XL's SXSW Music Reviews: Thurs. March 18, 2004

Brian Jonestown Massacre at Club DeVille

There was a strange combination of snottiness and insecurity in the air when the Brian Jonestown Massacre finally took the Club DeVille stage at 1:10 a.m. The band started off unsatisfied with something — the noisy bleedover from the other two outdoor venues nearby, maybe? — and went on to be let down by their own performance. The crowd didn't seem to object, but those who knew the group only from records were probably surprised at how few of the numbers played here sounded like actual songs; the set's last half, particularly, contained a lot of homogeneously churning guitars and echo-laden vocals.

The gray Manchester clouds broke midway through, when the boys broke into "Let Me Stand Next To Your Flower," a catchy number that sounded like a forgotten hit from the days before Alternative Rock was known by that name. But just as quickly, the band retreated into moody dissatisfaction. Whatever their objections to the night's performance, they didn't want to leave the stage — SXSW staff had to beg them a number of times to cut the final jam short, and by 2:10 the microphones were killed, leaving the bandmates without a venue for their complaints.

— John DeFore

Josh Rouse at Bigsbys

What do Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" and Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" have in common? Well, for one, they both came out in 1972. And two, they're both key influences on singer-songwriter Josh Rouse's latest album, um, "1972."

Rouse started out as a sensitive folkie whose melancholy music took its cues from early Springsteen and the Cure. But last year, with "1972," he really struck AM gold, channeling the sunniest and smoothest of '70s pop and R&B — Marvin Gaye, Carole King, Jackson Browne (and, er, Nick Drake) — into a contemporary sound that's almost impossible to dislike.

It was this more recent Rouse that most of the folks at Bigsbys were familiar with, judging by the hearty cheers that greeted his ridiculously catchy singles "Love Vibration" and "Comeback (Light Therapy)." (And thanks to some extra-heavy bass on the former, everyone really did feel said vibration.) So when both of these popped up in the set's first three songs, the general sentiment was, "This is great — but where does he go from here?" It looked like Rouse had gone and pulled a Howard Dean.

It turned out, though, that he was just getting the hits out of the way so as not to distract from all the other equally great material. With his crack band behind him, Rouse — looking charmingly boyish with his floppy hair and striped polo — proceeded to run through a half-dozen of his smoothest jams and sexiest grooves. "Usually we're a lot more subtle than this," he admitted late in the set, "but it's SXSW, so we decided to just rock . . . out."

Spoken like a true classic.

— Josh Eells

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at The Ritz

One a.m. on Sixth Street is no time to be talking politics. Some of the crowd at the Ritz appear to have been hitting it pretty hard tonight, and it shows. Despite what looks like intense concentration, a young woman in a red slit top stumbles slightly as she negotiates a corner. Men are hugging each other. It's not an opportune moment for reflection on what ails modern civilization.

But Ted Leo is undaunted. Donning a black, red and green terry cloth wristband, backed only by his thunderously adept rhythm section, Ted Leo is out to change the world, one song at a time, and whatever he's doing, he's not pandering. After noting that only one of the bands on the evening's bill was fronted by a woman, he says, "For all our vaunted progress in the subculture, it's still very much a boys' club. (A group that includes, it might be noted, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.)

But if he succeeds in altering the political consciousness of his listeners, it will be because he knows how to wield the arsenals of rock, pop and punk to great effect. Thin Lizzy is a reference point, and so is the Jam, but there's Motownian motion in the vocal lines, too, and glam-rock rears its pretty head occasionally. So maybe the fest-dazed crowd at the Ritz is getting it, and maybe they're just getting off on it. But it's just like politics: When you're making your case, you can't afford to lose a single listener.

— John Ratliff

Van Hunt at Cedar Street Courtyard

You could tell that Van Hunt's Thursday night gig was an industry showcase because the people in the audience were older than the people on stage. Considerably older. That's no surprise — Van Hunt is a soul revivalist, and SXSW hardly draws a critical mass of soul fans. So what you wound up with was a mess of record-biz people trying to figure out if this guy was The Next Big Thing.

So, is he?

Maybe. The Atlantan by way of Dayton sure can sing. For his opening tune, Sam Cooke's "That's Where It's At," he skillfully channeled the great man in rough gospel mode; in "Seconds of Pleasure" he turned out an awfully convincing Curtis Mayfield falsetto and as I left midway through his set (deadlines called), I could've sworn Marvin Gaye had alighted upon the Cedar Street Courtyard. (Which perhaps makes sense for a place where so many Austinites head on weekend nights in search of some sexual healing.)

His band is good too, and they look the soul revivalist part — one of the keyboardists wore a black fedora, the bassist wore a Mao cap stripped of ideological content and the drummer was sporting a pair of shades he borrowed from Billy Cobham in 1975.

If there's a catch, it's the same catch that catches most of these soul revivalists — they love Al Green and Marvin and Donny Hathaway, but they just don't have songs of that caliber to go with their top-drawer conceptions (and, in the case of Hunt, with his top-drawer singing).

Hunt is closer than most — his songs sound like songs, and at moments he sings well enough that you don't notice that most of them lack not only full-bodied melodies, but even mere hooks.

Still, the guy's just put out his first, very promising album; he sounds like someone who wants to do nothing but grow. And he'll probably get the chance. The gray-haired music industry types in attendance were smiling and swiveling their hips like you suspect they don't do at hip-hop shows. Finally, you imagined them thinking, black music I can relate to again.

— Jeff Salamon

Mission of Burma at La Zona Rosa

One of the hard and fast rules of rock is that old people cannot. Once you're into your 40s or so, everyone quietly agrees that that is pretty much that. Hang up your spurs, go away gracefully, etc. But what everyone chooses to ignore is that with age comes mastery. Mission Of Burma reminds audiences that rock is something that can be mastered.

In front of a good-sized (but by no means capacity) crowd, guitarist Roger Miller, bassist Clint Conley and drummer Peter Prescott, along with sound man and tape manipulator Bob Weston, all of whom are hanging around 50, didn't bother to turn back the clock. They brought the crowd to their time.

Of course, a 19-year layoff should produce a backlog of great material for almost anyone. But Burma has pulled off the extraordinary trick of sounding like the classic post-punk band that they were and the vital band that they are, often in the same song.

Alternating between classic songs like "This Is Not a Photograph," the crowd-pleasing "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" and "Trem Two," and gripping material from a forthcoming album, the band kept the crowd on its toes. This strategy let the audience, most of whom had been waiting years or decades for this show, bask in nostalgic thrills and also revealed just how little of the band's original spark it had lost. For an encore, Burma brought out ex-punk Penelope Houston for a little bit of old-school protest. Houston sang "The American In Me," an old song by her '70s punk band, The Avengers, like the ramparts were about to be stormed. Old people rock.

—Joe Gross

The Thrills at Exodus

Thrills bassist Daniel Ryan took the stage wearing a black Flying Burrito Brothers T-shirt, but the tip of the hat to Gram Parsons' prototypical alt-country band seemed more like a farewell gesture than a sign of what we were about to hear. Whatever strains of country can be found on the Thrills' irresistible debut album, "So Much for the City" — and there are plenty of them — were steamrollered over by a full-on rock attack.

For the most part it worked. After waiting through a 20-minute delay, the frighteningly packed house at Exodus was ready to be hit with some noise, and the five young Dubliners obliged. The third song, "Big Sur," is apparently the next single, and one industry source says it'll be remixed because some modern rock stations don't want to play a song with a banjo on it. If the banjo-less live version is a taste of what'll be hitting the airwaves soon enough, the song will survive just fine.

Still, anyone who admires the album's craft and adores its shivery pop pleasures may have felt a slight disappointment. Kevin Horan's keyboards were wildly overmiked and, oddly for electronic keyboards, sounded out of tune. Frontman Conor Deasy offered between-song crowd-rousing patter that was so routine the audience members may not have even registered a request had been made of them. And during particularly dramatic moments Deasy abandoned the breathy vocals that are one of the band's distinctions to shout his lyrics.

By now, those sugary vocal lines probably seem almost saccharine to him, and you can understand why he'd want to rough them up. That's a fine, rockist impulse. But talking your way, loudly, through a song does not a hard rock performance make. When Deasy stuck to those clingingly memorable vocal lines, the crowd that came to hear high-energy versions of "Santa Cruz (You're Not That Far)," "Don't Steal Our Sun" and "One Horse Town" got its 20-minute-wait's worth.

— Jeff Salamon

Denali at The Parish

A lot of people seem to be looking to Denali to fill a void in their lives. I understand; I miss trip-hop, too. And it's easy to see how Denali might look like an appealing alternative — all that eyeliner and frowning. Nonetheless, this is not an adequate replacement for the days of Portishead gone by.

For one thing, the presence of a female vocalist who, like Beth Gibbons, looks vaguely like your mom's chain-smoking sister does not necessarily endow an act with that dark and haunting and sultry quality missing from recent new acts. Nor does a roaring combination of feedback and distortion substitute for swirling and skillfully rendered electronica.

Better, then, to consider Denali for what it really is: one of many middling melodic rock bands on the scene today. Though hardly innovative, the set was consistent and forceful, jumping right into the band's most full-bodied material.

In the end, Denali's performance at the Parish was all thunder and no lightning. Nothing seemed to strike the full house enough to draw them closer for more. People looked bored, but hopeful that the exciting twist was still to come. More of the same ensued. Don't expect Denali to be ascending any empty thrones any time soon.

— Austin Bonner

Little Richard at the Austin Music Hall

Little Richard, that glitter-encrusted cornerstone in the temple of rock 'n' roll, had two of everything with him onstage at the Music Hall: two horns and keyboards, dual guitars and basses, and, incomprehensibly, two drummers with full kits. It was as if God, knowing of the roots-rock authenticity movement that would purify the land, put Little Richard on an arc in 1982 to preserve that period's bombastically ugly approach to the oldies.

But this very full house was primarily interested in glimpsing a living legend, and Richard was happy to oblige. In the white rhinestoned jacket and his now-trademark feathered mullet, the effeminate grey eminence preened and cooed through signature tunes like "Good Golly, Miss Molly" and covers of everyone from Hank Williams ("Jambalaya") to the Rolling Stones ("It's Only Rock 'n' Roll"). He proved that he still has pipes, letting out a high "Whoo!" or squeal every few minutes and even giving "A-womp-bom-a-loo-bomp" lessons from the stage. But the singer let his side men carry more of the weight than seemed necessary.

Fans who came solely for bragging rights, of course, were satisfied. Those hoping for something surreal got theirs, too — Richard introduced a patriotic number with the bizarre understatement, "You know when we had that 9-11 thing? It bothered me."

But those who revere the man for his contributions to rock 'n' roll and who had hoped for a time warp glimpse of that raw and glorious era couldn't help wanting to make a suggestion: Hey, Little Richard — if you fired half your band, think how many sparkly new suits you could afford!

— John Defore

B-52's at Stubb's

I'll give you fish, I'll give you candy, Mr. Soundman, just get the mix right. The B-52's set at Stubb's should've turned the joint into a groove field, but someone forgot to invite treble to the party. It was a mucky, bass-heavy affair throughout, which is a shame because the fiddy-deuce, one of the 10 greatest American bands ever, was roarin' to be the perfect populist group in this festival of the raw and exclusive.

The "mess" in "Dance This Mess Around" seemed to refer to a bottomless sound that suggested that bassist Sara Lee had something dirty on the cat twirling the knobs at the soundboard. The drummer could've been playing a tambourine for all the punch coming from his position.

What's the deal? At most SXSW shows the music's too loud and the Day-glo earplugs come out halfway through the first song. On this one, you had to strain to get the full effect. This show lacked snap, even when Cindy Wilson pleaded to "Give Back My Man" and Kate Pierson joined her on "52 Girls." Fred Schneider's star turn on "Quiche Lorraine" got the new wave hand dancing going and "Strobe Light" was a kick, but too much of this was like nostalgia with a bad memory.

I doubt if too many people were disappointed; at the end of "Love Shack" the crowd screamed for more and were treated to encores of "Planet Claire" and "Rock Lobster." But for the previous hour my mind was screaming for more "oomph."

— Michael Corcoran

Mindy Smith at Coyote Ugly

Mindy Smith's set at Coyote Ugly on Thursday was a textbook case of South by Southwest disrespecting an acclaimed artist. If anyone arrived at SXSW pre-anointed for celebration it was Smith, whose eponymously titled debut album has drawn acclaim to a degree that Mother Teresa might envy.

So SXSW goes and sticks a highly touted, evocative, insightful, emotive, critics'-darling singer-songwriter in a venue whose principal distinction is that its well-endowed bartenders shake their groove thangs atop said bar at regular intervals. One can only speculate what Smith made of the brassieres dangling like trophy scalps above the backbar.

The building inhabited by Coyote Ugly is basically a long, narrow, stone-lined tube; Smith's yearning vocals, the snare drum and the hi-hat cymbal all rattled around like BBs in a coffee can. The din of patrons' chatter rendered her tunes indistinguishable.

No single song she performed was identifiable to these ears, despite my having listened to her album half a dozen times. "I'll try to do a slow one," she said early on. "It could be a mistake . . ."

Not only that, but the stage was situated in a declivity at the front of the venue, meaning that only a relative handful of people at the very front of the congealed human jam of spectators could even glimpse her.

It's clear where the blame for this high-profile fiasco lies. Not with Smith; she showed up and did her job under extraordinarily trying circumstances. Not with Coyote Ugly; they're just trying to run a whiskey joint and sell a little sex 'n' attitude on the side.

The responsibility for a grave disservice (to both the artist and the listeners) lies at the doorstep of whatever mallet-headed SXSW logistician stuck an artist like Smith in a rowdy bar on Sixth Street (excuse me, in a hole in the ground in a rowdy bar on Sixth Street).

— John T. Davis

Aesop Rock at Emo's Main Stage

For the second night in a row, Emo's hosted a night full of hip-hop, this time from Brooklyn native Aesop Rock and the always entertaining El-P.

The stage was set by openers The Perceptionists, who concluded their fiery set with an impromptu and brief rendition of "Deep in the Heart of Texas," which hyped an already noisy crowd. Atmosphere's Slug made his second Emo's appearance in as many nights with a warm introduction of his old pal Aesop.

Aesop took the stage with DJ RJD2 and rocked the crowd with his ever-expansive vocabulary and unrelenting delivery. After a couple of songs, El-P made his way on stage to deliver an energized verse of "We're Famous" from the recently released and critically acclaimed "Bazooka Tooth."

The trio's energy never faltered, and the capacity crowd only seemed to get louder as the set went on. Aesop blazed through several "Bazooka Tooth" tracks as well as plenty of old ones that went over decidedly well with everyone in attendance.

With each verse, Aesop ignited the crowd on an already humid Austin night. The night's full billing of hip-hop undoubtedly pleased the fans as the show was probably even more packed than the Rhymesayer showcase Wednesday night.

At one point Aesop barked out orders for those in attendance. "When I say 'Get live,' y'all say 'Right now,' " he said, and everybody did.

— Adam Longley

Preston School of Industry at La Zona Rosa

At South by Southwest 2001, college kids and critics lined up to see Stephen Malkmus, the first of the Pavement survivors to return to the festival, only to find themselves counting the seconds until Mogwai appeared (Malkmus was dreadful). Pavement guitarist Scott Kannberg and Preston School of Industry, performing at SXSW three years after their debut record, "All This Sounds Gas," proved significantly more engaging. People who didn't like Pavement almost uniformly characterized (and dismissed) it as a "fun band." With gymnastic syntax and lyric irreverence such "And the check, when it arrived, we went Dutch, Dutch, Dutch, Dutch," it is easy to understand their apprehension.

Preston School of Industry, on the other hand, has figured out how to have fun onstage without becoming a "fun band." Weaving together three guitar parts, a coronet and relentless drumming should not look so effortless — except the part when the guitarist took a break to throw back a beer and hold up a tape recorder with what sounded strangely like voicemails to the microphone. Pushing "play" should look easy.

The set mixed older material with tracks from 2004's "Monsoon" in styles ranging from alt-country to Matador's trademark post-punk. Preston closed their set with "Whalebones," a song about towing the aforementioned skeleton behind a car for 18 hours. Dangerously close to "fun band" territory, but no one seemed put off.

— Austin Bonner

Dears at Emo's

Day shows are great for crossing off bands on your "must see" list if there's a schedule conflict. But they can also give a second chance. I heard raves about the Wednesday night show at Buffalo Billiards by a Montreal band, the Dears, and thought I'd missed my chance, then happened upon them, simply by chance, playing at Emo's Thursday afternoon.

Even though the half-hour set lacked the "game on" intensity you'd expect at showcase slots, the band was truly original — pounding and melodic simultaneously. Their "songs" were more like little dramatic vignettes, with singer Murray Lightburn crooning and yelping like a wounded lounge singer while the twin synthesizers whirled like Rick Wakeman's right hand.

"End Of a Hollywood Bedtime Story" sounded padded at parts — or were the band members just stalling to catch their breath? — but then suddenly the sounds would all come crashing down, bringing the packed crowd to a near-psychedelic epiphany.

— Michael Corcoran

TV on the Radio at The Caucus

TV on the Radio fuses soul and power pop the way stars fuse atoms. Live, they explode, a barely tamed Pixies fronted by Al Green.

The New York band couldn't help but rock its otherwise warm, mild, Thursday afternoon patio show at the Caucus. The band blasted pop hooks with screaming, soaring guitars and a tight, almost unconscious rhythm section. But it was lead singer Tunde Adebimpe's easy, soulful voice that distinguished the band.

Adebimpe's voice frequently blurred the boundaries of what was, at heart, a rock show. He gesticulated like a preacher, and when he coaxed the crowd into clapping it felt like a revival. He and the other vocalist, Kyp Malone, turned out falsetto acrobatics with the abandon of soul singers.

The set closed with "Poppy," a track off the new album "Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes." The song started a little slow compared with the earlier songs, dragging on the vocal texturing by Malone and Adebimpe. But it gracefully crescendoed in the middle and ended in a wave of percussion, with members banging on part of the drum kit, shaking bells or rapping noisemakers.

The group plays its showcase Friday at the Exodus, the site of the now-famous run-in between Austin police and Ozomatli's drum line. Be sure to keep the percussion in the building, guys.

— Stephen Scheibal

Stinking Lizaveta at Room 710

The description of Philadelphia trio Stinking Lizaveta that appears in the SXSW schedule is "doom jazz," which is a little misleading. From out on Red River, they sounded a lot like a good hard progressive rock trio. If that sounds like an oxymoron to you, you didn't miss anything.

But even the most fervent opponent of flatulent art-rock might find something to admire in their concise and exuberant metal/Middle Eastern/Latin hybrid.

Attention, art-rockers: Tight arrangements and short songs do not mark you as a sellout. And neither does showmanship: The guitarist who looks like the lost Santana brother was not too enamored of his own chops to play with his teeth and produce feedback by singing to his strings, which regardless of its technical virtue was highly entertaining to watch. That same description might apply to the belly dancers who took the stage for a few songs, which is something you hardly ever see any more on the doom jazz circuit.

Judging from the crowd's reaction, it may be time to fix that. And if it catches on, we can thank Stinking Lizaveta, the doom jazz band for people who don't like either.

— John Ratliff

Seachange at La Zona Rosa

Seachange is what SXSW is all about. A young band, first time in the States, complete with the backing of a vibrant record company (Matador Records) with an aging if still powerful roster. Seachange came here with something to prove.

What the band mostly proved is that it is louder than God, if not quite as obscure. Two guitarists and a violin player whipped up a grimy, dissonant froth over the course of the band's muscular 40-minute set. Singer Dan Eastop has one of those great Britpop voices: a little flat, a little declamatory, a little distant. And he's still not quite sure how to work a crowd.

In fact, the band did best when it relied on violinist Johanna Woodnutt for memorable melodic lines. With her sawing carrying the ball, everyone else could freak out at their leisure. When she was lost in the mix, Seachange felt a little lost as well.

They still need some sort of melodic anchor to hold their noise in place. But fans should not worry. The band is about three killer riffs away from true greatness. Awfully polite kids, though. Eastop kept saying thank you even as the band was shearing our ears off. Must be a British thing.

— Joe Gross

Sons and Daughters at Buffalo Billiards

South by Southwest's Scottish invasion got well under way at Buffalo Billiards on Thursday night, where Sons and Daughters played to a crowd packed so tightly that the temperature in front of the stage was at least 15 degrees higher than at the back of the room.

The Glasgow four-piece, whose lead singer and drummer once were in Glum-Pop outfit Arab Strap, may pledge allegiance to Johnny Cash (they played a song named for him during the set), but their music owes at least as much to the second-hand Southern hellfire of Nick Cave. The set's most compelling moments often featured Scott Patterson wailing passionately while making barbed-wire sounds on his guitar.

Frontwoman Adele Bethel, on the other hand, was generally expressionless, with Chrissie Hynde bangs obscuring her eyes. Singing songs about blood, battles and broken bones in a thrift-store satin dress, she didn't try to out-sing the pounding drums behind her.

The group did a good job capturing the spirit of their recently released debut disc. They may not have been as hotly anticipated as fellow countrymen Franz Ferdinand or the Delgados, but they did their part in one of the fest's liveliest foreign campaigns.

— John DeFore

Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Drum and Fife Band at Beerland

I had planned to see New York City's new wave/disco throwback Scissor Sisters in Thursday's 9 p.m. slot at Stubb's until I happened upon a perturbed Tim Kerr on Red River Street at about 7 p.m. "The only set of this entire festival I absolutely have to see is Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Drum and Fife Band at Beerland and I've got something else at the same time," said the Big-Boy-turned-producer. Sharde, he told me, is the teenaged granddaughter of Otha Turner, whose fife and drum sound from Mississippi was the closest link to Africa and the Delta blues we've heard in our time. With Otha's recent passing, it's up to Sharde to keep the tradition going. Sorry, sisters of the scissors; you've been pre-empted.

Backed by a couple of snare players, a bass drummer and her mother on vocals, Sharde had the fire and the crowd danced along. If she wasn't wearing an iron-on T-shirt that said "When All Else Fails Try Looking Cute," you wouldn't think of her as just barely making double digits in age.

Lucky for the Senatobia, Miss. group they didn't come early enough to catch their Birdman Records labelmates PFFR, who represented all the bad parts of spoken word, performance art and Brooklyn, N.Y. The amateuristic, tape-augumented duo should apologize to every SXSW band that wasn't accepted. Yoko Ono would've loved them.

— Michael Corcoran

The Sleepy Jackson at Exodus

Rock critics can't quite decide what to make of the Sleepy Jackson. The Perth, Australia quartet — really just temperamental frontman Luke Steele and whichever guys he decides to let back him up this week — drift freely between hazy psychedelia, lush alt-country, and bright, Beatlesque pop. Some call it ambitiously eclectic; others say it's just derivative.

Nobody, however, has called them harsh or unlistenable — until tonight. I'm not sure if it was the mix or the effects pedals or the mic distortion or maybe a little of each. Whatever it was, it didn't sound good. Gone were all the little touches that made their excellent 2003 debut "Lovers" so darn lovely: the "My Sweet Lord"-era George Harrison guitar licks, the sweet Byrdsy jangle, the killer pedal steel. And in their place was nothing but noise.

So much noise, in fact, that the band overloaded their amps and blew the power just four songs in. The bass player — half sheepish, half peeved — grumbled, "You're not gonna believe this, but that's the second time that's happened to us today." (I'm no audio expert, but shouldn't that tell you to maybe, like, turn it down?) Then, not even a song later, it happened again. Steele muttered a couple of bleepety-bleeps as the tech crew scurried to fix the problem again, and the set was pretty much over. The Sleepy Jackson — more like the Grumpy Jackson by now — soldiered through a couple more songs, but it was clear they couldn't wait to get offstage.

— Josh Eells

Amy Farris at the Continental Club

When she departed Austin for the Left Coast less than a year ago, Amy Farris was the proud possessor of a reputation as an in-demand musician who had lent her talents as fiddle player and vocalist to everyone from Kelly Willis to the Austin Symphony. Though highly regarded, she never (whether through choice or circumstance) fully committed beyond the sideman's role. Thursday night at the Continental Club, she did.

It was a triumphant homecoming for the native Austinite, as she arrived back in town with "Anyway," a new Dave Alvin-produced solo album, in hand. Taking the tiny Continental stage with a six-piece, mostly hometown band (L.A. A-lister Ben Peeler was the sole exception), Farris ripped into one sinewy, melodic number after another. From the opening Bruce Robison-penned "Drivin' All Night Long" (Robison and Willis were in the audience cheering her on, along with the Dixie Chicks' Emily Robison) to the hot cowjazz of "Undecided," the two-stepping "Pretty Dresses," and the rocking one-two punch of "Anyway" and the closing "No Exit," Farris demonstrated her seemingly offhanded mastery of the center stage.

With her red hair, her melancholy eyes and a slender figure that seems to blow in an invisible wind as she bows the fiddle, Farris has always had more than the minimum daily requirement of charisma. But it was her ease as a frontman and lead vocalist that was a fresh revelation. The hometown girl has made good.

— John T. Davis