Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2010 > October > 10
Sunday, October 10, 2010
ACL 2010: Foals and Yeasayer
Phish was, of course, the jam band du jour at ACL this year.
But the aesthetics of jam bands were all over Zilker Park this weekend, even if Phish’s hippie signifiers and instrumental precision were not. In several acts, textures and instrumental filigrees subbed in for strong structures and traditional songcraft.
For example, the British trio Foals certainly looks like an indie rock band, but their music is more self-consciously fussy and detailed than, say, Belle and Sebastian or Pavement or longtime punk rockers such as Ted Leo. Someone, perhaps themselves, tagged Foals as math rock, which is close, but, to my ears, not quite correct. (I find math rock to be a very specific aesthetic and a little heavier than Foals. Examples of classic math rock include Bredwinner, Shiny Beast, Polvo, Cheer-Accident and Stinking Lizaveta — consult your local Google for more!)
They’re an awful lot like ’90s indie prog rockers such as Storm and Stress and its sequel band, Battles — complicated guitar parts with cascades of notes and tricky time signatures. In the ACL context, this was brainy music to which you could shuffle in a sack dress. Yet, Foals are on Sub Pop and Yeasayer are on Secretly Canadian, two vaunted indie labels who come out of a completely different tradition than Phish.
And Yeasayer, on the other hand, sounded completely different from Foals, but also felt of a piece — Phish fans could appreciate their complicated progressivism, indie rockers didn’t have to betray their indie-ness. The band folded all sort of sounds together — big beat electronics,folky melodies and whatever language Talking Heads spoke. Like lots of multi-genre blenders, Yeasayer’s music could occasionally taste like chicken, but the massive crowd was ready to noodle dance once again.
Talk about knowing your audience. Well played, C3.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL review: Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson was probably the only artist bold enough to open an ACL set with three just-released songs, but he’s such a phenomenal guitarist, and has such a tremendous band, that he could doubtless get away with playing a bunch of polkas — which he impishly suggested that he was about to do, “for your delectation,” as an appropriate lead-in to the rollicking, Celtic-flavored “Demons in Her Dancing Shoes.”
Thompson led off with the first three songs on his new “Dream Attic,” the searing Wall Street satire “Money Shuffle,” slow and somber “Among the Gorse, Among the Grey” and stampeding “Haul Me Up.” The first older song, “Can’t Win,” was a prime demonstration of the telepathy between Thompson and his band, with his vocal cry seeming to turn into Joel Zifkin’s violin lament. Thompson’s long, enthralling electric guitar solo had the emotional sweep, high drama and stunning invention of a Stravinsky suite for six strings, and Michael Jerome on drums and Taras Prodaniuk on bass furnished a tumult underneath.
A complete contrast came next in the form of the graceful, melancholy “Al Bowlly’s in Heaven,” an oblique anti-war meditation, with Thompson on acoustic guitar and multi-instrumentalist Pete Zorn playing a smoky sax solo. The band’s fire and fury exploded on “I’ll Never Give It Up.” Thompson ended with one of his classic rave-ups, “Tear-Stained Letter,” and there were enough death-defying twists and spirals in his solo to last most players a couple of years worth of standing ovations. The audience kept hollering for an encore even after crew members started swarming the stage to break it down, but to no avail.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL review: The Flaming Lips
It definitely felt a little bizarre walking to watch the Flaming Lips while the sun was still shining on Sunday. The sheer spectacle of their live show is unquestionably enhanced by darkness, but they made the most of their hour-long set at this year’s ACL festival.
Right before they started to play, frontman Wayne Coyne addressed the crowd to thank them for waiting and to explain that he would be coming out into the audience in his “space bubble” and he hoped everybody would “love each other and help each other” instead of rushing toward the front of the crowd.
After an introduction from local poet Thax Douglas, the band members slowly entered the middle of the stage one by one until Coyne emerged standing inside his bubble. It was slowly inflated until it rolled into the audience and he began to float above the crowd as the band played an instrumental introduction behind him. When they settled in to “Worm Mountain,” the first proper track of the set, the stage exploded with balloons and confetti. Keep in mind, all of these things happened before the band was done playing their first song.
You don’t really see or hear the Flaming Lips as much as you experience the Flaming Lips. By the time they had gotten halfway through “Silver Trembling Hands,” the second song of the set, Coyne was perched on the shoulders of a man wearing a bear costume and was encouraging the audience members to scream as loud as they could.
The band’s 1993 hit “She Don’t Use Jelly” was up next, after which Coyne strapped on a helmet cam, which began broadcasting on the screen behind him, and declared it to surely be “the most beautiful night that Austin has had all year.” With all of the on-stage banter and crowd interaction, the band only managed an eight-song set before their hour was up. As the daylight started to fade, Coyne said that the band “would play all night if we could” before closing down the stage with an epic rendition of their 2002 single “Do You Realize??”
In our current musical landscape, the Flaming Lips are a real rarity. They might not sell millions of records, but they’ve managed to maintain their integrity with almost 20 years on a major label. Their transformation over the last several years into genuine showmen has turned them into one of the best live bands in the world and a perfect return booking for ACL. Maybe next year we can bring them back after the sun goes down.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL review: Gaslight Anthem
Sometimes you’re happy for all the help you can get. I was taking notes on Gaslight Anthem’s set midway back from the Budweiser stage on Saturday when a neighboring fan passed me a short note from his wife. “Unsolicited One-Sentence Review,” the note said, and continued, “Rockers with just enough melodicism.”
Lady, you’re hired.
The New Jersey quartet, touring strong behind their third album, “American Slang,” do indeed rock. Ferociously, in most cases, with a surprising delicacy when the mood suits them. And melodicism is definitely a component of the band’s sound as well. Much of the latter is evocative of Jersey godfather Bruce Springsteen (the band admits as much, and the Boss joined them onstage at a European festival last year): There are the same anthemic major chords, the same swirl of melodic elements and even some of the same lyrical tropes (cars cruising on the boulevards, youthful angst and even characters named Romeo and Maria pop up like raisins in a cake).
On record, and especially onstage, the band — vocalist/guitarist Brian Fallon, bassist Alex Levine, drummer Benny Horowitz and guitarist Alex Rosamila — borrow as much or more from punkers like the Clash and the Pogues as they do from the E-Street Band’s meat-and-potatoes rock.
From the call-to-arms guitar that kicks off “American Slang” to the fiercely unrepentant “Old Haunts” to the improbably titled “The Spirit of Jazz” to the tricky little guitar part that kicked off “Queen of Lower Chelsea,” Fallon and Co. burned down the stage, while on more nuanced material such as “Here’s Looking At You, Kid” and the opening “High Lonesome,” the group’s sound evoked at times Van Morrison and even some of the rough-and-tumble Stax/Volt sessions.
It was a thoroughly satisfying afternoon hour in the sun — deep in the heart of Texas and a long way from Jersey. And sometimes all you need is a one-sentence review.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL review: Kinky
The chair section in the Clear 4G tent disappeared the moment Monterrey, Mexico’s Kinky took the stage Saturday, and the dancing crowd went nuts as soon as Ulises Lozano stepped forward for a brief accordion solo. From there, the show felt like a non-stop rave crossed with a soccer game where your team is winning big, and singer-guitarist Gilberto Cerezo had only to raise an arm to get an entire sea of hands waving ecstatically in the air.
While the rest of the group wore rock-star shades — Lozano, guitarist Carlos Chairez, formidable drummer Omar Gongora, and bassist Cesar Pliego — Cerezo looked like he’d just wandered in from his job as the cute high-school-age barista at your local coffee shop. However, his unassuming manner belied a strong voice that made a cover of “Mexican Radio” sound even better than the original. He possesses a great rock ‘n’ roll scream, too, and his voice easily penetrated through the group’s galvanizing fusion of funk, rock, electronica, industrial, Mexican and pan-Latin influences. Many of the songs were powered by a pounding house beat, but the polyrhythms Gongora layered on top made this more compelling than most ’90s dance music — no mind-altering substances necessary — and Lozano added a variety of textures on keyboards and programming, when he wasn’t playing accordion.
It was a blast watching Pliego while he laid down arresting basslines. Dressed in jeans, a white dress shirt and a black cowboy hat, he wore his instrument low and leaned back at an almost impossible angle, while his left leg pumped up and down, his knee reaching nearly waist height.
Someone in the front presented Cerezo with a Mexican flag, and Cerezo introduced the song “Cornman” by expressing his delight in being able to come play in “difficult times, so people know it’s not only war, it’s also love, and music and beautiful people.”
“Welcome to my world … welcome to Texas,” he sang, and fans jumped up and down with abandon. A surprising number of gray-haired fans were boogeying in the decidedly multi-ethnic crowd, and the woman next to me had said before the show that it was the first act she was getting to see, having spent the first part of ACL in the kiddie area with her children before the babysitter came on duty. A blond 20-something couple who looked straight out of 1960s Sears catalogue were getting down like Soul Train regulars, and even the people making an early exit were dancing their way out of the throng.
The show reached so many peaks that I thought it must be the end at least four times, but Kinky had not yet played “Mas,” which had the whole teeming mass singing at the tops of their lungs. After a brief respite, the band started the song up again and the crowd carried the chorus. Kinky managed to keep the energy level rising for a few more songs even after that, and when their time was up, as the setting sun started streaming in through the back, rays colliding with strobing white lights on stage, fans felt compelled to chant “OTRA! OTRA!” for a couple minutes, even though everyone knew there was no time for an encore.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL review: Dawes
Not having seen them perform before, I wasn’t prepared for Dawes’ live show to be as high energy as it proved to be. An initial rushed listen to their latest album, “North Hills,” left an impression of a certain thinness, a kind of a lack of gravitas. It’s usually bad to trust first impressions.
Then I heard they’d rocked the house at Lollapalooza and some fans pushed up against the stage barricade attested the group had killed at Emo’s the night before. So what did I know?
Their bio material touted the group as stylistic heirs to the Laurel Canyon/Southern California folk/country/rock tradition, and that’s true as far as it goes (eg. “When You Call My Name” and “Love Is All There Is”). But it’s also possible to hear echoes of the Band, especially in “That Western Skyline,” when frontman/guitarist Taylor Goldsmith’s voice takes on a timber similar to Band vocalist Rick Danko.
But it didn’t take more than a couple of songs for the group to cast their own distinct shadow. The fourth song, to be exact, a song from their forthcoming album called “Fire Away.” It was a big-hearted rocker of a beast, characterized by anthemic lyrics (“When you need someone to walk away from/When you need someone to let you in…Fire away”) and a bleeding guitar solo from Taylor (whose brother, Griffin, plays drums and sings). Bassist Wylie Gelbert and keyboardist Alex Casnoff rounded out the tightly knit quartet.
The band doubled down with “Peace In the Valley” (“If I don’t find peace in the valley/It’s cause there wasn’t any there”), with a tricky guitar/piano interweave and the rubbery, rocking melodic set closer “When My Time Comes,” with Goldsmith bouncing across the stage like a guitar-shredding jack-in-the-box and the crowd punching fists in time to the singalong chorus.
I didn’t have a Dawes T-shirt like my neighboring aficionados along the stage barricade. But I walked away, like them, a fan.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL review: Norah Jones
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and submit that Flaming Lips fans are probably not Norah Jones fans. So while those folks agonized between sets by the National and Cage the Elephant on Sunday night, Jones’ cadre had to decide between the lissome Texas songbird and English guitar maestro Richard Thompson while they (presumably) waited for the Eagles to close out the evening.
Can’t speak for Thompson’s show, but those who opted for Jones, on the Zync Card Stage, were treated to an efficient, polished, low-key rendition of her small but eclectic repertoire. Efficient and polished, yes, but Jones’ set seemed almost airtight at times — there was none of the liberating abandon or risk-taking that marked many of the weekend’s other performances. Like Dylan’s John Wesley Harding, she’s never been known to make a foolish move.
Which was too bad, in a way. If ever there was an audience that might have forgiven or even encouraged a wayward bit of recklessness or even outright anarchy, it’s the ACL crowd. Maybe if there had been a couple of backstage tequila shots before the set, who can say what might have transpired? Ah, well, as Mark Twain said, “I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it ceased to be one.
That being the case, it’s impossible not to admire Jones’ flawless tone and excellent taste. In a set that veered from a honky-tonk cover of Johnny Cash’s “Cry, Cry, Cry” to the Brecht/Weill-ian “Sinkin’ Soon” (with Jones doing her best Lotte Lenya) to the pumping, funky “It’s Gonna Be,” Jones and her band were invariably spot-on. Her latest album, “The Fall,” let Jones stretch her stylistic legs and songs from that effort, like the dance track “It’s Gonna Be” and the drugged and dreamlike “Light As A Feather” introduced welcome new colors into her performing palette.
Jones concluded her set with “Lonestar” — “my Texas song,” as she described it. Here’s hoping she channels a little native attitude into her next visit home.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL scene: Moments with Midlake
Midlake frontman Tim Smith said, “It’s great to be in Austin — as it always is,” and then joked about the heavy bassline bleeding over from Rebelution at the Honda stage. “I love to hear reggae,” he said dryly. “We’re gonna have that at every show, reggae playing at the merch table. OK, there’s no merch table, but I got plenty to sell. I didn’t mean that in a bad way — my wife’s standing over there!” Fortunately, the Denton group’s beautifully pensive yet propulsive songs were loud enough to pretty much drown out the commotion.
Later, I was standing not too far from the Rock Island Hideaway, whatever that was, trying to decide whether to go hear some of the Flaming Lips, and saw the Midlake guys nearby, one of them still carrying a guitar case, so I walked by them and just said “Great show!” They said “Thanks!” and then one of them called after me “Hey, do you know where the stage is that we played on?”
The Austin Ventures stage was just on the other side of the Hideaway tent and some trees, I suppose they must have left something behind.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL 2010 Review: Warpaint
The story of Warpaint at ACL begins Saturday night, when the Los Angeles quartet put it a shockingly fun set opening for Sonic Youth at La Zona Rosa.
For the first time in, well, as long as I can remember, LZR sounds amazing, thanks to a new sound system put in by new bookers C3 Presents. Warpaint took full advantage of this. The band is probably best know for its show biz kid heritage — their first drummer was actress Shannon Sossamon and Sossamon’s sister Jenny Lindberg plays bass. No idea what Sossamon was like as a drummer, but current stick lady Stella Mozgawa is a godsend, she and LIndberg propelling the songs along as Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman’s vocals harmonize and their guitars flicker in and out. It’s as if the Bangles were raised on nothing but early 80s dance rock such as Liquid Liquid and postpunk such as the Slits. This is in no way a bad sound, and the quartet pulled it off beautifully, jamming here and there like Television’s lanky daughters.
Their ACL set proper seemed a little more subdued, but that might have been, you know, exhaustion from playing a killer set a mere 12 hours before. Lindberg still seemed the engine that moved the music, but things were taken down a notch. I look forward to seeing them again in a darker, more interior setting, possibly after they have had a nap.
Again, it is tough to see past the Hollywood thing, but the better they get, the more I think that will fade (or my own prejudices will subside). Their debut album “The Fool” appears in stores Oct. 25. I look forward to it.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL scene: Deadmau5
For a brief moment at Zilker Park on Saturday night, it almost felt as though we had all been transported to South Florida for the annual Winter Music Conference. LCD Soundsystem’s “Yeah!” had just finished up on the Budweiser stage when Grammy-nominated dance producer Deadmau5 started his set on the Zync stage. Fresh off his appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards, he quickly became one of the most talked about acts on the day’s lineup.
Technical difficulties marred the first few moments of the performance. The typically anonymous producer had to remove his signature oversized mouse mask in order to fix his equipment. Once this mishap was remedied, his hour-long set continued without issue. Visually, there was a fairly extensive light show to make up for the lack of pretty much any other activity on stage.
While it only took about 20 minutes for me to become personally uninterested in his set, the crowd was undeniably excited. I had to walk almost as far back as the Art Market area in order find the perimeter’s edge of people who were not clapping, dancing, and waving their glow sticks in the air.
Photo by Jack Plunkett ASSOCIATED PRESS
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL 2010 Review: The XX
There is something inherently funny, yet charming, about British kids dressed in black in the blazing early evening heat and sun, but that’s exactly what happened tp the the XX during their Saturday evening set at ACL.
The British trio has had a big year. Their debut album, released last August, won the prestigious Mercury Prize earlier this year. They felt like one of the breakout acts of this year’s South By Southwest. They’ve been touring on and off for well over a year.
Word has it this set was their last for awhile — it’s time to recharge and start working on the follow-up. It was a mellow, if possibly broiling, way to close out an extraordinary 14 month period for the young rockers. Oliver Sim, sporting a very British haircut, mumble-crooned his way through tunes such as the anthemic “Intro” and “Crystalised.” Much as at SXSW, it was weirdly hypnotic seeing drummer Jaime Smith tap out beats on a drum machine. It balanced the sound between the raw and the cooked, between the digital and the analog, between the emotional and the machine-made. Guitarist Romy Madley Croft’s spare, tiny lines felt huge in the falling sun. Not a bad way to end it for the year.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010: Saturday
Musicians love the Eagles
Although their booking to headline ACL Fest angered some indie rock fans, such fellow Budweiser stage acts as Portugal. The Man and Band of Horses proclaimed that they were proud to be on the same stage that would later host the creators of “Tequila Sunrise.”
“I can’t believe the Eagles are going to be right here,” said Horses franchise, singer Ben Bridwell.
Like Don Henley of the Eagles, Bridwell is a reedy singer who hits glorious high notes. Sunday, he reached a special place with “No One’s Gonna Love You,” then drove the crowd into ecstasy with “The Funeral.”
Portugal. The Man were Ween without the sense of humor, with John Gourley’s falsetto topping everything from reggae to punk. Wearing a hoodie in the mid-day sun during any month in Austin besides January and February is like sunglasses at night, but Gourley was a soul possessed, reminiscent of Jack White on a big Bowie jag.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010: Sunday
Welcome Lance Herbstrong
At about 1:30 in the afternoon Sunday, Gayngs canceled. So ACL booker Charles Attal called in a quick replacement — artist relations manager Kamal Soloman, who quickly got his band of two DJs, a drummer and a guitarist together. Opening with “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys and playing “Riders On the Storm” by the Doors, in addition to a few originals, Lance Herbstrong had a wildly received debut.
Veteran booking agent Roggie Bear called the set “the best thing I’ve seen at ACL this year.”
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010
Scene report: Pick your passion on Sunday
Some people like to while away their Sundays in peaceful lazy manner and some like to engage with the spirit. The former seemed to be sprawled out in front of the stage for Robert Earl Keen, while I joined the latter to see Trombone Shorty.
What’s been come to be known as the jazz/gospel tent - this year known as the Clear 4G tent — always features music that resonates with the crowd. Maybe that’s because the music at that tent always seems to come from the soul. Such was the case with Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue, who transported the sweaty tent of the faithful back to New Orelans and Jazz Fest, while slapping some west coast funk on it that echoed the great Tower of Power.
My brow (and shirt) drenched, following the inspired grooves of Trombone Shorty, I joined the Keen fans. At one point Keen’s guitarist seemed to be borrowing Jerry Garcia’s riff from the Grateful Dead’s “Chinacat Sunflower.” Turns out it wasn’t “Chinacat,” but what the guitarist borrowed, he and the band repaid when they took that particular song into “I Know You Rider.” It was a great (final?) cover to hear at ACL 2010.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010
ACL2010 review: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
“Thank you, Eagles fans, for not throwing (expletive) at us,” said Ted Leo Sunday afternoon, kicking off the Budweiser stage for the day and ripping into “Even Heroes Have to Die.” “For you we will play our most Eagles-y song.”
If there were any disgruntled Eagles fans in the audience, it wasn’t showing. The crowd size was modest but there was headbanging-a-plenty as Leo ripped through a bang-on 45-minute set of blue-collar indie punk, played nice and fast and functioning as the perfect primer for a day’s worth of rocking out.
For his part, if Leo was the least bit fatigued after last night’s Lance Hahn memorial show at Red 7, he didn’t show it, either. Leo was his usual shredding, smiling, humble self, grinding through a great version of “Bottled In Cork” with Austin’s Sally Crewe helping out on tambourine and vocals. And he was an animated whirlwind, hopping on one foot from one side of the stage to the other, guitar in hand, for closing song “Stove By A Whale.”
“I love you!” rang out an anonymous cry from the audience.
“You don’t even know me, but thanks for the sentiment,” replied Leo.
Photo: Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Update: This blog entry has been changed to reflect that Sally Crewe made a guest appearance on “Bottled In Cork,” not “A Bottle of Bucky,” which was played earlier in the set. Thanks to Matador Records head Gerard Cosloy for the correction.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
Gayngs announce ACL cancellation
Official statement from the band:
Last night, GAYNGS’ tour bus, containing all of the band’s gear, personal belongings, and livelihood, was mistakenly driven across the country from Emo’s Downtown, en route to the ACL Festival Grounds. Unable to reach the driver of the bus, the band reported the gear stolen at approximately 4:20am.
After a sleepless, worry full night, the band made every attempt to borrow and backline equipment so the show could go on, however, we regret to announce that we will not be able to perform without the necessary equipment that was taken by the bus.
We are insanely bummed out by these events. We can only hope to have the opportunity to make it up to all of you. Thanks for your support on this tour. It was truly a dream come true.
Due to unfortunate circumstances Gayngs regretfully has to cancel their performance on the ZYNC stage at 3pm-4pm
ACL is pleased to announce Lance Herbstrong will be performing at the ZYNC stage at 3pm.
Www.lanceherbstrong.com
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment
ACL aftershow report: The Black Keys at Stubb’s
My, how these two have grown.
Consider this: When I first wrote about The Black Keys in 2002 they were banging around midwestern clubs in support of “The Big Come Up,” a platter of dirty two-man blues and bash that got them lots of looks but also got them cast as The White Stripes’ unfortunate cousins during a time when any record with a trace of fuzz or distortion made its authors part of the retro-garage movement.
Now? They’re THE on-the-rise band of Austin City Limits Festival weekend, drawing a throng Friday afternoon that rivaled crowds of lots of BCS schools’ football stadiums and played an aftershow Saturday night at Stubb’s that promoters said they could’ve sold out three times over. Austin natives Spoon actually did that last summer and on Saturday night Spoon honcho Britt Daniel was turned away from the club’s packed-like-pickles VIP deck. It was that kind of a night.
So The Black Keys have arrived, thanks in no small part to a startling new record (“Brothers,” its sixth) with a single (“Tighten Up”) that distills the duo’s base elements - skeletal blues-based guitar, at least one killer solo and/or breakdown, Patrick Carney’s stamp press-force drumming and Dan Auerbach’s eternal romantic longing - down to their most potent forms.
What became apparent after Carney and Auerbach started making noise Saturday on opening song “Thickfreakness” was how they’ve not only grown in stature but expanded their stylistic palette. Auerbach can slip country twang guitar lines in pretty much anywhere he wants or go completely the other way with metallic feedback, the band can pull it back for an easygoing ballad (“Act Nice And Gentle”), and Carney can dip into the funk that served him so well on last year’s Blakroc album.
So for 80 blistering-but-never-close-to-overboard minutes it was the pair (plus a bassist and Moog player for some of the “Brothers” tunes) opening up its catalog and either stacking those new building blocks atop earlier songs (“The Breaks,” “Girl Is On My Mind”) or mega-sizing the creative growth displayed on new ones. That meant “Strange Times” kicked off faster and harder than on record (which takes some doing) and nearly slowed to collapse in its choruses, or that the tension of “Tighten Up” was intensified by rhythmically teasing its monster final verse breakdown after each verse. And when it finally arrived right in front of Auerbach singing “Living just to keep going/Going just to keep sane,” well, “cacophony” seems like the right word for the mood in the house by that point.
It was musicianship paired with showmanship (we’ll excuse the mammoth disco ball that made two appearances) making an airtight case for why The Black Keys’ time is now, and that they’re not about to let it pass squandered.
Photos: Alberto Martinez AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL review: M.I.A.
Britain’s M.I.A., a/k/a Maya Arulpragasam, was just about missing in action during her 8 p.m. performance on the AMD stage Saturday, but if you like standing in a field watching videos and a light show, it was a heck of a spectacle.
For almost the entire first 35 minutes of her set, the stage was kept dark, so that performers, including the hip-hop star, were only seen silhouetted against a giant backdrop of videos and animated graphics. The big screens on the side showed the same or complementary images. Presumably people close to the stage could determine if M.I.A. herself was up there prancing around, and not someone of similar height, but further away, all you could see were shadows and some pretty dazzling work by the lighting and set designer(s). Gigantic black rectangles pulsed on the video screens, black-and-white footage of dancers played in a loop behind what I suppose was a band and what seemed to be backing singers, and M.I.A.’s name and the logo for her latest album, written in lights, changed colors. Lights blazed and flashed, sometimes white, sometimes colored. On the video screen, the cartoon outline of a human figure cavorted about, changed hues and split into three, then became one again, and then split into more line people dancing with each other.
M.I.A. played her first hit, “Galang,” very early in the show, or at any rate, the song was played, and she might well have been delivering the vocal, rapping in that trademark, sing-songy, somewhat screechy alto-trying-to-be-a-soprano, which is pretty arresting on a single, but can grow tiresome, especially Saturday, when there were so many distorting and echoey effects on her vocals that her words were indistinct. One number bled into the next for a while, and M.I.A. made no attempt at interaction, so most of the crowd seemed to feel no obligation to clap or yell at the end of a song, although many danced along enthusiastically to the raw, compelling beats.
Finally, more than halfway through, the spotlights on stage came up enough that you could see the artist, and I thought about trying to get up closer, but as soon as she finished her 2008 hit, “Paper Planes,” a mass surge toward the exit began, and heading in the opposite direction seemed too much like a suicide mission. The spotlights went back down again, anyway, and then at 9:15, everything suddenly came to a halt. There was a semblance of cheering and shouting, and the business on stage recommenced, so apparently, an encore was taking place. Then M.I.A’s voice said something along the lines of “thank you,” and I thought she had probably said “This is our last song,” but apparently it was “That was our last song,” because everyone left the stage, and after five minutes, the remainder of the crowd decided it must be over, although there were about 10 minutes left in her scheduled time slot.
One guy walking past me in the dark said to his friend in frustration “I couldn’t understand a thing she just said,” which was a pretty fair summary of the whole show. Photo: Jack Plunkett ASSOCIATED PRESS
Permalink | Comments (11) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL scene: David Bazan
Seattle’s David Bazan was the victim of one of the more unfortunate scheduling conflicts during Saturday’s ACL lineup. While performing on the BMI stage, it was often easy to hear LCD Soundsystem’s electro beats over on the Budweiser stage. Bazan, appearing with a full backing band, rose to the occasion with a set that was loaded with some of the more rocking songs from his catalog.
Last fall, he released “Curse Your Branches” on the Barsuk label. It was his first proper solo album after fronting the band Pedro The Lion for a decade. A smaller, but dedicated crowd of fans braved the schedule conflicts and camped out in one of the shadier areas of the park to watch him play a set that mostly featured his more recent material. Highlights also included older favorites such as “Start Without Me” and “The Fleecing,” tracks from Pedro The Lion’s final album “Achilles Heel.”
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL review: Monsters of Folk
You have to believe that the Monsters of Folk are having fun jacking around with folks’ preconceptions. There’s that name, for one thing, a burst of who’s-your-daddy egotism with tongue firmly in cheek. Then there’s the boys themselves, making their entrance onto the Austin Ventures Stage Saturday evening in matching black funeral parlor suits to the strains of William DeVaughan’s ’70s funk track “Be Thankful For What You Got.”
Then there is the group’s pedigree — think an indie incarnation of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Like that ensemble, the members of MOF hail from disparate pedigrees: She and Him (M. Ward), My Morning Jacket (Jim James) and Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis). (And one of Austin’s own: Will Johnson of Centro-matic, who has become the fifth Monster.) And, like CSNY at their peak, Monsters of Folk is capable of evolving from a layered, nuanced rootsy sound to a screaming, multi-headed garage band monster with the blink of the proverbial eye.
Their nearly two-hour set drew largely from their self-titled debut from last fall, but there were some detours into the members’ own repertoires, including Oberst’s “Soul Singer In A Session Band,” Ward’s “To Save Me” and a titanic version of My Morning Jacket’s “Smokin’ From Shootin’.” The SoCal folk rock of “The Right Place” and “Golden” (another MMJ song), the ethereal vocals on “Slow Down Jo” and “The Sandman, the Brakeman and Me” and the assertive, melodic pop of “Baby Boomer,” “Whole Lotta Losin’” and “Losin’ Yo Head” — (does anyone else hear echoes of the Beach Boys in here?) — Monsters of Folk displayed more sides than a funhouse mirror. Soulful wordsmiths, furious rockers, gifted performers — the set-closing spiritual “His Master’s Voice” was spine-tingling — they reminded this listener of the old B. Kliban cartoon wherein the scientist comes into the laboratory to find his creation doing the cha-cha with a couple of buxom babes and drinking a martini. “Look, Igor,” the scientist exclaims, “The monster lives! And not badly, either!” Photo: Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL scene: M.I.A.
Dressed in a half-black, half-white shirt and rolled white jean shorts, the diminutive firecracker M.I.A. looks like a cheerleader after a pep rally in 1991. The only thing that would betray that image are the black thigh-high stockings that, along with the hip gyrations, scream sex. Say what you will about her second album or the controversy surrounding her New York Times magazine story earlier this year, but the woman knows how to put on a show. She bops from the front of the stage to the back to twiddle anon and switch up the beat and next thing you know she’s right down front dancing on top of equipment cases with the crowd, even holding some of their hands. She’s got them all eating out of hers.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL review: Broken Bells
After a wildly anticipated set at this year’s South By Southwest that received decidedly mixed reviews, Broken Bells — the boutique project headed by James Mercer (of the Shins) and Danger Mouse — returned to Austin for an afternoon set that drew a massive crowd to the AMD Stage on Saturday.
Drawing heavily from their debut album, with a smattering of new material, the duo and their backing musicians delivered a polished performance laced with swirls of high-harmony vocals, electronic effects, bolero trumpet and an easy assurance — although viewing the big monitors from more than a quarter mile away made discerning any onstage dynamics among the musicians a job for astronomers.
Echoing with oblique references to the Beatles’ psychedelic era, Pink Floyd’s grandiosity and Steely Dan’s hipster-cool surmise — see if you can guess the reporter’s era by those name checks — songs such as “Vaporize,” “The High Road,” “Your Head Is On Fire” and “The Ghost Inside” elevated the crowd while simultaneously, somehow, eliciting a sense of trancelike abandon.
New songs featured rubbery rhythm guitar, haunted twin vocals and a subterranean layer of industrial funk. Drowning, chewy guitar tracks anchored the set’s only cover tune (whose name I unfortunately didn’t catch).
The 12-song set concluded with an upbeat pop-laced take on “The Mall and the Misery” that sent folks off dancing. It might have taken Broken Bells a couple of visits to Austin to find their groove, but once they located it, they rode it into the ground.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL scene: Barton Springs Road on Saturday
Although most people on Barton Springs Road west of Lamar were streaming purposefully toward ACL Saturday afternoon, some folks sporting three-day wristbands stopped to relax in local establishments before braving the hordes in the park, and plenty of people from nearby neighborhoods wandered down just to watch the parade go by.
On the front porch of Austin Java, Joel Lang was hanging out with his 3-month-old daughter, Veda Monserrate. He had planned to go to ACL and catch bands such as Gogol Bordello, but his friends bailed on him, he said, so he sold his three-day pass. Veda attended last year’s ACL in utero, but this year she was content to recline in her stroller, wrapped in a pink blanket and sucking vigorously, Maggie Simpson-style, on a glittering pink pacifier, while sizing up strangers with her enormous blue eyes. Her dad spotted a friend, and other Austinites seemed to be running into their neighbors and co-workers as well.
On the sidewalk next to the Shiner Bock-sponsored stage outside Flipnotics, a woman pushing a double stroller ran into someone she knew, hugs were exchanged, and then another friend strolled up and within 15 minutes, there seemed to be about eight people in their group. On the stage, raised a full story above street level, Slowtrain played a fine set of choogling country-rock, causing some 30 or 40 people to pause and listen, from a gray-haired man and his consort to a kid with a skateboard tucked under his arm. A pedicab driver drifted by headed east, passengerless, with one leg resting up on his handlebars. Up the street, another pedicab driver was waiting for a passenger, his conveyance decorated with an oversize kid’s mylar balloon and a sign proclaiming “Bikin’ 4 My Baby.” Yet another pedicab driver pedaled swiftly toward Lamar, the cheap boombox fixed to his bicycle blaring away.
Apparently, many people had decided rather than buy a pricey Heineken in the park, they’d fuel up beforehand. Inside Flip’s, the baristas seemed to be selling more beer than coffee. And when I tried to say hello to a friend who works at Uncle Billy’s Brew & Que, where live bands were also playing, the place was so slammed, I just waved at him and said “see you later.” Meanwhile, Daily Juice was jumping as well, but the atmosphere was far less hectic, and a customer in line danced happily to the electronica playing in the shop.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL 2010 review: Ruby Jane
A couple of days ago I was lauding the youthful prowess of 21-year old singer/songwriter Sahara Smith. And talented she indeed is. But in terms of age, she looks like a candidate for AARP membership next to 15-year old Ruby Jane Smith. Ruby Jane, as she is billed (“If Madonna can use just her first name, so can I,” she declared at age 10 according to her mom).
A vivacious, effervescent and ferociously talented instrumentalist, writer and vocalist, the young Dallas native immediately attracted the attention of Willie Nelson and Asleep At the Wheel’s Ray Benson upon moving to Austin. She’s released a live mostly-acoustic/roots album and has a new EP coming out of the gates soon.
But as a performer, she’s accelerating far faster than her recorded repertoire might indicate. Onstage at the BMI Stage Sunday morning, she surrounded herself with a crew who could rock as hard as they could swing.
And at that, it was all they could do to keep up with their bandleader as she made lightning changes between fiddle, acoustic and electric guitars and mandolin. In the course of several songs, she slung her guitar behind her back, the better to pick up a fiddle and take a hot solo.
Kicking off with a gypsy jazz take on Django Reinhardt’s “Minor Swing,” Ruby Jane moved into the country-blues-flavored “Feels Like Home” and the romping, sunny “Beautiful You, Happy Me” before essaying a surprisingly mature cover of Townes Van Zandt’s “Be Here To Love Me” (and how many 15-year olds have the chutzpah to cover a Townes song?)
Speaking of chutzpah, Jane completed a new pop ballad, “The Fall,” only a little more than a week ago and determined to present it to the ACL crowd freshly hatched, so to speak.
After another new song, “Stick Around,” in which Ruby Jane used a vocal effect to give her voice the timber of an old field recording before turning the tables with a fuzztone-flavored rock finale, she closed her set with the juiced-up swing/boogie stomp of “Greasy World,” from her debut album.
As she left the stage, several of the early-morning festival goers wandered around like survivors of a tornado’s near miss. And in some ways, that was apropos-Ruby Jane seems less like a kid not yet old enough to drive and more like a force of musical nature.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Sunday
ACL 2010 review: Muse
It’s a pretty big honor for a band to headline the ACL Fest twice - even if it is by accident. After the White Stripes cancelled in 2007 and the English alternative rock trio were bumped up to the top spot, they proved themselves adept headliners, with a massive, spectacle-laden rock explosion that seemed to be timed just right - this was just as “Knights of Cydonia” was in its highest circulation on the radio.
But were they so good they deserved another headlining slot three years later? If the shirtless guy next to me jumping a solid foot into the air and screaming “Yeah!” every two seconds is any indication - and come on, this is a rock festival, so of course it’s an indication - the answer is yes.
The intervening three years have seen Muse build itself an ever-larger, and exceedingly devoted, fan base - which equaled a clearly engaged, enthusiastic audience which greeted each radio single with rapturous applause and filled in the vocals on a brief instrumental cover of the Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun.” The energy was at a feverish pitch right from the start, when Matthew Bellamy walked on stage and launched into “Uprising,” backed by the best light show the touring market can buy. From that first note on, Muse, stadium rockers in the truest sense of the words, unraveled its spiraling, epic jams over a barrage of lasers, lights and projections for an hour and a half. Although Bellamy’s vocals were at times a bit quiet, Muse proved itself an ideal festival headliner - with tight musicianship and a nearly obscene level of spectacle to match.
It’s a little astonishing to know that Muse consists of only four live players, because the band sounded impressively expansive on rockers like “MK Ultra” - named for a covert CIA program centered on mind control and one of many signs of the band’s fascination with paranoid subject matter (to say little of the news footage and Orwellian imagery that popped up at times on the projection screen). But in all the axe-grinding and spectacle there were bits of tenderness on display - Bellamy’s piano interlude “Niche” and Muse’s surprisingly sensitive take on classic “Feeling Good,” an Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse tune that’s been sung by everybody from Nina Simone to Kat Edmonson.
Bellamy broke out the keytar for “Undisclosed Desires” and a double-necked guitar for the bombast of “Resistance.” Although it may have been Bellamy’s right-hand man, bassist Christopher Wolstenhome, who busted out one of the most impressive feats of the night, a thematically perfect harmonica intro to final song “Knights of Cydonia.”
Although there’s few 10-minute solos on display in Muse’s songs, you can see bits of progressive rock creeping in here and there - the epic feel, the focus on world-building within the lyrics and, of course, the very dedicated audience. Mix that in with a whole lot of spectacle, and you have a pretty solid show. At least the shirtless guy next to me seemed happy, and who am I to argue with him?
Set list
Uprising
Supermassive Black Hole
New Born
Map of the Problematique
MK Ultra
Nishe
United States of Eurasia
Feeling Good (cover)
Undisclosed Desires
Resistance
Hysteria
Time Is Running Out
Starlight
Stockholm Syndrome
Encore
Plug In Baby
Knights of Cydonia
Photo: Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL 2010 review: LCD Soundsystem
Two songs into his Saturday night set at the Budweiser stage, just after nailing delightfully silly “This Is Happening” single “Drunk Girls,” LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy apologized for wearing sunglasses on-stage. Directly in front of him, the Austin sun was setting over the west hills. One can only imagine how blinding it must have been.
“There’s a mid-size star (expletive) up my vision. I’m very sorry for looking like a jerk and wearing these sunglasses,” said Murphy. “Wait no, I’m trying to look cool, that’s it.”
It’s too bad Murphy had to deal with the world’s most epic glare, but it’s a happy accident - it’s hard to imagine a band better suited to guide ACL Fest audiences from day to night than LCD Soundsystem, with its cathartic, weary-yet-enthused dance rock jams. Murphy’s songs were practically made for those waning hours of twilight, and indeed LCD Soundsystem proved even more enjoyable than they did during their 2007 mid-afternoon set. Striding onto stage in a black-and-white plaid shirt and a five o’clock shadow, Murphy and the six other members of LCD Soundsystem’s live band - charmingly, all of whom look like total schlubs aside from glamorous Moog jockey Nancy Whong - kicked off the set with the wandering first track off “This Is Happening,” an immediately winning rendition of “Dance Yrself Clean.”
Although the dancing didn’t reach the feverish heights it would an hour later for Deadmau5’s groove-a-thon, there were ample hands in the air for “Drunk Girls” and “I Can Change” - and there was a noticeable surge of enthusiasm for a sped-up, punked-up take on “All My Friends.” I’ll confess to being modestly surprised by just how much this set rocked and just how good it sounded - in particular, “Movement” was shattering in its intensity.
A world here about the people in LCD Soundsystem who aren’t James Murphy: Murphy tends to get the lion’s share of the credit, but the rest of the band’s players are absolute experts at taking music that has plenty of electronica in its DNA and making it surge live, which is probably harder to do than it looks. Particular praise is due to drummer Pat Mahoney - since we’re talking dance music here, a pounding drumbeat is even more important than usual, and Mahoney’s a monster on the kit. Especially when Murphy joins in, as he did on “Tribulations,” a deep cut off LCD Soundsystem’s self-titled debut.
By the time Murphy tore into the 2,137 shouted exclamations of “Yeah!” that make up the song of the same name (that number might be slightly exaggerated) and the disco ball came on, the sun had dropped out of the sky and Murphy had adeptly helped navigate the audience into the darkness. Photo: Jay Janner AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010, ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL 2010 review: Local Natives
A crew of well-meaning young men from Silver Lake, California, Local Natives fall into that oddly expanding category “bands who cite Talking Heads, possibly from the stage, as a huge influence.” (See also Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend, Wolf Parade and a dozen more.) Some folks scoff at this - as one fellow on Twitter put it, “Their mouths say Talking Heads, but their music says every (expletive) Byrne solo alb;” OUCH - but the crowd at the Austin Ventures stage on Saturday seemed to adore their combination of vocal harmonies, skittering rock and sunny Afro-pop breaks. (They even covered Talking Heads “Warning Sign.”)
Drawing from their nearly-year old, well-regarded hyped debut “Gorilla Manor,” the band worked on their titration of California folk and something slightly funkier. Singer Taylor Rice reinforced the beat on a tiny drum kit up front and bassist Andy Hamm drove the songs this way and that. You could not have grown in a vat a band more perfect for a late afternoon crowd at ACL.
Photo: Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010: Saturday
ACL 2010 review: Jones Family Singers
For four years, the Jones Family Singers of Bay City have come to the Austin City Limits Music Festival and blow minds with their “tradition gospel with a contemporary flair.” In the Clear 4G tent, five singers, led by the mighty Alexis Diane Jones-Roberts harmonize over guitar, bass, drums and keys that brush up against funk and remind you that gospel is the root integer of soul.
Rallying cries such as “if they ain’t clapping their hands, I want you hunch ‘em a little bit in the shoulder” and “But we got our own version of rock ‘n’ roll…we like to roll with the Holy Ghost” punchtuated to rolling gospel. The chorus of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” became “Jesus Christ is my savior” and the “Star Spangled Banner” was played for troops here and abroad. So far, so sanctified.
Then a very odd thing happened. As Jones-Roberts brought the next generation of Jones Family Singers out, small children who looked between 4 and maybe 11, a large frat-looking fellow jumped on stage to dance with them. Then two girls joined him in front of the kids.
Mercifully, everyone was back in the crowd within a few minutes but it created a moment so distastefully bound up in the complicated intersections of race, appropriation, class, privilege, power and money that you could practically hear all the cultural studies grad students in Texas start to take notes. Add to that the soul-saving mandate of evangelical Christianity (perhaps the Spirit moved the dude) and there’s a thesis in there. There’s not enough space here to go into it in detail and the Singers seemed very charitable about it. I am not as charitable, so two points:
Frat dude, there is such a thing as manners. After you jumped up on to the stage, a few of those little kids looked quite scared. This was their moment, and you made it all about you. Very, classy, ace.
Security didn’t seem to do anything after the dude went on stage, nor did I see anyone talk to him afterward. Perhaps someone in Jones Family waved them off, perhaps they didn’t want to scare the kids — I don’t know, honestly. Someone in a W3 shirt spoke to the two girls, but that was it. It was impossible to imagine that had the band been white and the interloper been African-American, the situation would have played out similarly. I really, really hope I am wrong about that.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2010: Saturday
