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There's no easy way to sum up a week without vegetables. There's plenty of one-sided banter, live audio and interviews on our daily SXSW podcasts. But, in short, here's what I'm still thinking about, two days home from South By Southwest.

Best Show: Cold War Kids

Click the photo to watch an audio slideshow of Cold War Kids at SXSW. 

From the moment they took the stage, Thursday night, the band never wavered in it's intense delivery of lyrics that stop traffic and beats that can choke snakes.

More on "SXSW: Sticky, Dirty, Salty, Stinky"

Riverfront Times freelancer Jaime Lees is a huge Stooges fan. Here's her report on the group's set at Stubbs.

It's hard to find the line between journalistic appreciation and gushing fan girl. There have been quite a few occasions when I've had to put aside my love of Converse-wearing guitarists or cowbell-crushing drummers in order to sound more professional or just to get my point across.

So, here's my confession: Finding objectivity is especially hard when writing this. Not to be too Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, but the Stooges are one of my all-time, top-five favorite bands. In my heart, this is real rock & roll. It's dirty. It's raw. It's loud. It's got soul. And I think the riff from "T.V. Eye" might still be the hottest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. (See? "Hottest"? Forgive me, I can't stop myself.)

More on "Shake It: The Stooges at SXSW"

Click the photo to watch an audio slideshow of last night's show featuring live audio from KOL's set.

Kings of Leon: After Palo Nutini; before Spoon; even more before The Stooges
Would Meatface Approve? Yes. And he'd give a kick to the Scrabble bag to any hipster who said otherwise.
Random Quote: After Spoon, "Hey, I hear the Arctic Monkeys are the special guests at La Zona Rosa. Let's skip Iggy and check it out." (It was actually Perry Farrell's Satellite Party. And yes, we did skip Iggy.)

The centerpiece above my fireplace isn't a bust or my forefathers, it's a concert poster of a previous Kings of Leon show at Stubb's. So, to say catching this show was mandatory would be as understated as saying Lone Star beer comes from Texas and tastes "okay."

The first time I saw Kings of Leon, they were playing to a handful of peeps at a side stage at Lollapalooza 2003. Perry Farrell and Janes Addiction were the main attraction. But last night, KOL was at the big dance and Farrell was pitching his latest meal ticket to a less-than-half-full La Zona Rosa. What a happy turn of events.

It was the best I've heard the band, taking steps away from the record versions of tracks off Youth and Young Manhood and Aha Shake Heartbreak, and introducing a few tracks to be heard on next month's Because of the Times. I'm reserving full judgment of the new material till I get a proper listen to the album, but it's obvious that the band's injecting some new ideas into its red-dirt rock that fueled the first two records. The songs are more anthemic, full of fuzz and at times turn away from the dusty roads that made KOL more than a trite, 21st-Century Skynyrd. They've always offered more, but there were moments in the new material that felt like desperate pleas toward a lower common denominator.

Right, but I'm reserving judgment.

We figured that most of the people packed onto the patio at Red 7 on Friday, March 16, were there to see seminal punks J Church. The SxSW Pocket Guide listed "special guests" as the act that would follow J Church, and we hadn't a clue as to who the guests would be.

The audience clearly had a clue, though, because when the "special guests" took to the stage, the crowd was shouting along to the song lyrics, pumping their fists, and enthusiastically flinging beer everywhere. The band was Austin's own Riverboat Gamblers, and the performance they were about to give was nothing short of a decadent punk rock spectacle.

While Riverboat Gamblers charged through their super high-energy songs, singer Mike "Teko" Wiebe put on a performance that even the infamous Iggy Pop may have a hard time matching when The Stooges play tonight at Stubb's. Wiebe never stopped moving -- racing from one end of the stage to the other, jumping off the drum riser, diving into the crowd to crowd surf, climbing on top of the monitors, and literally swinging from the rafters, and not in a way that looked remotely safe.

The first time Wiebe did it, he climbed atop the monitors, grabbed one of the bars that held up the patio tent, and swung across the rafters, monkey bars-style, all the way to the other end of the stage. The second time, he launched himself off the drum riser, grabbed hold of a rafter, and swung back and forth over the crowd. During the last song, Wiebe climbed up onto the rafter to the far left of the stage and hung upside down from his knees, where he stayed, singing red-faced through the final song of the set.

Did we mention that Wiebe was sick? Well, we'd have never known it from his performance, but he let the audience know."I'm sick tonight," Wiebe told the crowd. "I've got bronchitis, tonsilitis, and a touch of Down's Syndrome."

Someone in the crowd commented, "Oh my god, I wonder what the performance is like when he's not sick."

In addition to his explosive energy and kamikaze stage stunts, Wiebe had the best between-song banter we've heard all week.

"Bronchitis is for the birds," he said. 'I injected Vitamin B directly into my dick today."

More on "Riverboat Gamblers: Austin's own swings from the rafters...literally"

Stalking. Shimmying. Hands-on-hips swivels. Tight-ass visible through blinding glitter pants. Just play one of the old ones and we’ll eat out of your hands.

Perry Farrell’s back catalog gives him the right to make those giant gestures onstage --grandiose, tai-chi movements, arms cutting through the air as if altering time and space. We allow the ass-shaking. It’s ok. It’s Perry. He might play one of the old ones. You know, the songs that alternated between pumping your blood white-hot agro and getting the mood set for a threesome. That cred let us forgive that he’s allowing his wife, Etty, be onstage as a backup singer in his new band, Satellite Party. We’re cool. We had the same contract with McCartney: just play a few of the old ones, and we’ll look past Linda on keyboards (the big difference being Perry’s wife is built like Pamela and moves like Jameson). Skin and bones and pointy nose. And 40-something? It’s alright.
Perry’s power-of-life stage proclamations: “What’s up family? Family of Light lands in Austin Texas, and oooooooooooooo, what a gentle landing it was. I almost feel like I am still floating” would be embarrassing if not for that back catalog--that, and the confidence we all have in knowing that he actually believes that shit.

But it’s been a long time since Perry wrote the accompanying soundtrack to our life-altering events. We must always remember: David Lee Roth has a great back catalog as well. Fifteen years is a wide-open window for self-parody.

Farrell’s Satellite Party is meant to be a collection of artists—Steve Lillywhite, Flea and John Frusciante, New Order’s Peter Hook, Fergie, Jim Morrison (yes)—experimenting with new sounds and creating a hybrid category of music. It won’t change the world. Won’t change your life. But it has more promise than Perry’s previous post-Janes’ projects.

On stage last night was Perry’s new guitarist (and co-producer) Nuno Bettencourt. Seeing the guy who wrote “Get the Funk Out,” performing half windmills on “Ain’t No Right,” was a bit unnerving, but the guy from Extreme has the chops, if not the subtleties to lay down something ethereal for Perry to float above. Dave Navarro was influenced by Robert Smith (you can hear The Cure all over “Three Days”); Nuno was influenced by Eddie Van Halen. It shows onstage, and Perry will have to rope him in every so often.

Though Perry has been talking a lot of hip-hop in this new rock-and -roll-can-save-the-world blender project, the sound was just not there. Reggae? Check. Middle eastern ? A bit. Psychedelia? Sure. If Perry is so enamored of hip-hop and DJs, he should have a live one onstage.

But that didn’t matter last night. After two days of seeing the young and old prowl around, stare at the floor, try to act tough, try to act rock star, the crowd at Stubb's was dying to see the real deal.

Perry delivered. He commanded. Few knew these songs, but the band was solid. And there was a rock star. So much so, that your eyes were drawn more to Perry than his skirt-up-to-there/chest-out-to-here muse on his right.

The hard-charging “Insanity Rains,” was hard not to like. “Ultrapayloaded Satellite Party,” merged Spanish guitars with a Middle Eastern flair. Yes, the show seemed to have peaked at the old song he graced us with: “Ain’t No Right.”

But the “Mountain Song”-like intro to set closer “Celebrate,” teased the crowd into thinking another old one was coming. When the disappointment wore off, we instead got a killer closer, full of Perry’s life-affirming mumbo, only now, the audience was participating. It was the highlight of the evening—something new and not just unhorrible, but potentially great---and offered promise that this thing might just work.
“I just want to grab you by the hair and fuck you,” Perry told the audience near the end of the set. By that stage of the game, half of the crowd would have let him.

Random quote: “If I wanted to see four guys jerk off surrounding a chick with big tits, I would have gone on the internet. Not pay 40 bucks.”

Click the photo for an audio slideshow for Rev.'s set.

Please forgive my brevity, but I just fell asleep for 10 minutes with this computer on my lap and I can't afford to let that happen again. I hear the computer-in-lap consequences are a lot worse than if I bored you to television with a sophisticated report on the day, highlighted by Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band.

The band in question is the good reverend on guitar and vocals, his wife, Breezy, on washboard, and Jayme on drums. I'd call it minimalism if there wasn't so much going on with the limited instrumentation. And at the very least, the band's raw energy is a slap in the face to overproduction and cheesy stage and studio antics that have dominated rock and roll.

The intensity behind Rev's eyes tells more of a story than most bands hope to tell with all their fancy machinery, which, unfortunately, too often does not include a washboard.

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.'"

Our associate, Victoria Renard, was all up in Iggy's grill when The Stooges played (Seattle radio station) KEXP's broadcast from Austin City Limits.

Click the photo for an audio slideshow.

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.

Here's a piece of the set.

Requires Quicktime to view. Visit www.apple.com to download.

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.

And it's only 4 p.m.

"Move here! You guys can stay with me!"

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.

More on "The Trucks: No, they won't sit nice and be quiet"

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.

More on "Day Tripper: Pelican don't need no stinking lyrics, and Busdriver don't need no stinking hooks"

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.