Esquire's showcase at SXSW on Saturday is looking to be one of the hottest, um, wristbands in town, featuring a closing set from The Stooges, and a 10 p.m. set from the Nashville heart breakers The Kings of Leon.
Don't be left out in the cold. Get a sack of barbecue and camp in front of Stubb's, immediately after you wake up, or the closest you're going to get to the Followills is this video for "The Bucket."
Click the photo for an audio slideshow of Lesbian, representing Seattle's hard rock scene at SXSW.
Here's a look at a few of the band's Seattle's bringing to town next week. From the hip-hop beats of The Saturday Knights to experimental folk of Tiny Vipers, these bands encapsulate the city's eclectic scene.
The sea level in New York is gonna feel a little lower for the next few days. This here internerd tried to purchase plane tickets to Austin from New York at the very last minute and let me tell you: they do not exist. The point isn't that this SXSWer will be flying in and out of Dallas and driving to Austin (which we will), but rather that there're a shitload of New York bands playing down South. Voice music editor Rob Harvilla previewed five of them: Earl Greyhound, Matt & Kim, Aa, Masta Killa, and Oakley Hall. Do yourself a favor and check this shit.
Every day we'll be brining you a new podcast live from Austin, filled with live audio, artist interviews and some reports from real-life journalists.
We've got a couple podcasts in the can thus far, featuring conversations about bands our colleagues are excited to see. We even threw in a few audio samples for you to judge for yourself.
Click the photo for an audio slideshow featuring Oxford Collapse, Tiny Vipers and Loney, Dear.
The City of Austin is full of greasy hair, backbeats and sticky fingers.
You can't throw a rock down the street without hitting a bass player or his/her handler pimping a set later this week. I was in line for a belly of meat, bread and onions when a I was accosted by a member of The Hanks, who was handing out comic strips promoting their gig on Thurday night at tThe Troubadour Saloon. I may check it out purely out of appreciation of the clever pimping.
I stuck around for most of the Sub Pop showcase at Emo's, which featured a set from Loney, Dear, pictured above. Check out SXSW: The Daily Report Podcast for audio samples from the show and a few words from the Nashville-based teenage band Fouled Out.
Click the photo for an audio slideshow of Oakley Hall.
I'd love to sit around and talk about how great of a sunny afternoon dance band Oakley Hall was, but I just got word that Pete Townshend's gonna play an acoustic set across town in a few minutes. Hopefully I can get in.
At any rate, here's some live audio from the Hall's set at the Rhapsody party this afternoon.
Day Tripper: Pelican don't need no stinking lyrics, and Busdriver don't need no stinking hooks
Thu Mar 15, 2007 at 11:21:31 PM
While much of the music action goes down with the sun at SXSW -- when fans fill the streets and hustle from bar to bar, bathed in the light of neon signs -- there are plenty of afternoon gigs and showcases in the sun, too, and some are well worth braving the possible heat fatigue.
Two such examples are the Scion Showcase and the Sesac Day Stage Cafe in the Austin Convention Center.
The Scion Showcase, which took place on Thursday, March 15 from noon to 4 p.m. at Stubbs Bar BQ, wasn't listed in the SXSW Pocket Guide (very few daytime shows are). But the fliers for it were everywhere, announcing, "Meet The Melvins!" (DJ Haul, Boris, Panthers, and Pelican shared the showcase with the legendary bottom-heavy band).
Brooklyn-based Panthers were on the stage outside when we meandered through the crowd at Stubbs. Although they were finishing up their set, the last three songs Panthers played were hard-driving metal with a retro edge, reminiscent of bands like Wolfmother and Priestess, who are reminiscent of each other and Black Sabbath.
By the time Chicago band Pelican got on stage, the sun-scorched crowd outside numbered in the hundreds, including some guy who looked exactly like Lenny Kaye and could have easily been the rock critic/icon. (He wasn't; we asked).
Pelican's music is very heavy, built around intricate instrumentals that soar and lurch like a plane in a rain storm. Their sound is akin to intellectual metalheads Isis, minus the unintelligible lyrics (or any lyrics at all, for that matter). 15 minutes into their set, nobody in Pelican got anywhere near a microphone. But the audience ate up the epic instrumentals -- bouncing, screaming, and nodding their heads along to each new timing change. Pelican shows that a band doesn't need tightly packaged pop songs (or even lyrics) to pull in an audience and keep them there.
But the highlight of the Thursday afternoon shows was L.A.'s Busdriver , who performed at the Sesac Day Stage Cafe. An underground hip-hop MC with a biting wit and quick spits, Busdriver's high-energy performance was nothing short of extraordinary, considering his plane had landed in Austin just a couple of hours before he was scheduled to play.
I caught a couple of acts on the Day Stage Cafe before Busdriver went on. The first was St. Vincent -- one woman with an electric guitar who had not only PJ Harvey's warped blues-twang guitar stylings and whisper-to-a-wail vocal histrionics, but also Harvey's hairdo and wardrobe taste. Using two microphones to create a harmonic, psychedelic echo and a stomp board for rhythms, St. Vincent showed she's got some serious songwriting chops, even if she lacks the instruments to dress up her compositions to keep them from sounding like naked demos. Give this woman a band, and she might be on to something great.
Oakley Hall played a whopping four songs after St. Vincent, and the brevity was good. The six-piece band had some great harmonies, but the music was so low-pulse as to be almost dead -- a very mellow hippie/Americana vibe, or as the guy sitting next to us remarked, "Riders of the Purple Sage meets Neil Young" (although the latter comparison may be too generous). The group's set ended with a smattering of applause from the 20 or so people in the room.
Busdriver, on the other hand, came out to a packed house, looking exhausted and experiencing technical difficulties with his DJ's equipment. A rock star or hip-hop honcho might've bemoaned the circumstances and delivered a half-assed performance. Busdriver did neither. He just grabbed a microphone and started freelancing while his DJ sorted out the sound snafus.
At the end of the freestyle, Busdriver was greeted with a roar of applause, and busted right into another rap, with his DJ finally plugged in behind him.
One of the things that makes Busdriver a hip-hop anomaly is that his songs don't have hip-hop "hooks." There are no riffs ripped from The Police, no melodic choruses sung by sexy female singers, no catchy synthesizer sequences. Busdriver's sound is as organic as it can be without a live band behind him. He uses multiple microphones to effect harmony and moves the mic around his mouth while singing to simulate breaks and fades.
The socially-conscious MC looked ready to lapse into a coma before this show, but once onstage, he looked like he was ready to ride a rocket. He never stopped moving, dancing, and gesturing. His dizzying rhymes and witty wordplay poured out like the sweat that drenched his RUN-DMC shirt. The atmosphere inside the room was electric, and at the end of his 20-minute set, the audience gave Busdriver a standing ovation.
6th Street-walking: Jibberjabbering With the Locals
Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 01:49:21 AM
Names: Mike (left), Jimmie (right) "spelled with ie." Spotted: 6th and Brazos, Austin.
You live in Austin? How do you like it?
It's kind of overrated. I'm thinking about moving.
Jimmie, what's that a nickname for?
Jimmie: That's it. James is my name, but I'm not Jemima or anything. I'm not black.
I can see that. What've you been doing so far?
Jimmie: We've been seeing free shows and drinking cheap beer.
What've you seen?
Jimmie: I've seen Boris and the Melvins. I'm all about where I can go for free or get cheap beer. I can't wait for the FREE PUBLIC ENEMY concert! points down to where it'll be held.
What's it like being from Austin and having all these people here for the week?
Mike: It's too much having all these people here.
Jimmie: There's more attractive guys than usual. I can walk around and just be like, hellloooo.
Mike: A lot of girls.
Jimmie: A lot of girls with big butts and boobs, so I can [makes ass-squeezing motion with her hands] and then say he did it.
What's your tattoo?
Jimmie: It's a dancing robot. It's my souvenir from Phoenix, Arizona.
What does a dancing robot have to do with Phoenix?
Jimmie: I wanted a dancing robot and I went to Phoenix for two weeks to hang out with a friend and I was like, 'I'm here and i should get a souvenir.'
So I guess you won't ever forget Phoenix.
Jimmie: I know, isn't that awesome?
Such was the offer of an Austin native to Seattle synth-pop band The Trucks, who rocked the stage at Tap Room @ Six on Thursday, March 15. The four-piece all-female band definitely looked like the grooviest potential houseguests ever, wearing dark green and hot pink men's undies over fishnets and crazy tops, like a skimpy hot pink bra and a shiny silver disco ball-looking shirt.
Musically, The Trucks are all about the rhythm section and the keyboards -- there was a bass player, a drummer, and two keyboardists/singers (no gee-tar here, thank you). The energy of the group never ebbed as they worked their way through the upbeat, dancy, snarky songs on their self-titled debut album (out now on ClickPop). From the pretty little murder ditty "Come Back" (which contains the priceless lyrics "I use my hands because I like it/Guns aren't bad, they're just not quiet") to the bouncy "Shattered" (where they repeatedly assert "No, I won't sit nice and be quiet") to the ghoulie groove of "Zombie," the band kept the 40 or so people that were packed into the bar dancing and screaming, with singer/keyboardist Kristin Allen-Zito shamelessly working the keys without her fake front tooth and sticking her tongue out at enthusiastic intervals. The Trucks even got the audience to clap along to two comedic a capella songs that aren't on their album ("Pervs in the Bushes" and "Johnny Cash," the latter of which asserts something along the lines of "Johnny Cash never seemed gay, how could he choose a man over me?")
When the band got offstage, they were surrounded by so many people wanting pictures and CDs that venue security yelled at the group no less than three times to hurry up and pack their gear so the next band could go on.
Fair enough. After all, The Trucks were a hard enough act to follow without cutting into the next band's loading and sound check time.
SXSW: The Daily Report for Thursday — Cold War Kids, Jesse Sykes and Pete Townshend
Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 09:51:11 AM
Click the photo for an audio slideshow of Cold War Kids, featuring live audio from their set, Thursday evening, at South By Southwest.
Check out SXSW: The Daily Podcast for more live audio from the Cold War Kids, and a few words on Pete Townshend's lackluster surprise appearance at girlfriend Rachel Fuller's set.
Holy Shit: Slash, Perry Farrell, Tom Morello, Les Claypool, Wayne Kramer Onstage Together @ SXSW
Fri Mar 16, 2007 at 04:38:50 PM
Like playing Guitar Hero, only REAL: Slash, Tom Morello, Les Claypool onstage early this morning at the Parish.
Click on this shit for the full effect.
Holy double motherfuck. I have so much to tell you about this thing they call South By Southwest, but this comes first. I saw Slash early this morning at The Parish, a club with the capacity of 450. Slash! Totally unannounced and crazy. Bring out the 12-year-old fan-girl: It was the most surreal, awesomest thing ever. He was onstage in that Appetite For Destruction hat, cigarette dangling from his lips, pubic head-hair in full effect, wnka-wnka-wnkaing away on his guitar. Did I mention with Tom Morello? And Perry Fuckin' Farrell? And Wayne Kramer from MC5? And Les Claypool? And -- I have no idea how this happened -- Alexi Murdoch? And Extreme embarrassment Nuno Bettencourt? And they fuckin' played "Kick Out the Jams." And Jane's Addiction's "Ain't No Right." And Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Our Land." Give me a few minutes to mainline some Red Bull and I'll tell you more.
Click the photo for an audio slideshow of The Horrors at the Village Voice Media Party at South By Southwest.
The Horrors just played a three-and-a-half song set at La Zona Rosa. Frontman Feris Badwan was in top form showcasing his ticks. He wrapped himself in some kind of paper chain blanket, dove into the audience and had his moments curled up on the floor.
The Bravery slept through their set at the Village Voice Media Party
But, I have to say, they appeared well groomed and clean. They probably got a shower this morning. Maybe that's why their set lacked in the rock category.
Although, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. I could only take about three minutes of the set.
On Friday, March 16, Phoenix-based band The Breakup Society rocked the patio stage at Habana Calle 6, during the Get Hip Records showcase. It was a miracle the garage/pop/rock band made the gig at all -- the group left Phoenix to make the drive to Austin late on Wednesday night, but they didn't arrive Thursday evening, thanks to a massive wreck on the I-10 Interstate involving Hazmat trucks. Once in Austin, the band frantically searched for a room, finally landing lodging at some Budget Inn that was nowhere near downtown.
The bad luck streak didn't seem to dampen the band's spirits, though -- when they got onstage to play a slew of songs from their catchy retro rock album, James at 35, the band was all energy (despite some hard-to-hear vocals), with front man Ed Masley doing Joe Strummer jumps and splits, and cracking jokes with the audience between songs. Here are some of his quotable quips:
"You're beautiful. But it could just be the lighting."
(Following the bass player's announcement that his microphone was shocking him): "The mic is shocking him, he says on the last night of his life."
"This is a love song. Aren't they all?"
"If you want to hear more lead guitar and less effectual rhythm guitar, shout out 'Turn it up.'"
