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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > March > 21 > Entry
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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