SXSW: Thursday [Paul Thompson]

No Age [Mohawk Outside Stage; 1:30 p.m.]

"Beer is back there," No Age drummer/vocalist Dean Spunt pointed out at the Rhapsody Rocks Austin day party at Mohawk's outdoor stage, a finger towards the back of the crowd. "Pour it on your genitals when you get a chance." Welcome, friends, to a No Age show: Plenty of the swelling, sweltering noise-punk they do so well, sure, but with a little bit of Deano's deadpan and Randy Randall's off-the-cuff goofiness to break up some of the tension they themselves build in a crowd. "We're happy to be here at Rap City," guitarist Randy Randall quipped in a pun worthy of Pitchfork news. "I didn't know rap was still this popular, but I'm glad it's got a whole city devoted to it, and we are the mayors." Then they dedicated their next tune to Disney Channel/Randy's pedal star Hannah Montana. Funny guys.



On the serious, though, the things that people tell you about No Age being all transcendent and stuff live are far from exaggerated. The pair thrashed about admirably and worked every inch of the tiny stage including, as pictured, the top of a mighty tall speaker cabinet, squeezing (as they always do) every drop from every song. The Weirdo Rippers stuff sounds great, of course-- opener "Every Artist Needs a Tragedy", in particular, ripped weirdly in the early afternoon sun-- and the new ones, the ones from the forthcoming Nouns? Particularly "Eraser"? Maybe even better. "We're gonna play one more song," Spunt told us after being given the warning from the party brass, all the while holding up two fingers and shaking his head. They played two more.

Be Your Own Pet [Cedar Street Courtyard; 4 p.m.]



Everything was going great-- really great-- at Be Your Own Pet's mid-afternoon set at the Cedar Street Courtyard until bassist Nathan Vasquez's finger fell off. Well, not all of it: just, um, most of it. (That's it, that beige thing next to his heel. Yup. Gross. Sorry.)



Four seconds later, blood splattered all over the pickups, everything was going great again. Really great. "Nathan goes through basses like people with gonorrhea go through underwear," frontlady Jemina Pearl Abegg assured us. Then they tore into another one. No Band Aid required.



I'd never put a whole lot of effort into getting down on BYOP's records (no real reason for it, honest, beyond there being just a lotta damn bands around), but I know for certain that'll change after witnessing this perversely spirited session. This band is tight, funny, brash, weird; they go off like a cannon every time the beat drops, and-- to belabor an old point-- they're still just a bunch of kids. They weather things like busted hands and a lack of a setlist and what looked to be a four-person hangover ("I'm tired, I started drinking at 12 o'clock", Jemina mentioned at one point) by the sheer force of their deceptively dopey songs and, perhaps, their youthful exuberance or whatever. Blasting through quite a bit of their self-titled LP and the upcoming Get Awkward, stopping only to crack wise, they play like they're not planning on using those muscles again any time soon.

"Do you guys like Soulja Boy Tellem?", Jemina asked at a certain point to a decidedly lukewarm response from everyone but your reporter. "Well, do you or don't you? 'Cuz this is a cover of 'Crank Dat'." It wasn't, though if anyone could've pulled off such a stunt, I suspect it might've been them. "If this is your first Pet experience," guitarist Jonas Stein told us near the end of the set, "we're playing the Ecstatic Peace showcase tomorrow night." Jemina quickly "but only if it's your first. We don't want any sluts there." See you later, then.

Soiled Mattress & the Springs [Habana Annex Backyard; 9:20 p.m.]



One part Fred Wesley and the JBs, one part Boots Randolph and his Yakety Sax, and a whole lot of "Baker Street", New York ironic lounge-prog-jazz trio Soiled Mattress & the Strings were just about the weirdest thing going at their particular timeslot, which more than likely explains why the assembled crowd numbered around 40 (mostly from the other bands playing that evening). The band's style is largely their own, but as we've all learned, being unique is only part of the equation. Peter Schuette's occasionally showy, proggy synths don't always fit in with the reedy sax and the sound of the funky drummer quite like they should, but even in this silly mish-mash, these guys are certainly doing their own thing with melody, however skewed. Whenever they hit on a swanky little line, they mess it up a few seconds later, like an endless replay of that moment just as Coltrane breaks out of the "My Favorite Things" theme into umpteen minutes of improv. It's an endearing strangeness, for sure, and saxman Matthew Thurber sure does bring it to the stage and, when so moved, the area immediately in front of said stage. And I could swear one of their songs quotes the main riff from Shanice's breezy early 90s R&B-pop hit "I Like Your Smile", which is amazing whether it's intended or not. But apart from the nifty "Tidal Wave" (which you should track down, pronto), there's a sense these guys are making music more for themselves than for their 40 fans. There's something to be said for that, I think.

Mike Rep [Soho Lounge; 10:40 p.m.]



I stepped up the stairs and into the Siltbreeze showcase at the unusually posh Soho Lounge to the strains of a familiar sounding organ blast rumbling under a gloriously bent take on the Archies' "Sugar Sugar", and, hey, there were Times New Viking, several hours before they were to perform for their old label and spiritual brethren. But the dude standing at the front of the room was, to me, an unfamiliar face, and it took tracking down a real live Ohioan to clue me in on just who I was in the presence of. Mike Rep is an Ohio lo-fi legend, if this list of credits and the decades' worth of back catalog he kept alluding to have any bearing on the matter, and I'm told he "always plays around Columbus." Lucky Arch City folks. Rep deals in the same kind of big riffy pomo pop of Guided by Voices and his backing band for the evening, and though I'd not heard of the man before stumbling upon his rocking the hell out, it was clear his collaborators and much of his crowd were intimately familiar. "I've never played with a better bunch," he said of TNV, grinning ear to ear. They seemed positively touched by the comment, and judging by the adoration Rep inspired in the crowd, that's as it should be.



Psychedelic Horseshit [Soho Lounge; 11:20 p.m.]



The Siltbreeze m.o. can be summed up like so: instead of a bass drum, Rich Johnston helped the soundguy mic a cardboard box which he then held in place with a cinder block. See:



Upon taking the stage to set up his keyboard (missing a few keys towards the high end, natch), frontman Matt Whitehurst pulled a balled-up piece of paper out of his pocket and laid it on the rinky-dink Casio. Obviously, it was their setlist. Siltbreeze bands' gear is more junked up than the next dreck-pop label, their sound exponentially nastier sounding, but if you were to give 'em money for upgrades, they'd probably just spend it on weed or something and make do with their junk. As both a sound and a vision, it works.



Psychedelic Horseshit take their cues from those real early Pavement singles (who, I guess I'll be the millionth to mention, owe a debt to Wire and the Fall). PH, however, are somehow far snottier and still somehow more coherent than anything pre-Slanted. They're not so much catchy as they are enjoyably heady, with plenty of moments where a fist-pump or a huge guffaw would be apt. There's a sense that they might stop the show to make fun of you just 'cuz, though they saved that for a few more nefarious targets. "This song used to be about Deerhunter," Whitehurst said in introduction of Magic Flowers Droned's "New Wave Hippies", "but now it's about Yeasayer", and they changed a few of the lyrics to take a bit of the piss out of the hairy Brooklyn set. No longwinded jam-freaks, these guys, despite the first part of their name: Their set was over in 20 minutes, and that's a pretty generous estimate. From where I was standing, they could've gone on all night, but one suspects any longer and they would've grown bored.

High on Fire [Emo's Annex; 1 a.m.]



One has to find ways to stay moving down here in Austin when you're out show-going and BBQ-chewing and Lone Star-swilling for 12-plus hours a day (to say nothing of the poor suckers who have to wake up early and write about all the stuff they saw the day before then go out and do it again). Some opt for energy beverages, others sheer willpower, others get drunk and just go for it. Me, I'm starting to think metal shows are the answer. Have you ever actually thought, "crap, this incredible display of proficiency and ballast going on in front of my brain is putting me right to sleep?" Genghis Tron doesn't count.



High on Fire took the stage at Emo's Annex just a bit before 1:00 a.m. last night and proceeded to kick my ass in ways I, on four hours of sleep, never thought possible. Frontman/guitar god Matt Pike is as much the physical embodiment of rock'n'roll as Keith Moon or Lemmy Kilmeister or Mike Rep. I couldn't tell you what they played (I was inches from the right speakers, rendering anything but pure kaboom indecipherable) or put into words just why High on Fire's set was as good as any I saw on an otherwise very, very good day-- and the metalheads tossing up devil horns at Mr. Pike and crew seemed with me on that point. I missed Motörhead and Napalm Death earlier in the afternoon due to some technical difficulties, but I did stand five feet away while Matt Pike barnstormed the neck of his guitar, and I suspect in 10 years those two things will mean about the same thing.