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South by Southwest band reviews

Friday, March 18, 2005

Isis plays metal for the nonmetal fan

Isis
Emo's Annex, 12:45 a.m.

The first sign that the guys in Isis are smarter than your average metal band: They simply weren't all that loud. You could stand 30 feet away from the amps at their Emo's Annex gig without earplugs and not worry about the long-term effects on your cochlear nerve. Isis, make no mistake, can play loud — as they started doing at around the 45-minute mark — but their power resides elsewhere.

The second sign that they are smarter than your average metal band: Singer-guitarist Aaron Turner deploys the guttural howl that's the hallmark of most contemporary metal — the one that sounds the way I've always imagined haggis tastes — on only about half the songs. The rest of the time, he lets his guitar do the talking, or actually sings.

Isis, in short, is a metal band for people who don't like metal (and people who like metal, too). The band quotes Jeremy Bentham and Michel Foucault in the liner notes to its latest album, "Panopticon," and pays plenty of attention to things like atmosphere, structure and dynamics. The chiming overtones of Turner's and Mike Gallagher's guitars and the ambient bent of their intros and bridges suggest that shoegazer bands such as Slowdive, the dark tectonics of Main and Talking Heads' "Remain in Light" (alternate list: Hόsker Dό's "Warehouse" album, latter-day King Crimson and prime .38 Special) mean as much to them as does Black Sabbath.

Live, the Boston quintet expertly re-created the liquid, enveloping sensation that provided the titular adjective of their 2002 breakthrough album, "Oceanic." The guitars served up the climaxes, but you could have spent the entire set listening to nothing but the rhythm section. Jeff Caxide's basslines were swollen and sturdy, and Aaron Harris' clipped drumbeats were a distinctive counterpart; Caxide is the band's firmament, while Harris marks out the territory's borders. That frees up Turner, Gallagher and Cliff Meyer (on keyboards, assorted electronics and occasional guitar) to do battle as they see fit.

For the last song, the band brought out a second bassist for a total meltdown freakout. It was one of the only times that Isis surrendered to the common belief that more is better. The band earned it.
— Jeff Salamon

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Ditty Bops prove to be dynamic duo

Ditty Bops
The 18th Floor at Crowne Plaza, 11 p.m.

Amanda knows what she is doing, exploiting her vivacious, lipsticked smile and statuesque, fishnet-laden frame for the sake of extra oomph on "Ooh La La," one of the few songs she sings at the Crowne Plaza. It's a coquettish inquiry into sexual proclivity conveyed in a register suggesting Joni Mitchell in a saloon catering to wayward souls from the Roaring '20s. "What among the lovers/ What twang of temptation/ What brought the house down," she asks, strumming a mandolin. Afterward, like a model who has surprised herself with the correct answer to a Trivial Pursuit question in a tough category such as science or history, a beaming Amanda waits to be showered with praise from bi-curious females and drunken, yet sensitive, males. She knows she's hit it. She smiles, nearly curtsies.

Abby, her musical partner, is not jealous. She has seen it play out this way enough times before to know the imbalance of adoration is inevitable, despite her lead role in their band, Ditty Bops. "If there's more of you, there's less of me," she says. Abby is the nose-to-the-grindstone, East Coast, prep-school student to Amanda's lucky, privileged, by-the-grace-of-God good-looking friend everyone wants in their circle. Clad in woolen pinstripes — Amanda in a skirt, Abby in slacks — and crisp, white button-downs anchoring curt ties, the star-crossed lovers from another lifetime are supported by what must be funeral staff on drums and upright bass, considering their black shirts, black pants and ties, and a ponytailed vagabond schooled in guitar, violin, and, well, mechanics. "He's a fix-it man," harmonizer Jesca Hoop adds during her brief appearance onstage. "He must be gettin' some." Chances are so are Amanda and Abby, just not from one another.
— Michael Hoinski

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The Donnas + jazz = Lascivious Biddies

Lascivious Biddies
Elephant Room, 12:45 a.m.

If the Donnas are rock's answer to girl power, then the Lascivious Biddies are jazz's answer to female singularity. From the cozy confines of the Elephant Room, these four New Yorkers glittered the night away with their lounge-friendly jive. Lee Ann Westover, her geekish glasses enhancing her offbeat good looks and native Austin charm, bounced a honky quirk into "Texas Girl," proving you really can't take the Lone Star State out of this girl. Saskia Sunshine Lane's upright bass hugged the group's empowering cover of "You Don't Own Me," and suave guitarist Amanda Monaco liberated the working mother, figuratively, in "Alice." Chipper piano player Deidre Rodman occasionally broke out into Broadway melodies, but abstained from gaudy showwomanship. I'm not someone who dances in pink pajamas to Aretha Franklin, and I rarely gush over "Sex and the City." But after tonight I have no problem saying, sincerely, you go girls!
— Jeff McCrary

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Blind Boys, Randolph move your body and soul

Mavis Staples, Robert Randolph & the Family Band, Blind Boys of Alabama
Austin Music Hall

All it takes is one time.

The uninitiated never believe they're going to be as blown away as they are when they hear the Blind Boys of Alabama or Robert Randolph and the Family Band. But once they do, there's no going back. These artists make converts everywhere they go — if not religious converts, certainly musical ones. To hear them on one bill, with Mavis Staples, well, that practically is a religious experience. Or would have been, had Staples' set been as dynamic as the two she was sandwiched between Friday night at the Austin Music Hall.

Though her voice was scratchy and her set disappointingly disjointed — its main saving grace being Marty Stuart lending moral support on vocals and guitar, particularly on "The Weight" — the Blind Boys and Randolph more than picked up the slack. The audience just about reached nirvana on the strength of their gospel power, perhaps the strongest musical force there is.

By the time the Blind Boys hit "Atom Bomb," the excellent title tune from their just-released album, a woman who had planned to duck out for a while to catch another band said, "I'm not goin' nowhere!" And that was before Jimmy Carter started pogoing up and down and shouting "jump for Jesus," and way before he jumped into the audience and moved halfway through it, exhorting everyone to join him and singing, "Can you feel it? Can you feel the heat? I can feel, FEEL it."

Randolph just invited all the women onstage to dance as he did the earthier portion of his show, the Rolling Stones' "Hip Shake." And several dozen took him up on it, to the point that the rest of the band — including guest steel player Aubrey Ghent, Randolph's mentor, and Blind Boys guitarist Joey Williams — were buried in a sea of moving hips. It was raucous and fun. There's a reason this music moves people like crazy. It's so pure and joyful ... so much soul. And when Randolph launched into the Doobie Brothers' "Jesus is Just Alright," the no longer uninitiated wholeheartedly agreed.
— Lynne Margolis

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Shearwater proves it can rock sans Sheff

Shearwater
Maggie Mae's, 11 p.m.

Sometime member Will Sheff may have been out on tour with his main band Okkervil River, but nothing about Shearwater's Friday showcase felt understaffed: The lush array of instruments around songwriter Jonathan Meiburg provided just the right comfort zone for a singer who can be teenage-earnest one moment, crazy-eyed the next.

The lap steel, strings and vibraphone arrangement seemed geared toward chamber pop, but the group refused to settle into that beautiful ghetto; when things got too pretty, violinist Travis Weller sawed up a solo or percussionist Thor Harris dropped his brushes and got military on the snare. Songs such as the Richard Thompson-ish "Whipping Boy" weren't what the staff at Maggie Mae's are accustomed to, but the band held its own in front of a fairly full house. Late in the set, it briefly became an avant-improv ensemble, with each instrumentalist exploring the stranger sounds he or she could make. Ambient interludes aside, the band delivered a song-based set that let Meiburg display his talents without revealing much of his personality.
— John DeFore

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Waterloo diversifies its showcase with an edgy sound

Blind Boys of Alabama, Kills, Tony Joe White, Saul Williams
Waterloo Records

Waterloo Records' Friday in-stores were nothing if not diverse. Take the leap from the septuagenarian Blind Boys of Alabama — whose take on the gospel won over a few doubters — to the Kills, a young duo whose singer performed part of her set perched precariously atop the railing at the stage's edge.

Another duo had a more relaxed notion of cool: Tony Joe White and his drummer remained seated during their set — the singer in a black hat and wraparound shades — while an adoring crowd begged him to play old Elvis tunes. White steered clear of "Polk Salad Annie," but did pull out the Presley-covered "I've Got a Thing About You Baby," alongside newer material such as "Robbin' My Honeycomb."

White's laid-back swampy blues contrasted with Saul Williams' agit-prop hip-hop, which took the form of a ferocious half-hour preview of Saturday's official showcase. The crowd's response was appreciative but not as physical as Williams might have hoped. Odds are nobody really felt like cutting lose in a store crowded with CD shelves; the singer will have to wait until his Emo's set today to see if his music — a highly personal but aggressively political kind of rap, accompanied by sampler and violin — will get the desired result in a less constrained room.
— John DeFore

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Bloc Party's potential punch landed like a jab

Bloc Party
Stubb's, 10 p.m.

Bloc Party's punk attitude snarls in your face with an intimidating London accent. Skinny enough to fit in the same red phone booth, singer Kele Okereke and his Party punched the gut with the neurotic Brit hit, "Like Eating Grass." It left a throbbing welt — especially for the unfortunate soul at Stubb's who was hit by drummer Matt Tong's stick, thrown into the crowd like a spear. Tong's pop-beat addiction and bassist Gordon Moake's wayward influence threatened to fracture the brittle structure of even gentler songs such as "This Modern Love." A most impressive trick: when Okereke recorded an anxious lick on his guitar's effect system and laid it down while it maintained its backbone throughout "She's Hearing Voices" without being played. In the end, the lightning-quick songs made the half-hour set seem like a nervous flinch compared with the power potential of this South by Southwest winner.
— Jeff McCrary

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Instrumental Darediablo blows out grateful eardrums

Darediablo
The Velvet Spade, 11 p.m.

"Interesting," keyboardist Matt Holford commented about the sound of his rented Korg, one of three boards he played simultaneously during Darediablo's set at the Velvet Spade. The Hammond organ was his, necessary for the deep purple tone that completes this blistering instrumental power trio. From Brooklyn, the group blew out the grateful eardrums of the screaming rockers attending the Southern Records showcase. Fueling the group's drive was Chad Royce on drums and Jake Garcia, who plays guitar with pickless virtuosity. Sounds from the new album, "Twenty Paces," were as well-constructed and tight as the earlier "Feeding Frenzy." This band has no need for bass guitar or vocals. Holford's "Don't Hate Me Because I'm Awesome" T-shirt had lost all sense of irony by the end of the set. He — and the band — are awesome.
— Margaret Myrick

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Wreckless Eric, finally, gets serious but remains brilliant

Wreckless Eric
Elysium, 9 p.m.

Being bitterly funny is a trick that any sullen, smart aleck adolescent can pull off. But being funny about something that genuinely makes you bitter takes a lot more years. Wreckless Eric, a Brit who shared a record label with Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe and Ian Dury back in the days when pub rock was morphing into punk rock, put out one great album in America, 1980's "Big Smash," a 2-LP collection of maddeningly catchy, smart-aleck pop songs. It should have been the start of a brilliant career, but Eric spent the better part of the intervening decades hitting the bottle.

Clean and sober today, he came to Texas for the first time in 25 years to play a solo gig — that is, just him and his electric guitar — for the old faithful. And while us New Wave loyalists got a few of the vintage hits — "(I'd Go the) Whole Wide World," "Walking on the Surface of the Moon" and "Reconnez Cherie" — the really stunning songs were the new ones, all about his wasted life. "I keep looking back, but I can't see a thing," he sang of his hazy past, "It's like waking up and trying to remember a dream."

He also sang a song about the famously disturbed record producer Joe Meeks — a cautionary tale, no doubt — and two songs about hating where he's from. "We never knew different, we only knew same, same, same," he sang in the one about his hometown. "I feel like a beer mat sitting underneath a bottle of beer that was brewed around here" he sang in the one about being scared he'll never leave.

It was as funny and bitter a show as you can imagine — the blues by other means — and if it doesn't get him an American distribution deal, then I don't know what South by Southwest is for.
— Jeff Salamon

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Christof Dienz stretches eras with his electronica

Christof Dienz
Copa, 9 p.m.

Copa was an excellent venue for Austrian composer Christof Dienz, as its brick arches and dry fountain seemed to be a physical metaphor for his transformation of classical tropes into modern. Dienz created soundscapes from samplings — little specks of noise or short melodies drawn from a zither, which he thumped or strummed with a tuning fork, a glass slide, his hands or paper clips he had stored in a metal Altoids container. The result was, in a sense, classical electronica, a surprisingly modern and hip variance from the breakbeat dance stereotype. The bespectacled composer looked more like a young engineer tinkering with a strange machine than a rock star, which I suppose he was. The room was pretty much empty, except for folks sitting near the back. But Dienz earned loud applause from those enthusiastic for his era-stretching inventions.
— Margaret Myrick

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New York Dolls live up to the hype

New York Dolls, with Bloc Party and the Futureheads
Stubb's, Spin party

Even though saying "Let's go see the New York Dolls" was almost as cool as actually seeing David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain and the cast of young Tony Danzas hired to fill out the group Friday afternoon at the annual Spin party at Stubb's, the reformed glam rock icons proved to be more than Mick Jagger and Mick Taylor calling themselves the Rolling Stones. What could be more perfect than prima ballerinas on a spring afternoon, folks whose lives were changed by rock 'n' roll, listening to "Personality Crisis" sung by the "friend of a friend of a friend of a friend" who wrote the words?

Anyone who dared yell a request for "Hot Hot Hot" would've been pummeled. For about 50 minutes Friday afternoon, Buster Poindexter never existed.

This was a group playing for the right to call themselves the New York Dolls; what could be more motivation for a great set? From the first moments of "Lookin' For a Kiss," when Johansen emerged wearing a T-shirt that might be too tight on a poodle, you bought into the moment or you cheated your soul out of a major thrill.

Yeah, Johnny Thunders, honored with a medley of "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" and "Lonely Planet Boy," wasn't there, but the songs were, the voice was. From the "to my head" singalong on "Pills" to the surprisingly cool extended guitar jam on "Jet Boy," David Jo and Co. seemed on a mission.

A lot of times, you see acts during the afternoon private party circus because you can, then cross them off the "must see" list. The Dolls made the "must see again at 1 a.m." list, partially because seeing them at night makes more sense.

To say that South by Southwest would not exist without the influence of the New York Dolls is to suggest that no one would slam dunk if Dr. J hadn't shown the way. No band in the 19 years of playing the festival has had a bigger influence on all the other bands. (In fact, the cynical "Personality Crisis" could be the fest theme song.) But this raw music would've happened anyway. Other kids would've figured out that guts and style and love for the real stuff were enough.

As Spin magazine gets thinner, to the point that you can slide last month's issue under the door of a steam room, the SXSW Spin party seems to bulk up more and more. It was certainly the A party at SXSW 2005, with an undercard featuring British buzz bands Bloc Party and the Futureheads, each having a chance to be this year's Franz Ferdinand — but also this year's Von Bondies. Bloc sounded way into the Cure, but they had a more muscular brand of moping. But the Futureheads stood out with a lanky, jerky guitar style that air-surfed the region between Gang of Four and the Clash.
— Michael Corcoran

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