Photos: Pitchfork/Windish Austin Bash

Emo's photos by Nilina Mason-Campbell; Emo's Jr. photos by Stacy Schwartz (unless otherwise indicated); Above: No Age by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Pitchfork and the Windish Agency hosted a party Friday afternoon that just so happened to coincide with the SXSW festivities. And what a party it was! No Age, A Place to Bury Strangers, Yeasayer, Times New Viking, Fleet Foxes, Atlas Sound, Bon Iver, Fuck Buttons, Jay Reatard, White Williams, Lykke Li, and High Places all brought the good stuff to Emo's and Emo's Jr. Here's what it looked like:

High Places [Emo's Jr.; 12 p.m.]




Lykke Li [Emo's; 12:30 p.m.]








White Williams [Emo's Jr.; 1 p.m.]




Jay Reatard [Emo's; 1:30 p.m.]






Fuck Buttons [Emo's Jr.; 2 p.m.]





Photo 3 by Matthew Solarski

Bon Iver [Emo's; 2:30 p.m.]








Atlas Sound [Emo's Jr.; 3 p.m.]



Bottom photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Fleet Foxes [Emo's; 3:30 p.m.]




Times New Viking [Emo's Jr.; 4 p.m.]



Bottom photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell

Yeasayer [Emo's; 4:30 p.m.]






A Place to Bury Strangers [Emo's Jr.; 5 p.m.]


No Age [Emo's; 5:30 p.m.]

SXSW: Friday [Amy Phillips]

The Ting Tings [Stubb's; 8:00 p.m.]

The Ting Tings have one great song: "That's Not My Name". It's a sassy little kiss-off that rides a bump n grind beat to an ecstatic finale, with singer/guitarist Katie White shouting the title over a chorus of multi-tracked Katies.

The British duo closed their set with "That's Not My Name", crushing everything they played before it. But hey, one great song is a lot more than most buzz bands plying their wares at SXSW can boast, right? The Ting Tings also have charisma and a grasp of rhythm and heft that's sorely lacking in most of their NME-boosted peers, which makes me think they might stick around. They just need to come up with a few more great songs.

Santogold [Stubb's; 9:00 p.m.]

Yet another artist riding a tsunami of hype to a prime SXSW slot, Santogold seems to be everybody's Next Big Thing pick, including the people at Downtown Recordings, who will issue her album this summer. The incessant hype has left a bad taste in my mouth, but I like Santogold's two songs (the rumbling "Creator" and "L.E.S. Artistes", which totally rips Madonna's "Die Another Day", amirite?), so I thought I'd give her a chance and check out her live show.

Well, consider me an official member of Team Santogold as of 9:30 p.m. last night.

First of all, this girl can sing. Really sing. Second of all, she has songs. Real songs, with hooks and choruses and twitchy, polyglot beats (some courtesy of Diplo, who acted as her DJ during the brief, 20-minute set). Third of all, she has backup singer/dancers who mostly stand there looking fierce, but every now and then bust out the choreography. Fourth of all, she has a crazy cute smile.

I've heard Santogold dismissed as an MIA clone due to the two women's penchant for culture- and genre-hopping, as well as their shared collaborators (Diplo, Switch). But you know what? I'm GLAD there are two musically omnivorous, defiantly individualistic women out there with strong, colorful personalities and fascinating backstories. In fact, I wish there were more! It's not like only one retro garage rock band is allowed to be popular at a time, or there aren't a hundred shoegazer outfits all vying for the same accolades. If we're OK with salivating over both Jay Reatard and King Khan, or My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes, then we should be OK with giving our love to both MIA and Santogold.

Biz3 showcase [Emo's; 10:30 p.m.]

SXSW is full of wacky promotional ideas, from bands dressing up like robots/cowboys/cheerleaders to hand out fliers on Sixth Street to corporations plastering their names all over every inch of space (my hotel room key is sponsored by Island Records).

But far and away my favorite promotional idea of SXSW so far was the Kid Sister Pro Nails salon at the Biz3 showcase at Emo's. In the merch booth in a corner of the main space, a trio of manicurists painted patrons' nails for free, helping us all look just a little bit more fabulous.

I got mine done up bright red while watching Does It Offend You, Yeah? play. This, my friends, is the life.

That up there is a photo of Graham Walsh of Holy Fuck getting his nails did.

Mika Miko [Emo's IV; 12:00 a.m.]

Paul Thompson covered Mika Miko's extremely brief 8 p.m. set at the Lovepump showcase, and while their midnight set at the Kill Rock Stars showcase was short, at 30 minutes it was quite a bit longer than the earlier one.

Mika Miko are the sexiest band I've seen so far at SXSW, so effortlessly cool and confident and just plain down and dirty ROCKING. The pristine confines of Emo's IV made for an odd location to watch their grimy scuzz-punk in action, but the amped up crowd pogoed like we were all in some rat-infested basement.

I wish more bands like Mika Miko existed-- fearless girl gangs fucking shit up whenever they hit the stage. You know, bringing us back to the glory days of L7, Babes in Toyland, and 7 Year Bitch. Can we make that happen please?

Robyn [Pangea; 1:00 a.m.]

Pangea is a douchebag dance club infamous for its bottle service policy. Outside, there's a line of women in micro-minis and heels, accompanied by dudes wearing too much hair gel, waiting to get in. When I go to the bathroom, the girl behind me is startled by her reflection in the mirror. "Omigod!" she squeals to her friend. "I totally thought somebody just came up right behind me!"

When we arrive, the Vines-- who apparently are still a band-- are covering Outkast's "Ms. Jackson".

This, I say, is what hell is like.

A half hour later, Robyn is on stage, doing a medley of Snoop's "Sexual Eruption" and Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It". She's accompanied by two drummers and a keyboardist, and she's mugging it up like she's the biggest pop star in the world (which she totally should be). Everybody is going absolutely crazy.

This is what heaven is like.

That's the power of Robyn-- she literally lights up the room with her presence. "There are so many of you, and so much of me," she stated near the end of her set.

I don't think I could have picked a better set list. "Be Mine!", "Handle Me", "Who's That Girl", "Konichiwa Bitches", "With Every Heartbeat", "Cobrastyle", a version of "Show Me Love" accompanied only by drum pad beats that sounded just like the Knife's OneMusic version of "Heartbeats", a cover of Prince's "Jack U Off".

I am totally gay for Robyn right now.

These young men in the audience also seemed to be enjoying Robyn's performance a great deal:

SXSW: Friday [Paul Thompson]

Mika Miko [Flaming Cantina; 8 p.m.]

Mika Miko were either the first or second band I stuck into South by Southwest's showcase search engine deal. I have been turning Mika Miko's C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. over quite a bit in the last few weeks, I'm convinced the music coming out of the L.A. underground right now is among the best in the world, and I've never seen 'em before, so I had big plans to head down to the Flamingo and let 'em punk rock me for a while. A while, mind. Not six minutes.



Mika Miko were on first at the Panache/Lovepump showcase, and all five of 'em rolled into the club just about the time the Flamingo staff started admitting those of us in the small line that'd formed along 6th Street. They must've soundchecked beforehand, cuz they were raring to go, and I reckon I should've mentally prepared myself for a brief little blast when red phone-wielding singer Jennifer "Victor Fandgore" Clavin nonchalantly told the 50 or so folks in the crowd "we're going to play five songs."

The thing is, C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. jams 13 songs into just over 20 minutes, so five Mika Miko songs is, well, not a real long time. In their short stint onstage, they were good-- they hurried a bit too much to really be great, though it's there-- and they looked to be having a hell of a good time doing what they did. Hard to say just what this was a showcase for excepting perhaps brevity, but I sure hope they played a little more of the 45 minutes they were allotted at the Kill Rock Stars shebang later on in the evening. I was pretty bummed, but a minute later, I saw Bushwick Bill being interviewed in the middle of 6th Street, and that kinda made up for it.



Herman Dune [Stephen's F Bar; 9 p.m.]



I caught Herman Dune in a posh hotel lounge a block or so away from the downtown mobocracy, the kind of spot where they serve neon cocktails in all manner of fruit flavors and you feel kind of weird being all unshowered and covered in handstamps. It turned out to be a fine setting for Dune's sweet, silly Jonathan Richman-inspired, country-tinged American pastorals, made all the more charming by the fact that Dune is both French and seemingly the nicest man walking the earth at this moment. Dune's peppy little numbers about love and driving in cars are perfect mixtape fodder, and Dune knows how to work the crowd, alternating between a showy Chuck Berry duck-walk and a meek "thank you veddy much" to close every tune. "I don't know if you have had a chance to be puppetized," Dune muttered, "but I have." He then brought out a friend who manned a Dune puppet through "1-2-3 Apple Tree" to pretty amusing effect. The set occasionally threatened to veer towards the precious-- especially with the puppet, and especially in this pristine setting where even the appletini set were chuckling at his punchlines-- but the songs are just a bit too strong for that, and Dune curses just a tad too much for them to get too cute.



Telepathe [Emo's IV Lounge; 10 p.m.]

I took the kind of risk with Telepathe you're supposed to down here, I think: I went to see the Brooklyn trio having heard precisely one of their songs in my life: "I Can't Stand It", a swirly thing from the Rare Book Room's just-released Living Bridge compilation. "I Can't Stand It" is the jam, one of the best tracks on one of the better compilations in recent memory, pushing a big melody all over the place. And I was pretty jazzed to get a shot at seeing them play a few more tunes not unlike it and writing a nice thing about how we should maybe watch out for Telepathe.

And, in fact, you should watch out for Telepathe. They're not very good.



Live, Telepathe feature uncoordinated, awkward dancing, inaudible chatting, the occasional tuneless singing and some sorta spacey, minimal beats. That's really and truly about it. As a bit of confrontational theatre, it's interesting enough for maybe one "song," and then you get to wondering when the hell they're gonna stop swiveling and play something that resembles music. I scooted in a few minutes after they started and may have missed "I Can't Stand It", but believe me when I tell you nothing else they played is even in the same ballpark. This, I imagine, is what people who don't think much of the spare, shimmering High Places think of High Places, but at least those two put some tune in their tunes. This was just formless, dull, and, eventually, grating. Maybe I'm missing something.

Panther [Emo's IV Lounge; 11 p.m.]



Just shy of a year ago, I saw Panther play in this weird converted autoshop in Chicago. Armed only with an iPod full of spasmodic funk of his own design and some fleet footwork, Charlie Salas-Humara gave one of the only good performances I've ever seen using the generally dubious (or, I've noticed, generally electroclash) iPod-as-backing band setup. I was really into the satisfyingly strange Secret Lawns at that point, which I'd say is a lot closer to the record Beck should've made after Midnite Vultures than anything he's done since.

Panther recently became a duo, Salas-Humara recently enlisted Joe Kelly, late of 31Knots, to sit behind the drums both live and on record, and recent MySpace bulletins would suggest they're looking for a third. Yeah, the drums add a nice kick to the room, and the more streamlined funk explorations of the recent 14 kt God do sound better live than on record. But compared to Secret Lawns, which hit you at all angles at all times with its buzzing synths and Brainiac rhythms, the tunes are just a little dumb and more than a little too simplistic, and that's also made a bit clearer when it's just a dude chanting over a guy smacking the snare. And, since Salas-Humara now has an electronics rig and, eventually, a guitar to attend to, his dancing-- a sight to behold, as you can see here-- is broken up every few seconds by another knob to turn. It was a thoroughly okay performance, but I miss the dude with the jambox holding out his palm and blowing invisible pixie dust all over everything. Now that I would've liked to've seen again.



Kid Sister [Emo's Main Room; 12:10 a.m.]



I wrangled my way into the capacity crowd at Emo's specifically to catch Kid Sister and Clipse, but was told by the friendly young lady working the door that they were running "impossibly late." So, poor me, I had to catch the Cool Kids' last couple songs and then power through DJ A-Trak's cavalcade of remixes. The Cool Kids were live as ever, and I'm a little biased towards anybody who shouts out the Chi so often, but I was too far back to really engage with it. I muscled up a little close for A-Trak's jerky set, who threw out roughly as many bangers as he did pleas for the crowd to shout out his label, Fool's Gold, in an "are you ready to rumble?" voice. If they were trying to get me amped for what was coming-- and they were, cuz they told me-- mission accomplished.



And then, to the strains of the "Monday Night Football" theme, out popped Kid Sister. I know we cover Kid Sis and the whole Chicago scene on display here a lot in these diary things, but there's a reason for it: Live and in the flesh, Kid Sister is a sexy beast and a party monster, drawing all eyes to her even as those Chromeo goofballs mugged in the background. Kid Sis doesn't have a whole lot of songs to her credit at this point-- though that'll change soon-- so they're all familiar favorites to anybody with an ear to the hype machine. But the set was tempered by mic issues, and a lyrical gal like Kid Sister had to work extra hard to impress a crowd who couldn't make out a damn word she was saying. With her guy A-Trak on the boards and baby bro/Flosstradamus party-starter J2K echoing her lines, Kid Sister goofed with the crowd, juked and switchboarded and all that, and basically just got awesome all over the spot. And that's Kid Sister minus her best quality: all that glorious mess she's always talking.

Clipse [Emo's Main Room; 12:50 a.m.]



Kid Sister is a party, but Clipse is some contemplative head-nod shit. Sure, they bring the heat, and there's probably not a better live hip-hop act out there (though the one right before 'em is up there), but the incongruity of a bunch of soused indie rockers dry-humping to a bunch of songs about yayo makes me think not everybody there was really listening. Clipse, it probably goes without saying at this point, are absolutely at the top of their lyrical game right now, and their Re-Up Gang's recent third volume of their We Got It for Cheap mixtape series finds the foursome pruning some of their ill-fated commercial tendencies and honing their masterful craft even further. Still, there was a party going on right before Clipse showed, and a party it remained, which seemed to add fuel to Malice and particularly Pusha T's fire. Maybe dancing to Clipse isn't such a bad idea after all.

It was, in many ways, just your typical Clipse show: They came out, knocked every last line out of the park, bemoaned their recent commercial failings, asked if anybody had actually paid money for Hell Hath No Fury (how could you not buy that record?), and barely gave themselves a moment to breathe for the better part of an hour. The energy those two bring to the stage, disconsonant dancing from the crowd notwithstanding, is bigger than two dudes and a handful of great rap songs, and they're right to think they should be near the top of everyone's list. Not surprisingly, they eventually brought out Ab-Liva and, later, Sandman, and, with the Re-Up Gang assembled, tore through a good chunk of the new mixtape. Bringing out more folks at a rap show, as you probably know, is almost never a good idea, but Sandman and particularly Liva are operating on a level not that far from Clipse's, and it was a pretty great moment to be laughing right along with Pusha T at Liva's line in "Ride Around Shining" about how he'll "make Oliver Twist like Dickens". "No radio play, no video play," Pusha once again pointed out. "Ya'll the motherfuckers who kept us alive." Man, you are so welcome.

SXSW: Friday [Matt LeMay]

[Photos by Christine Tadler]

Portastatic [French Legation Museum; 3 p.m.]

Chris Brokaw [French Legation Museum; 3:30 p.m.]

On a tip from a poster outside Emo's, we crossed I-35 to see Other Music's All Roads Lead to Austin party at the French Legation Museum. This is my first SXSW, and I've seen a lot of awesome stuff so far, but holy crap this show takes the cake. We staked out a good spot to watch Portastatic play a brief and charming acoustic set under a big white tent, then settled under a tree to hear Chris Brokaw (formerly of sadly overlooked Matador band Come) do a lovely acoustic set of his own.

Yo La Tengo [French Legation Museum; 4 p.m.]

At 4 p.m., Yo La Tengo took the main stage, playing a more laid-back set than their blistering performance at the Austin Music Hall on Thursday. This kind of setting is where the band's versatility really shines; Yo La Tengo were able to effortlessly recast songs like "Autumn Sweater" as sunny, relaxed summertime jams. Their set was a mere half-hour long, but didn't seem at all rushed and perfectly fit the party's mood.

Portastatic [The Parish; 8 p.m.]

As people lined up outside the Parish in the hopes of making it into Merge's stellar showcase, Portastatic (aka Superchunk's Mac McCaughan) reprised his earlier solo acoustic set with a few exciting additions. The last two Portastatic albums, the upbeat Bright Ideas and the more intricate and arranged Be Still Please are both fantastic, and selections from those records were particularly exciting (even though McCaughan couldn't seem to remember the lyrics to "I Wanna Know Girls"). A new song, about a fictional road trip to Amarillo, was also excellent, chock full of the soaring melodic turns that mark McCaughan's best work.

She & Him [The Parish; 12 a.m.]

By the time She & Him took the stage at midnight, the Parish was absolutely packed. M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, whose voice is disarmingly lovely in a live setting, played an understated and twangy set to a room of rapt listeners. A cover of "You've Really Got a Hold On Me" made a good case for the band's broad, nostalgic appeal.

Destroyer [The Parish; 1 a.m.]

Fun fact about Destroyer live shows: When drummer Fisher Rose is playing with the band, they're about 20 times better. Dan Bejar let loose tonight more than I've seen in years, ripping through a set of material from This Night, Your Blues, and the soon-to-be-released Trouble in Dreams. The new songs ("My Favorite Year" and "Dark Leaves Form a Thread" in particular) were the best of the night, perfectly brought to life by Rose's insistent and muscular drumming and guitarist Nicholas Bragg's unending melodic runs. Destroyer, it seems, are well on their way to being a great live band.

Additional Photos:

Little Teeth [Maggie Mae's Rooftop; 9 p.m.]

Shout Out Louds [The Parish; 11 p.m.]

SXSW: Friday [Tyler Grisham]

[above: Mae Shi]

I had just seen Fuck Buttons at our own party and yet I kicked off my night searching them out again. That kind of thing happens at SXSW. Or you might travel a dozen blocks out of the way to catch your favorite hometown band. Or you might stumble on the noisiest, most energetic group of overworked kids at the festival. If you were me, you'd do all these things.

Snowglobe [Opal Divine's; 9 p.m.]


I grew up in Memphis, a city with a lot of musical past, but a somewhat shaky musical present. Aside from Jay Reatard's hepatitic punk scene, one's options for a weekend concert in the Bluff City are rather few and far between. But for the past decade or so, Snowglobe has been our rock band, dance band, jam band, and any other musical niche that needed to be filled on a given Friday.



Well this Friday, Brad Postlewaite and crew brought a taste of the mid-south to Austin, playing a set of vintage material from their first album, 2002's Our Land Brains, with a smattering of songs from 2006's Oxytocin and a few new numbers. It wasn't quite the musical-chairs extravaganza that the old HiTone shows used to be, but it was still a blast from Memphis' past.







Fuck Buttons [Prague; 10 p.m.]


When Fuck Buttons played the Pitchfork/Windish party earlier in the day, I foolishly left my earplugs at the merch table. When I caught their set at Prague later that night, there was no chance I'd make the same mistake. Having witnessed the event twice, I know I didn't miss anything by blocking out a few decibels; their aural assault is really something to behold, and it requires more than just one's ears, anyway.



Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power began the set of tunes from their new LP Street Horrrsing with a wave of electronic tones, banging their heads in unison and fidgeting around with their Frankenstein's lab of equipment. Hoodie-clad Hung stepped out into the crowd for a song, half dancing half contorting his body to the rhythms that made their way through the din of blips, beeps and shrieks from their computers.







Mae Shi [Flamingo Cantina; 1 a.m.]

Admittedly it's not an official source, but someone in the crowd at the Flamingo Cantina told me the Mae Shi were playing 18 gigs this week in Austin. Later in the show, someone in front of me turned to his friend and said, shaking his head in disbelief, "the hardest working band in show business!" He was of course referring to last year's New York Times piece on SXSW, which bestowed that laurel on Black Lips, due to their hectic schedule of a comparatively fewer 12 shows. So, make of that disparity what you will, but assuming that by this point the Mae Shi had performed roughly half of their shows, these guys were in pretty impeccable form.



To wit, their singing shouting voices didn't sound at all dampened by 10-odd performances; their energy on stage was impressive just given the time of night, not only their backbreaking week's schedule. One guitarist worked the crowd, hunching over the front of the stage, singing straight into faces; a few minutes later he tossed a huge white canopy over the audience's heads, and hopped underneath, performing half of a song in what sort of looked like a budget big tent revival. Their relentless noise was enough to make the band a few converts last night-- and if there weren't as many as they wanted, they'll apparently have a few other opportunities before the week is up.

SXSW: Friday [Matthew Solarski]

Inca Ore / Grouper [Habana Annex; 7:30 p.m.]


Two Portland ladies with a thing for loop pedals and music that flirts with the outer limits, Inca Ore and Grouper split this early Acuarela Records showcase spot with two brief but mesmerizing individual sets. Inca Ore manipulated voice and violin to craft cold, alien lullabies, evoking the most stark and forbidden corners of the night. Grouper, meanwhile, carved a new Mariana Trench with low-end reverberations on her guitar, and then proceeded to drown her mournful songs in it. Neither said much of anything; each did her thing, and that was that. While I'm certainly on board, I couldn't help but think how much more amazing these performances would have sounded at four in the morning. Or, like, on the moon.

Sera Cahoone [Bourbon Rocks; 9 p.m.]


Grand Archives [Bourbon Rocks; 10 p.m.]




Sera Cahoone and Grand Archives share a label-- Sub Pop-- and a lineage, as both descended from quintessential Seattle sadcore act Carissa's Wierd. Cahoone performed first, with a four-piece backing band and a bunch of tunes from Only as the Day Is Long, due out next week. She's got the slowburn country thing down pat, such that it comes as a bit of a surprise to find that Only is only the singer-songwriter's second album. Her songs could stand to be a bit more distinct-- in a blind taste test (hear test?), I'm not sure I could tell a Sera Cahoone song from a Jennifer O'Connor song from a Laura Cantrell song from an Eleni Mandell song-- but at least she's standing on a rock solid foundation.

"This South by Southwest is something else, huh?" offered Grand Archives' Mat Brooke mid-way through his band's post-Cahoone set, and I couldn't quite tell if he was being ironic or was truly awed by the nightly bacchanalia just outside on 6th Street. There's no questioning the earnestness of Grand Archives' songs, however, which sounded pretty fantastic here. With four of these five boys sharing singing (and, apparently, songwriting) duties, there's no room for a detached-looking rhythm section or bored third keyboardist. Everyone here seems invested in Grand Archives, and it's fairly exciting to watch people who seem fairly excited about what they're doing, especially if they're doing it well.

I must admit I was thankful they spared us the overcooked "The Crime Window" and instead capped the set with a "Southern Glass House" rendition bifurcated by a medley of covers-- including the Bee Gees' "I Started a Joke" and Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown"-- on which the harmonizing was nothing less than glorious.

She & Him [The Parish; 12 a.m.]






Certainly one of the fest's hottest tickets, She & Him's Parish appearance commanded a SXSW badge-holder queue that stretched on for a block, one in which I waited for the better part of an hour to gain admittance (sorry, Shout Out Louds, I tried!). Understandable, really: M. Ward, the "Him" half, would be a pretty huge draw by himself, and toss in the novelty of seeing actress Zooey Deschanel in the flesh and just a few feet away [/starstruck] and you've got yourself a capital E Event.

Volume One, She & Him's debut, is an interesting artifact; while only two of the songs are covers, pretty much every track on it sounds like something you'll swear you've heard before. That may be a testament to Deschanel's skill with classicist songwriting, or that may be a testament to one of the chief talents of any actor: imitation. Perhaps both. Either way, those songs still felt eerily familiar when Deschanel and Ward played them at Parish, joined by a three-piece backing band that included Bright Eyes/the Good Life bassist Stefanie Drootin. Zooey mostly sang and tapped tambourine, though she also played a mean Rhodes (as on "Sentimental Heart") and even did the kazoo thing with her mouth on "This Is Not a Test".

Deschanel, as it turns out, is an extremely capable performer, though perhaps not (yet) a comfortable one. I had a difficult time getting an emotional read on her here; she seemed to hover between vague bemusement ("I like those lamps," she remarked at one point, gesturing toward some illuminated spheres in the club) and mild annoyance. (Ward, meanwhile, was strictly wingman, ceding the spotlight the whole while to She.) Until the novelty factor wears off and folks' attentions shift from Deschanel to Deschanel's songs, however, a degree of awkward disconnect will probably remain a given at She & Him live shows. Hopefully this happens sooner rather than later; each live show is, after all, a one-take affair.

Additional Photos:

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead [La Zona Rosa; 4 p.m.]




Pissed Jeans [Bourbon Rocks Patio; 9:30 p.m.]


Destroyer [The Parish; 1 a.m.]

SXSW: Friday [Dave Maher]

Matt Walsh and Matt Besser [Esther's Follies; 9:30 p.m.]

Upright Citizens Brigade member Matt Walsh took the stage under the auspices of doing a stand-up act Friday night, but what we got was much more entertaining. Right away, a heckler, who turned out to be UCB partner-in-crime Matt Besser, interrupted his act. It was immediately obvious that Besser was a plant, if only because the pair's chemistry was too good. At least a couple of actual hecklers in the audience refused to get the joke and were for some reason upset that Besser interrupted Walsh's set, but for the rest of us, the derailed act was plenty entertaining.

Human Giant [Esther's Follies; 9:30 p.m.]


Speaking of derailing, Human Giant's set started with a T-Shirt Squad bit which turned into a robbery which turned into a self-sabotaging stick-up which turned into a police sting. And that was just the first half. Rob Huebel and Aziz Ansari were without Paul Scheer for the night, but that didn't keep them from following the T-Shirt Squad segment with an Illusionators appearance, which peaked when a card trick resulted in Huebel delivering an audience member's baby. Explaining these bits in hindsight is hard to do because of just how absurd they are, but it's the willingness to embrace such absurdity that makes Human Giant so much fun.

Be Your Own Pet [Mohawk Patio; 11 p.m.]

Be Your Own Pet played about three songs before their mics went dead and they were forced to leave the stage. It turns out the Mohawk's generator actually ran out of gas during their set, and before the four of them left the stage, Jemina Pearl used the occasion to lecture on the merits of the movie Polyester ("It's like middle period John Waters.") Despite the derailing (sensing a theme here?), the band eventually came back playing twice as fast as before. When they play, every member of the band is totally essential and locked-in, but drummer John Eatherly-- who turns their fury into a pummeling attack-- is their secret weapon. After spending so much of my week at SXSW seeing total pros (R.E.M., Robyn), the sheer balls on display at a Be Your Own Pet show-- as evidenced by a lyric like "we've been to every place everywhere in the world"-- is refreshing. I could go on about how wild, intense, and fun this band is live, but suffice it to say: if you get the chance, please see them yourself.

Fleet Foxes [Bourbon Rocks; 12 a.m.]

The key to Fleet Foxes' live show is their ability to perfectly execute the interlocking harmonies from their records. Balancing vocals from four guys is no mean feat, but Fleet Foxes do it like it's as easy as brushing their teeth. Frontman Robin Pecknold's scattered stage banter revealed his self-consciousness about being a participant in SXSW, but if the purpose of the festival is to reveal emerging talents to a waiting public, the band was in the right place.

Constantines [Antone's; 1 a.m.]

Constantines put on one of the best shows I've ever seen about five years ago, so my hopes were high for their 1 a.m. set at Antone's. Memory has a way of obscuring and romanticizing things, though, so of course I found the show lacking by comparison. Bryan Webb's voice is as affectingly gravelly as it has ever been, it's just that the band themselves move a little less than they used to. Their show used to be feverish and urgent, where now it's tense without being unhinged. What happened is Constantines grew up, just like everyone else. They make grown man records like Tournament of Hearts now. Fortunately, the band still drew from its early days for Friday night's setlist. But even if they hadn't, it's hard not to love a band that introduces a majority of its rough-edged rock tunes as love songs.

Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover? Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.)