: Felice Brothers
(Habana Bar, 10 p.m. Friday)
Hardcore fans hail the Felice Brothers as Americana’s second coming. Call them urban saviors of the jeans and T-shirt crowd.
Perhaps. New York’s most forward-thinking roots rockers absolutely combusted Habana Bar Friday night. Rising crowd tension — the joint was stuffed unmercifully, compounded by literally overflowing outhouses (only one per sex) and a single drink station — fueled its fire. “Hello, friends and family,” lead singer James Felice howled against a tide of white-hot enthusiasm. “This song’s about drinking whiskey and killing your woman. C’mon, boys!”
Unhinged enthusiasm immediately backed the band’s reputation. Beer drinkers and hell raisers united blissfully. The road went on and the party never ended. Clearly, these folks weren’t new to the show.
But Friday afternoon’s appearance at the Lucero Family Picnic at the Dirty Dog - before everything grew a touch worse for the wear, the band drinking Lone Star tallboys like water - better showcased the Felice Brothers’ recent artistic strides. Material from the forthcoming masterwork “Yonder is the Clock” both torpedoed hearts and shook homes. Easy highlights like the scattershot country blues “Run, Chicken, Run” and “Ambulance Man” offered brilliant Southern Gothic narratives.
Real American idols provide faith to the hopeless and eternity to the lifeless. “Oh, how sweetly I do sleep on the bathroom tile where the porter sweeps,” James warbles and moans on the profoundly poignant “Penn Station.” “With a nickel in my hand like the star of Bethlehem.” Few eulogies chill as deeply.
Photo by Jay Janner of James Felice at the Dirty Dog Pub earlier in the day on Friday, March 20
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SXSW Review: Ponderosa Stomp
(Friday night, The Continental Club)
In a way, the Ponderosa Stomp, held throughout the night on Friday at the Continental Club, is SXSW writ small. A swarm of acts come together in one spot, resulting in sensory and musical overload. Some are celebrated, some obscure. There are surprises, disappointments and unanticipated triumphs. Older stars are justly acclaimed, while the unknown have their moment in the sun. And the hits, as they say, just keep on coming.
Over the past few years, the Stomp has become one of my favorite components of SXSW. A roiling gumbo of roots music, blues, soul, swamp pop, New Orleans groove-masters, one-hit wonders and never-say-die warhorses parade onto the postage-stamp size Continental Club stage for mini-sets that range from exhilarating to what-the-hell-was-that-about?
Ducking in and out of the club over the course of the night (the Alejandro Escovedo Orquesta show across the street pulled me away for a while), I took in bits and pieces of the Excels, who rocked the teen clubs and frat parties of the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the 1960s and the Elite, who created a goofy (and instantly unforgettable) regional hit called “One Potato,” which, in a burst of creative insanity, combined the children’s nursery rhyme with the “papa-ooh-mow-mow” lick from the surf-music hits of the era. Classie Ballou, a charmer from Lake Charles, La., who, in the day, worked with everyone from Boozoo Chavis to Big Joe Turner. Ballou got his groove on with a combination of soulful ballads and whipsaw instrumentals that combined swamp pop with Afro-Cuban-rumba inflections.
Austin’s own Eve Monsee and her band, the Exiles, backed up several of the bands with deceptive, elastic ease throughout the evening.
The Stomp (my portion of it, anyway) ended with Eli “Paperboy” Reed backing up Barbara Lynn, the great left-handed guitarist from Beaumont, who rendered hits like “Oh, Baby (We Got A Good Thing Goin’)” and “You’ll Lose A Good Thing,” which was covered by the Rolling Stones. I had to roll before the mighty Roy Head took the stage, but hey, there’s always next year.
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SXSW Review: The Young Republic
(Maggie Mae’s rooftop, 8 p.m. Friday)
While masses started swarming to Stubb’s for Metallica’s “surprise” concert Friday night, early arrival on Sixth Street unearthed an actual revelation: The Young Republic. Envy youthful ambition. By 8:15, the Tennessee quartet - mixing folk against heavy metal, sing-along pop atop space echo - transformed the rooftop at Maggie Mae’s into a boundless futuristic rainbow. By 8:30, the darkening sky seemed a Technicolor daydream.
Fueled by devilish foresight and fiery aim, lead singer Julian Saporiti engaged immediately. “For those of you not hip enough to know, we’re from Nashville,” he jousted. “It’s country music and us.” True enough: The Young Republic traced every surrounding firmament but seemingly avoided its hometown’s signature sound.
Eager listeners cheered rolling funk (“The Alchemist”), art house pop (“Napoleon Roses”) and irresistible love refrains (“Girl from the Northern States”).
“Black Duck Blues” - its dirty slide a spontaneous drag race of outlaw spirit and illegal smiles - does owe more to Hank Williams than Muddy Waters. And Saporiti did spike his boiling exclamations with piercing hip thrusts and seismic gyrations - nearly mounting his acoustic guitar at one point - pinched directly from the Elvis Presley playbook. Perhaps new millennium country and western screams in the night.
“We’re gonna play a pop song for you because we want more dancing,” Saporiti said, introducing the tongue-in-cheek anthem “Why Don’t White Boys Dance Anymore.” “This is our one and only four-part harmony.” Imagine Soundgarden and the Four Tops splitting verses on a Weezer song. Even better, its buoyant melody and irresistible call to action inspired a balding, bespectacled caucasian man to spin his best moves down front. Perfect.
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SXSW Review: Ben Nichols
(Maggie Mae’s, 8 p.m. Friday)
Ben Nichols carves lines as exacting as Raymond Carver. “In my hands I hold the ashes,” he sang Friday night at Maggie Mae’s. “In my veins black pitch runs.” Witness a novelist’s eye opening.
Fittingly, Nichols’ new solo EP deconstructs vibrant literature. “I read Cormac McCarthy’s ‘Blood Meridian’ in 1999 and again recently,” Nichols told us in an interview immediately before the show. “‘Last Pale Light in the West’ is mainly built around the general idea of each character. Each song is based on a different character’s perspective. There was a lot of great imagery and great characters I wanted to steal - or borrow. Let’s say it inspired me.”
Clearly. Encourage Nichols to continue paralleling his night job with equally pulsating solo projects. Forget rehearsal. The Lucero front man’s too-feverish delivery — he is, after all, paced like a locomotive — only heightens anticipation. “Sorry for the informality,” Nichols said, accepting his second whiskey from a fan. “Usually I’m a taskmaster, but tonight I decided to let myself go. Figured I’ve already played three times (at SXSW), so it’s all right.”
Nichols wildly derailed “Davy Brown,” later recovering and crashing once again. Trademark territory (wine, women) set the landscape. Nichols gladly honored Lucero requests (“The War,” “Hold Me Close”) and debuted oven-fresh material (“I’m 100 miles past lonesome, 100 miles past anything called fair,” he sang on one unrecorded track).
“Obviously, I wasn’t trying to encompass the entire novel or make any overall statement on the book,” Nichols continued earlier. “I’m definitely not an authority, but there was a lot in there that I thought would be cool in songs. It was suitable for an acoustic record, too, something a little more old-world.”
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SXSW Scene Report: Vivian Girls at the Pedestrian Bridge, 3 a.m. Saturday
In a SXSW overrun with sponsorships, corporate branding, promotional swag and industry insiders, the pedestrian bridge punk rock shows remain a particularly devout hold-out.
Taking place every year in between the close of the bars and the rise of the sun, the show takes three punk bands, drops them into the middle of the Lamar Boulevard bridge, and surrounds them with an unholy mix of hundreds of hipsters and hardcore punk rock fans. Girls in oversized glasses and guys on fixed gear bicycles share space with tattooed and pierced metal fans in leather jackets and Misfits T-shirts, and for one night, at least, they get along swimmingly.
Truthfully, the music isn’t always great. Since the equipment is minimal and bands play on the same level as the audience that surrounds them, you can rarely see or hear much unless you’re within 15 feet of the band. But the night, with its violent mosh pits, projectile beer and quality people watching, does provide one of the city’s best tastes of underground Austin culture.
Saturday morning, an enthusiastic college student cornered observers for random high fives. A blond-haired man with a grungy beard and a knit cap handed out free Pabst Blue Ribbon beers from his backpack. And bits of debris — cans, cardboard boxes, fabric — went flying through the air, serving as a kind of low-budget confetti.
Of course, when the music does click, it really clicks. The Vivian Girls perhaps recognized the unique qualities of their audience, and played loud, fast and hard. No song lasted more than 2 minutes, and many were compressed, speedier versions of the already punchy songs that debuted on their self-titled 2008 debut album.
Bassist Kickball Katy spun around the makeshift stage like a Whirling Dervish, looking, with her bangs and red hair, like a more heavily tattooed Jenny Lewis. And lead singer Cassie Ramone proved herself worthy, assuming she needed to, as soon as she took colliding with a drum in stride. The Vivian Girls clearly believe in what they do, and both on general principle and a series of solid shows, they deserve kudos for their hard work.
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SXSW review: Devo
Art punk legends Devo took awhile to move the full house of the Austin Music Hall Friday night, opening with new songs and minor old ones like “Peek-a-Boo,” but from about the 20-minute mark on, when the synths were traded for real bass and guitar, the spuds from Akron proved to be a great rock ‘n’ roll band.
There are two elements that fuel Devo; a great drummer- and Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle) was just that- and Mark Mothersbaugh’s robotic tenor voice. Mothersbaugh was terrific all night, hitting all the right notes on “Gates of Steel,” perhaps his most challenging vocal, and mid-set standout “Uncontrollable Urge,” the nerd-rock swipe at Zeppelin.
Receiving the same $250 fee as any other band playing SXSW (including Metallica), Devo didn’t put on a big spectacle, mainly performing in front of a video screen in fairly minimal wardrobe. But that was fine. Devo was always, before they were MTV novelties, a tremendous band. Such songs as the encore coupling of “Jocko Homo” and Gut Feeling/ Slap Your Mammy” would sound cutting edge if a band of 21-year-olds from Scotland did them, but, then, it’s not that easy. And there’s no feedback necessary.
A couple of nits: bassist Gerald Casale ruined the appearance of Booji Boy by telling everyone the plastic-faced loon was coming up on “Beautiful World.” It would’ve flipped everyone if he had just come out during, say, “Satisfaction,” which needed a little extra production value. Also making Booji a rapper was maybe a little more of a statement than was neccessary.
But as shown over 75 minutes at the Music Hall, with very few leaving even as hipper bands were playing all over town, we’re ready for a new dose of devolution. Just keep playing the classics, fellas, and give Mr. Freese whatever he wants.
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