SXSW: Thursday [Amy Phillips]

Shout Out Louds [Team Clermont/Under the Radar party; Flamingo Cantina; 5:00 pm]

The Shout Out Louds are one of the hardest-working bands at SXSW, playing countless day parties and showcases. So I expected this early evening set at a college radio party (taking place at a bar painted with murals of flamingos, no less) would be kinda blah, a tossed-off gig that wouldn't be very enjoyable for band or audience alike.

Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by a top notch professional performance. The dapper Swedes of the Shout Out Louds were full of energy, sweeping through gems like "Tonight I Have to Leave It" and "Impossible" like they were playing a sold out headlining show at the Bowery Ballroom.

I honestly don't understand why the Shout Out Louds aren't more popular. They are impossibly good looking, are signed to a big label (Merge), and write songs with mile-wide hooks that make for delicious earworms. Why haven't major sports teams adopted "The Comeback" for rally time? Why isn't "Tonight I Have to Leave It" in, like, every romantic comedy movie farewell scene?

Tribute to Lou Reed [The Fader Fort; 6:00-8:00 p.m.]

For some reason, the Fader Fort decided to stage an elaborate Lou Reed tribute concert right in the middle of the day, in between sets from Saul Williams and N.E.R.D. Why? Because he was the SXSW keynote speaker? Because Lou Reed is awesome and always worth paying tribute to? Because Lou Reed only wanted to be celebrated in front of people who RSVPed to an invite-only private party, rather than the general public? I have no idea.

Lou Reed (taking a picture of Yo La Tengo)

As is the case with pretty much any tribute concert or compilation album, there was much separating the wheat from the chaff. We sat patiently through mercifully brief two-song sets from Oh No! Oh My!, Joseph Arthur, Dr. Dog, and Ezra Furman and the Harpoons in order to get to the good stuff. And there was quite a lot of good stuff.

Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo tackled "She's My Best Friend" (with James McNew handling lead vocals) and "I Heard Her Call My Name (with Ira Kaplan on lead vocals and searing guitar solo), as Lou himself stood off to the side snapping photos.

Mark Kozelek

Poor Mark Kozelek, alone with an acoustic guitar, battled a crowd more interested in drinking nuclear bright blue Southern Comfort concoctions than listening to his lovely takes on "Stephanie Says" and "The Kids".

My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket blazed through "Head Held High".

Thurston Moore and the New Wave Bandits

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, accompanied by a band that included Samara Lubelski and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, absolutely murdered (in the best possible way) the rarity "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore". Moore channeled Iggy Pop, crawling and rolling around the stage, diving into the crowd, seething with punk energy. It was the wildest performance I've ever seen him give. It was the ultimate fuck you to people who think rock'n'roll is strictly a young person's game.

Moby and Laura Dawn

Moby closed the show. First, he played a note-perfect cover of "Femme Fatale", featuring vocals by singer Laura Dawn, who did such an accurate Nico impression, folks around me kept asking each other if the infamous German chanteuse was really dead.

Moby and Lou Reed

Then, Moby had the honor of sharing the stage with the man of the hour himself. And you would never guess what they played! (Kidding.) "Walk on the Wild Side", OMG! Their version was actually quite lovely, a subdued take featuring only lightly strummed guitar and vocals, with drums coming in at the end to add heft. Sure, it was weird watching Lou Reed trade verses and guitar licks with Moby, but you know what? The little guy held his own.

The tribute ended in the most appropriate way possible, with Lou Reed stroking his own giant ego. His arms raised in the air like a victorious prizefighter, Reed barked, "I love punk rock! And I was the first one!"

Bellafea [12 a.m.; Habana Calle 6]

North Carolina punk band Bellafea are most likely best experienced in their natural habitat: the grimy basement of a squat in an abandoned loft, or some such DIY space. They are most definitely not best experienced in the immaculately clean lower level of an expensive Cuban restaurant, on a stage festooned with lights and greenery. The awkwardness of the setting sapped a bit of momentum from the trio's old school emo/math rock interplay, and frontwoman Heather McEntire's bottomless howls were a bit muffled compared to the explosiveness of their excellent debut album, Cavalcade. Nonetheless, for people who just can't stop craving the sound of early Rainer Maria (c'mon, it can't just be me and Matthew Solarski, right?), I can't recommend Bellafea enough.

The Wombats [1 a.m.; Maggie Mae's Rooftop]

The charmingly nerdy boys of Liverpool's the Wombats are big stars in England, but here in America, I usually can't bring them up without getting mocked. First of all, they call themselves the Wombats, and even have a stuffed toy wombat they carry on tour with them. Second, they sound like a less macho, more indie influenced Weezer. (Yes, it is possible for a less macho Weezer to exist.) Third, their singer/guitarist has a receding hairline and bald spot which he tries to hide with floppy, curly hair.

Since I am a complete and total cheeseball, I love this band. Their pop-punk ditties sparkled and popped live, played with sugar high intensity and utmost professionalism. I totally want to go to the mall with these guys.

Justice [3 a.m.; Playboy party]

Photo by Beth Martinez

If you ever get the chance to see Moby and/or Justice DJ at a warehouse party, do it. Seriously. Even if said warehouse party is being thrown by Playboy, and there are Playboy Bunnies there, and the place is crawling with the kind of guys who hang around Playboy Bunnies. It's worth it, I'm telling you.

Think what you will about Moby, but dude knows how to rock a dancefloor. I don't know how he managed to make stuff like Basement Jaxx's "Where's Your Head At" and Guns n' Roses' "Paradise City" sound fresh and exciting, but he did. Maybe I was just delirious with exhaustion?

As for Justice, they stood there smoking cigarettes, looking impossibly hip, spinning the hits. Just being in the same room as those guys made me feel like a sleek, sexy VIP who was totally used to hanging out with Playboy Bunnies, whatever, no big deal. And hey, isn't that what the transformative power of live music is all about? Making you feel really, really cool?

SXSW: Thursday [Matthew Solarski]

Thurston Moore Interviews Steve Reich [Austin Convention Center; 1:15 p.m.]





On paper this pairing makes sense; both NYC innovators, Steve Reich and Thurston Moore have also each earned a reputation as everyman figures of sorts, refreshing contrasts to the negative stereotypes that plague their fields: Reich as a no-nonsense, pragmatic journeyman unafraid to stare down the serialists and Schoenberg acolytes and their dominion over academic composition, and Moore as the perennial man-child, curious spirit, and constant innovator amid an indie scene that's too often insular, stubborn, and self-satisfied.

On a stage in a windowless room on a Thursday afternoon, things were, understandably, perhaps a bit stiff. Moore resorted to book-reportage at times (prattling off various facts about Reich from his little black notebook), and there were moments when he seemingly forgot who he was talking to. One such exchange, during a discussion of language, had Moore offhandedly mentioning "Italian prog-rock in the 70s, you know?" and Reich making an amused befuddled gesture toward the audience.

But as Moore loosened up some (Reich, meanwhile, was plainspoken and good-humored throughout), we learned much. There was talk of Reich's inspirations: the poet William Carlos Williams, the great John Coltrane, the jazz drummer Kenny Clarke. Clarke, enthused Reich, inspired the composer not with technical virtuosity but with the "quality" of his playing. "It was as if the whole band was floating on his cymbal."

Reich also marveled over African music and its emphasis on rhythmic complexity, in contrast to the chiefly harmonic concerns of the West, and opined that improvisational playing may not have the meaningful potential it once did (in the Baroque era, say) due to a lack of common practice nowadays.

Plenty of fun trivia too: Four of the organs Reich used to compose and tour the 1970 piece Four Organs now reside in Sonic Youth's studio; Reich rejiggered his mono headphones into stereo headphones before such things existed by plugging each channel into a separate source (Thurston seemed particularly geeked out about this); Reich likes Sonic Youth and specifically Daydream Nation for towing a line between the feedback's improvisational looseness and the structured elements of conventional songwriting.

The most endearing moment by far, however, occurred an hour into the interview when Moore decided to open the floor for Q&A, then promptly interrupted himself by saying "Oh wait, actually I had a question!"

The Brother Kite [Habana Calle 6; 8 p.m.]



With mainstream acts one will explicitly talk about things like marketability-- how easy it is to "sell" the artist in question to an audience-- and the notion certainly applies to the indies just as well. But it even extends in a sense to the level of day-to-day discourse on music. Simply put, some bands are just easier to talk up than others.

I know I like this band, the Brother Kite; I'm impressed with the spirit they put into their performance and amused by how none of them really look like people who would be in a rock band, much less wielding a double neck guitar, as the lead vocalist did here. But I'm sorta at a loss for talking points. They hail from Providence, but they certainly aren't some noise crazies (marketable!) or art-school agitators (marketable!). They draw from elements of each, but don't strictly adhere to either shoegaze (marketable!) or dream pop (marketable!). Their name is kinda silly and weird, but not silly or weird enough.

If somebody happened into this gig (perhaps en route to Habana Calle 6 Patio, which lies just beyond this space), I doubt they'd have much noticed what was happening onstage. Or they may have been thrown off by the hoarse vocals (an unfortunate result of the singer's present fight with the flu). Yet I imagine those to whom this band has endeared itself-- and there was a small but super-enthused gathering of such people here-- went home with plenty to talk about.

Secret Shine [Habana Calle 6; 9 p.m.]





Hey, it's a Sarah Records band at SXSW! Bristol's Secret Shine shared five releases via the quintessential twee imprint in the early 1990s before calling it a day some 10 years ago. Recently reactivated, the quintet has a new full-length (All of the Stars) on the way that sounds not the least bit unlike the unabashed shoegaze they were serving up a decade prior. Not surprisingly, then, Secret Shine were equally at ease showcasing the promising new material and treating the small but eager crowd to a few classics. With the glut of ramshackle, idiosyncrasy-flaunting indie acts popping up all over the damn place, I must admit I find this sort of polished, expansive headspace music refreshing.

Sissy Wish [Wave; 10 p.m.]



It wouldn't be SXSW without a few disasters, and last night, the South-by Specter of Indiscriminate and Unexplained Equipment Failure decided to visit upon poor Sissy Wish of Norway. She and her bandmate looked positively Sissy pissed after struggling for 30 minutes to get one (apparently crucial) gadget working. Failing that-- and with their set time now drastically truncated-- the pair managed to squeak in four songs. Only the relatively pared-down "Milk", however, sounded right, and unfortunately that had to compete with the exasperated admonishments of Scroobius Pip streaming down from upstairs (Wave, it should be noted, should not attempt to host two simultaneous showcases in the future).

Props to Sissy Wish though for her attempts to rile up the crowd by yelling all of her banter-- at one point inviting us to "get naked and drink beer later"-- and for the little conniption fit/shriek-out that capped off the performance, no doubt a release for a whole flaming heap of understandable frustration.

Retribution Gospel Choir [Central Presbyterian Church; 11 p.m.]







Side project is such a dirty word. Okay, two dirty words: Side, suggesting something peripheral to the middle or main or core, and project, evoking a dalliance or something less serious and established than band or group or whatever it exists in relation to. Implicit in all this is inferiority, which in the case of the Alan Sparhawk-led Retribution Gospel Choir, couldn't be more untrue.

Indeed, the best of RGC's songs (showcased on this year's self-titled debut) are on par with Low's recent best (nevermind that several RGC tunes are also Low tunes), and the trio sounded tight and ferocious playing them in these appropriate church confines. To top it all off, Sparhawk sported some shaggy curls, perfectly suited to the rocking out that ensued.

Mark Kozelek [Central Presbyterian Church; 12 a.m.]

Were we granted the opportunity to witness one of the old master painters at work, I suspect there wouldn't be anything overtly masterful going on to our untrained eyes. So it was with Mark Kozelek, a Rembrandt of folky confessionals, whose simplified (but not simplistic) lyrics and songwriting belie a preternatural talent for evocation and the conveyance of unbridled feeling. I am nothing less than awestruck at the grace with which Kozelek plays; listening closely, I swear I often heard a ghost cello sighing amid the finger-picking. As a borderline obsessive fan of the earliest Red House Painters material, I was a mite disappointed none of that made it into the set, but that's a personal qualm and one which I will by no means hold against Mr. Kozelek.

Additional Photos:

My Brightest Diamond [Volume; 12 p.m.]



J. Tillmann [Habana Calle 6 Patio; 1:15 a.m.]

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.

SXSW: Thursday [Matt LeMay]

[Photos by Christine Tadler]

R.E.M. ["Austin City Limits" taping]

By 3:15 p.m., people were lined up all through UT's communications center to see R.E.M. tape the first episode of Austin City Limits' 34th season. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get in, let alone get a good spot, but after running up three flights of stairs and foregoing free beer (free beer vs. free R.E.M.: priorities, people), I managed to find a spot about 10 feet from the stage, in the second standing row.

There are very few bands that mean so much to me as to entirely override my critical faculties, but R.E.M. is one of them, if not the band. R.E.M. was my very first favorite band, and seeing them perform in a small room (with enormous TV cameras) was amazing. They played a balanced set of new material (from their forthcoming album Accelerate) and older songs including "Losing My Religion", "So. Central Rain", "Fall on Me", "Man on the Moon", and "Drive". Aside from the excellent song choices, I was struck by how comfortable and at ease the band seemed; thanks to the magic of editing, there was no need for them to plow through their songs or stay "on" during the whole taping.

Some thoughts on seeing R.E.M. up-close: Michael Stipe is still a presence to be reckoned with, and I can't imagine him ever being otherwise. He was gracious, strange, simultaneously self-aggrandizing and self-effacing, and constantly engaging with the audience. His voice only seems to have improved with age, too; the chorus of "Fall on Me" has grown from a subtle and insistent lift to full-on ascendant catharsis. Seeing "Losing My Religion" performed, it occurred to me first how incredible it is that such a song could become a full-on mega-smash, and second how much of the song's excellence really belongs to Mike Mills, whose bass part alternately emphasizes Stipe's vocals, Peter Buck's mandolin, and the shape of the song itself. R.E.M. on "Austin City Limits" will be broadcast by PBS on May 24.

So Many Dynamos [Jovita's; 4:30 p.m.]

The one downside to seeing R.E.M. is that I missed the always-excellent So Many Dynamos, who were playing at Jovita's across town. My friends who were at the show came back with glowing reports, and excited chatter about songs from the band's forthcoming, Chris Walla-produced record. Very few bands manage to put on a spazzy, high-energy live show and still have great songs (think Brainiac and the Dismemberment Plan), and So Many Dynamos are one of them. Here's hoping I don't miss then next time around.

Yo La Tengo [Austin Music Hall; 9:30 p.m.]

I've seen Yo La Tengo a good number of times, and their shows are fairly inconsistent. The band always plays well, but they sometimes play a batch of songs that just seems ill-suited to the event. This time, they just played the fucking hits, including "Cherry Chapstick", "Autumn Sweater", and "Tom Courtenay" (which, I have decided, has the best opening of any Yo La Tengo song, if not of any indie rock album period). Maybe the strict time constraints of a high-profile SXSW show were actually good for Yo La Tengo; aside from an awesome, 15-or-so-minute version of "The Story of Yo La Tengo", the band's set was concise and action-packed.

The English Beat ["Smokin' Music"; 11:45 p.m.]

After Yo La, we headed over to B.D. Riley's to see Canada's sorely underrated Simply Saucer, only to find that they were nowhere on the bill. So, we went and saw the fucking English Beat, at a fake venue sponsored by a cigarette copany. And it was pretty awesome. Only at SXSW...

Additional Photos:

Destroyer [Volume; 2 p.m.]

6th Street, 11 p.m.

SXSW: Thursday [Tyler Grisham]

Motörhead notwithstanding, the place to be on Thursday afternoon in Austin was the Parish club. NPR stations from around the country, including KEXP Seattle and KUT Austin, hosted one of the most well-curated day parties of the entire week. With a line of eager concertgoers stretching around the block more than an hour before the show began, only a lucky few of us made it past the door and up the stairs into what was doubling as a monstrous broadcasting station.

Each of five public radio stations had their DJs stationed by the bar, scrambling to interview acts as they left the stage and pumping the entire show around the world via the magic of internet radio. And then they went and saved all the shows (plus R.E.M., Yo La Tengo, and My Morning Jacket gigs) at NPR's web music hub! So now you can go listen for yourself and let me know if I got any song titles wrong.

Jens Lekman [Parish; 1:15 p.m.]

Swedish heartthrob Jens Lekman stole the show early on, with a lighthearted group of songs mostly from last year's excellent Night Falls Over Kortedala. He began the set by introducing his hometown, the album's namesake, as a labyrinthine suburb it's easy to get lost in-- and a lot harder to get out of. Fortunately, as he told the crowd, he found his way out of the Gothen-burb, and the rest is history. The Parish songs included last year's "Opposite of Hallelujah" and "Shirin", which, he explained to some laughter, was written in honor of his old hairstylist.







Yeasayer [Parish; 2:30 p.m.]

For such a drastic change of pace, Brooklyn prog-pop outfit Yeasayer was nonetheless an instant crowdpleaser, as they managed to translate the shouted, soaring vocals of last year's All Hour Cymbals into a live setting. It worked pretty spectacularly, and they even had the crowd singing along to the apocalyptic single "2080".







Bon Iver [Parish; 3:15 p.m.]

Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, an unassuming, genial guy in a beard and flannels, somehow managed to match the sonic assaults of the previous acts with his relatively restrained, cryptic tunes. Joined only by a young guitarist (which may or may not have been his little brother, who has played the occasional show with Justin) and a drummer, Vernon switched back and forth from a collection of at least five guitars, two of which looked to be half a century old. His soaring falsettos filled the Parish's spacious room and begged the question, "How long can a grown man continue to tour on such throat-singeing performances?" Whatever, he managed it, and had the crowd shouting back "What might have been lost", louder and louder each time, on "The Wolves".





Vampire Weekend [Parish; 4 p.m.]

It's a good bet the most anticipated act of Thursday afternoon-- if not SXSW altogether-- would be Brooklyn's Vampire Weekend. The sweater-clad Columbia grads certainly have their denigrators, but none of them were to be found at the Parish. Instead, the Ivy League foursome were greeted by a crowd who sang along to almost every line of every song, to the apparent surprise of the band. At some points (like the "Hey hey hey hey!" of "A-Punk") the crowd's shouting actually drowned out the music from the stage, which was as tight and airy as Vampire Weekend's brilliant debut album.



Frontman Ezra Koening was jovial with the Austin crowd, giving a shout out to everyone from College Station, Texas, (a few hollers from the back of the room) explaining, "I've got people there," and dedicating "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" to the state of Texas, which, according to Ezra today, the song was written about. Right.







Bodies of Water [Mohawk Patio; 9 p.m.]

Clubs in Austin have developed creative ways to get around the city's smoking ban, the most popular solution being multi-level venues with patios, balconies, lounges, and outdoor bars. Aside from Emo's, the place that does it best is the Mohawk. Their patio stage boasts an impressive sound system, perfect for the sonics of Los Angeles collective Bodies of Water.



Meredith Metcalf, decked out in her trademark black leotard, led the group in a selection of tracks from their forthcoming album, A Certain Feeling. The record was just finished and won't hit stores for another couple of months, but the Bodies gave a taste of the new Water to the Mohawk's crowd, and for those who enjoyed last year's Ears Will Pop and Eyes Will Blink, the new sound won't disappoint. Their website claims that while Ears Will Pop was "aggressive," the new one is a bit "more passive-agressive." Not sure what that means sonically, but it sounded as boisterous and infectiously catchy as their terrific debut.









Man Man [Cedar St. Courtyard; 10 p.m.]

There's a game they like to play at SXSW in the Cedar St. Courtyard-- which is basically an atrium tucked between a couple of restaurants on 4th Street-- the basic object of which is to try to cram as many sweaty, cranky music fans into one tight space as possible, and the more photographers attempting to squirm their way to the front, the better. But as soon as Man Man took the stage, all the ill will evaporated and the crowd was focused intently on a set of new tunes from the forthcoming album Rabbit Habits.







High Places [Habana Annex Backyard; 10:40 p.m.]

High Places, the Brooklyn duo of Mary Pearson and Robert Barber, make some astoundingly pop-centered tunes out of a small assortment of samplers and drum machines. Judging by the sound of the record, you'd think there was at least a quartet behind the internationally flavored sound. But Pearson and Barber proved tonight that they don't need anyone else's help to cull clever pop songs from the strangest amalgam of catchy, dancy samples, and beats.









El Guincho [Red Eyed Fly; 1:00 a.m. 2:00 a.m.]

Barcelona's El Guincho is a one-man dance party. Not unlike Panda Bear's Noah Lennox in his stage show, Pablo Dias-Reixa's entire setup consisted of a slab of particleboard on a keyboard stand, a Roland sampler, a floor tom, a tambourine, some sleigh bells, and a mic.



From this modest gear, El Guincho recreated the oceans of sound from his excellent record, Alegranza, and whipped the capacity crowd, who had waited through an hour delay at the outdoor Red Eyed Fly, into a crazed mass of late-night dancers. For the duration of the set, Dias-Reixa kept time by pounding his floor tom and the tambourine set on the tabletop; at times he was hammering so hard that little bits of particleboard fell to the floor. But the effect was palpable; by the end of the show, the fans (including all the members of the Ruby Suns) had more or less coalesced into a mosh pit, shouting back and forth to El Guincho, himself looking as happy to be there as the crowd was.

SXSW: Thursday [Dave Maher]

The Duke Spirit [Cedar Street Courtyard; 3:15 p.m.]

It's amazing how much a magnetic singer can do for a band. When you only want to look at the person out front humping the microphone, the rest of the group is pretty much off the hook to just chill out and play. That was the case with the Duke Spirit's afternoon set. They started almost half an hour late, but singer Liela Moss made up for that with a heap of stage presence. She was constantly striking poses, which cut both ways: the show seemed a little pre-fab, but her charisma made it fun to watch.

Robyn [Cedar Street Courtyard; 5 p.m.]

Robyn rounded out the Cedar Street bill of platinum blondes (as Be Your Own Pet's Jemina Pearl noticed; check out Paul Thompson's diary to read about their set), and from the start, her set was plagued with technical difficulties. The soundcheck took forever, and when Robyn appeared on stage, there were still plenty of kinks to work out. As Paul pointed out, such glitches are especially debilitating for someone like her, whose whole formula is "voice + beats."

However, the obstacles allowed Robyn to showcase just how much of a pro she is. She's an excellent singer, which seems in part a product of the era in which she originally came up (i.e. teen pop, where labels encouraged artists to do things like take voice lessons and learn how to dance). And speaking of Robyn's past, the tech problems resulted in a rearranged setlist that included an unplanned appearance of "Show Me Love" as well as a piano-only version of "With Every Heartbeat", both of which were treats.

Phosphorescent [Mohawk Patio; 8 p.m.]

Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar/Dead Oceans really know how to pick these early evening showcase openers. Last year, it was the Besnard Lakes, who seemed to usher in the beginning of summer, and this year it was Phosphorescent. Frontman Matthew Houck started off the night by saying they would drag their feet for the people who weren't yet inside the venue, which established a tone for the entire set. Houck comes off as ready to unhinge at any moment onstage, but behind him is a solid country band playing lilting waltz-time tunes-- hard to get worked up about, but blissful when you can just let the music wash over you.

My Morning Jacket [Austin Music Hall; 11 p.m.]

A solid My Morning Jacket show is a bankable commodity at this point, and the band delivered with its evening set at Austin Music Hall. Most of the night was occupied with material from Z and debuting new songs, and from what I could tell, the new material has a noticeable r&b bent to it. It's a little hard to process when one of your favorite bands decides to focus on playing new stuff, but when Jim James and co. returned to something from It Still Moves or At Dawn, it was just as shiver-inducing as ever. As an unexpected bonus, the lights at this show were awesome, tasteful and complementary at every turn. That Dave Matthews money is well spent.

Dizzee Rascal [Scoot Inn; 1:15 a.m.]

It was strange to watch Dizzee Rascal play such a traditional SXSW rap show. Instead of the eccentric cowering on the cover of Boy in Da Corner, fans were treated to a talented MC with a crew who likes shout-outs and shoes. His set drew as much from excellent early material as it did from Maths + English, and the high-BPM beats kept the show flowing and energetic. Dizzee looked older than he does in pictures, which was cool to see: a prodigy aging well. He made sure to plug the April 29 U.S. release of Maths + English, which comes courtesy of showcase sponsor Def Jux.

SXSW: Wednesday [Amy Phillips]

Peter Morén [The Parish; 10 p.m.]

Sure, I'm as sick of "Young Folks" as the next guy, but I don't hate on Peter Bjorn & John. Writer's Block is a pleasant enough album, and I feel like any sort of overly strong negative emotion towards these guys is kind of like getting mad about those Once people winning an Oscar. What's the point? They mean you no harm, and you can bring them home to Mom.

Peter Morén opened his set completely solo, singing along with a Magnetic Fields-like backing track. It was cute and catchy, exactly the kind of hooky indie pop PB&J specialize in.

After that, things went downhill, slowly and gently. Most of the material Morén played, accompanied by a keyboardist and string trio, lilted along like a summer breeze. Lovely and refreshing at first, but then just kind of there. Nothing to get worked up about (either positively or negatively), but nothing to get excited about either.

Morén is quite a charming character, though, which might end up being the saving grace of his forthcoming solo album, The Last Tycoon. His banter about faking a hearing problem to avoid serving in the Swedish army (before "Reel Too Real") and how students are more well-behaved than teachers ("Social Competence") provided minor blushes and giggles, and it's possible there's a lot of wit in his solo songs' lyrics that I just wasn't able to make out in the live setting. So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, for now.

After announcing that he would be playing a different cover at each of his SXSW performances, Morén brought out Adam Olenius of Shout Out Louds for a duet on A-Ha's "Take on Me". Their voices harmonized perfectly together. Peter Bjorn John & Adam anybody?

The Mae Shi [Mohawk Inside Stage; 11 p.m.]

Like Dan Deacon, the Mae Shi squeeze every last drop of joy from the marriage of spazz-punk and kiddie pop. On the tiny Mohawk stage, surrounded by amped-up fans who seemed to be soaking in Red Bull from the atmosphere, the Los Angeles band exploded with good cheer. They've got the energy, sure, and the stage moves (audience invasions, guitar hero poses, gimmicks like spreading a sheet out above everybody's heads), but unlike so many noise bands that are all about confrontation, the Mae Shi have the songs to back it up. Their latest album, HLLYH, is one of the most enjoyable listens of recent months, its hooks hitting pleasure centers deep in the brain, and its vibe one of boundless creativity. And like the album, their SXSW set (the first of many they are scheduled to play before the festival is over) was short and sweet, refusing to overstay its welcome.

Frightened Rabbit [Maggie Mae's Rooftop; 12 a.m.]

Over the past few weeks, I've become perhaps unhealthily obsessed with Frightened Rabbit's forthcoming second album The Midnight Organ Fight (out April 15 in the U.S. on FatCat). I can't explain why this band's jangly, anthemic indie pop hits me harder than everybody else's jangly, anthemic indie pop, or why such terrible-on-paper lyrics as "you're the shit and I'm knee-deep in it" and "it takes more than fucking someone you don't know to keep warm," sung by a guy who sounds like the twee Scottish version of Adam Duritz, come across as so profound. I just don't know. But it works. I can't stop listening to this album.

Maggie Mae's Rooftop is not an ideal music venue by any stretch of the imagination. The "stage" is situated on a patio in front of the bathrooms, resulting in a steady stream of people walking right in front of the band in order to go do their business. And as is typical of most SXSW venues, which aren't usually devoted to live music performances, the sound was shite, all overdriven feedback and static hum.

But Frightened Rabbit were so wrapped up in their own little sound-world, they didn't seem to care. Singer/guitarist Scott Rabbit's outbursts and convulsions were all the more dramatic in contrast to the overwhelming averageness of the band's appearance. You just don't expect such emotion from a guy who looks like he should be playing Scrabble down at the local coffee shop.

Have I mentioned how much I love this band? I love this band.

The Tough Alliance [Karma Lounge; 1:15 a.m.]

If you've read our past Tough Alliance coverage, you know that Eric Berglund and Henning Fürst are just as interested in the theories behind the performer/audience dynamic as they are in the show itself. But never mind that. These guys put on a hell of a mindfuck, whether you knew what was going on or not.

The pair took the stage enveloped in fog and strobe lights, bearing nothing more than a video projection screen, a pair of maracas, two microphone stands, and seriously determined expressions on their faces. The screen intercut scenes from blinged-out hip-hop videos with idyllic images of dolphins and beaches. The maracas were quickly tossed aside. The mic stands were wielded like baseball bats, guitars, batons, and various other phallic symbols/weapons, much to the chagrin of the Karma Lounge staff. Very rarely were they used as things to actually sing, or even lip-sync, into.

The seriously determined expressions never wavered, though, with the guys staring off into the middle distance, fixated on a point just above the small but enthusiastic crowd's heads. They looked as if they'd ingested a potent cocktail of ecstasy and steroids, blissed out but ready to punch in the face anybody who didn't share their happiness.

The glistening synth-pop of songs like "Silly Crimes" and "First Class Riot" sounded great blasting from the club's sound system, all pre-recorded and unencumbered by any live embellishments. Did two baby-faced Swedish boys just completely destroy the entire concept of the live musical performance? Maybe.

It was all over in less than 20 minutes.

SXSW: Wednesday [Tyler Grisham]

Jeremy Jay [Emo's Lounge; 9 p.m.]

The almost-hidden space underneath Emo's on 6th Street, the cavernous Emo's Lounge, provided a perfect setting for one of SXSW's rather hidden new artists. K Records signee Jeremy Jay, looking like a very young Thurston Moore with his shaggy blonde mop and hunched shoulders, brought a traditional four-piece and hopped, pranced, and strutted across the stage for his set's 45 minutes. Debuting mostly new material-- neither from his well-recieved 2007 EP Airwalker nor his soon-to-be-released LP A Place Where We Could Go-- Jay even galloped along to a tune whose chorus went "Giddyup horse, giddyup."



The mostly sedate crowd finally got the message in the middle of the set, when he played EP track "Airwalker", and began moving their heads in tandem with his campy sway. He sounded less like Thurston and more like Bowie, but every time he brushed his hair out of his face or arced his shoulders around the mic stand, there was a pretty eerie resemblance. But not quite as eerie as what happened next.





Bjørn Torske [Thirsty Nickel; 10 p.m.]

Heading over to the Smalltown Supersound showcase just a couple blocks away, the real Thurston Moore was standing outside the Thirsty Nickel, like a silent clarion inviting in-the-know folks to the night's hippest show. He had been there to see Sunburned Hand of the Man, whose set had just finished, and after hanging around a few minutes looking dapper in a white fedora, he disappeared to quietly endorse some other showcase.



That didn't stop a nice crowd from gathering to hear Scandinavia's greatest DJs in one of the unlikeliest bars in the world-- on an ordinary night you could imagine a cowboy-hat-clad group of line dancers or Longhorn frat types filling the Thirsty Nickel-- but on Wednesday night, all it took was another shaggy blond pelt and Ableton to gather a mix of all shapes and sizes. Bjørn Torkse whipped up a few "live" tracks, looping some homemade percussion (read: taking a drumstick to a block of wood), a carrot-shaped shaker, and a banjo. A minor glitch in the sound system aside, he warmed up the crowd nicely for his fellow Norwegian Diskjokke.





Diskjokke [Thirsty Nickel; 11 p.m.]

Eschewing his labelmate's kitchen-sink looping tricks, Diskjokke's setup was simple and clean, with just a laptop and some basic controls, but the bass-heavy disco sound he unleashed actually got the Texas crowd to do some strutting without thumbing their belt buckles. Halfway through his set, the Nickel was nearing capacity and a crowd had begun gathering around the windows behind the DJ booth on the sidewalks outside. Who needs Thurston's seal of approval when you have blisteringly loud space disco to entice passers-by?





Lindstrøm [Thirsty Nickel; 12 p.m.]

But of course the night's big draw was Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, the Norwegian DJ whose collaborations with Prins Thomas and Solale have garnered him wide praise. The "space disco" pioneer debuted his first proper solo album in its entirety and, well, suffice it to say, if you liked It's a Feedelity Affair, you're gonna love Where You Go I Go to, arriving on June 2 on Feedelity/Smalltown. Expanding his airy interstellar sound, the italo synths and their icy chords are still there, but the sound is much more massive, and the crowd reacted in kind. Unable to control themselves, the audience was nearly falling over the railing in front of the DJ booth, trying to snap a shot or just dancing without care.

SXSW: Wednesday [Dave Maher]

The Cansecos [Habana Calle 6 Patio; 9 p.m.]

When the Cansecos took the stage, it was a pleasant surprise to see the Canadian quartet made up of dudes who didn't look like they were in a band, the drummer's bolo tie aside. They kicked things off with an astral, Daft Punk-y tune before settling into their own danceable groove; unfortunately, their singing was hit-or-miss during the entire set, but the bass player was working overtime with a constant accompaniment of bubbling lines. Overall, they were at their best when they kept things tight and not, as they proclaimed themselves before their multi-part closing song, "epic."

Peter and the Wolf [Central Presbyterian Church; 10 p.m.]


There's something about churches. Peter and the Wolf played Central Presbyterian, and the minute I walked into the sanctuary, everything just felt calmer. While a space can determine the tone of a performance, Red Hunter and his chorus of note-perfect backing vocalists did a damn fine job of establishing a mood themselves. Hunter was relaxed and conversational, repeatedly referring to the choir as his friends and practically including the audience in that designation.

For the most part, the songs went by so quickly that I felt like I missed one if I spent too much time breathing. The biggest exception was a rousing, fleshed-out version of "Safe Travels"-- the group took their time building it, and the result actually swung. Like "Safe Travels", quite a few Peter and the Wolf songs have themes of movement and/or city-dwelling, so as Hunter sang about the fast pace and isolation of modern life, the delicateness of the performance provided a lovely counterpoint.

R.E.M. [Stubb's; 12 a.m.]

There was no way people weren't going to love R.E.M. Their set was one of this week's Big Shows, and I was honestly expecting not to get in. An hour beforehand, Stubb's was surprisingly easy to enter, but it was plenty packed once I got inside.

Michael Stipe opened by saying, "Children of South by Southwest, come to me," and he followed that with plenty of stares, smiles, and open-armed gestures throughout the night. R.E.M. are professional entertainers, in the best way, but the amount of energy they put into their performance was inspiring for a band that's going on three decades (!) of existence.

The flipside of being around for so long is that you amass a catalog so big you can't possibly please all your fans with a single SXSW set. This show consisted of an unfortunately small number of the band's biggest classics (though superfan favorite "Fall on Me" made an appearance), but people ate it up anyway. My favorite moment of the set, however, occurred when Stipe explained, "That was a new song" and a fellow show-goer responded with, "Now play an old song."

The Lemonheads [Emo's Annex; 1 a.m.]

The Lemonheads, on the other hand, celebrated the old songs, playing the entirety of their underrated 1992 album It's a Shame About Ray in order. The record's a small-scale affair, a compact set of tunes about things like getting high, liking girls, being (drug) buddies, and eating cereal (at least I think that's what "Ceiling Fan in My Spoon" is about, unless it's about drugs). And for this show, Evan Dando and co. left the record pretty much intact; he freely added falsetto throughout, changing things up just a bit, but songs this good didn't need anything extra.

SXSW: Wednesday [Paul Thompson]

Phosphorescent [Mohawk indoor stage; 3:45 p.m.]

In between flying, arriving, checking in, registering, getting the lay of the land, bumping into J. Mascis and a giant chicken-man on the same block, marveling at the sheer amount of paper people waste on flyers at these things, and dealing with the looming feeling that the next big thing is two clubs over, the first few hours at South by Southwest can leave you a bit restless. But opting for Phosphorescent's brief, mostly hushed set at the Austinist/Gothamist party at Mohawk proved a good balm for the looming chaos, as a crowd of maybe 75 stood in the dimly-lit back room to catch Matthew Houck and company ramshackle their way through some of their ramshackle country-inflected drone-folk.

Bogged down a bit by a weird mix, Houck nevertheless managed to throw that sweet old voice of his all over a half-dozen or so tunes-- including an off-the-cuff sounding cover of Dire Straits' "So Far Away"-- in a relaxed manner that seemed about as far removed from the roving packs of publicists and industry types trudging past the window behind them as could be. "A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise", lovely as can be on last year's underappreciated Pride, grew even lovelier when Houck's vocals are allowed a little more room to breathe, and the thunderous drums of "At Death, A Proclamation" took on a bit of a punk edge in the live setting. Or, as my showgoing companion Dave Maher said, "that dude really looks like Zeus." He sure does.

Earlimart [Austin Convention Center Bat Bar; 7 p.m.]

Upon hitting the back of a surprisingly long line to the Austin Convention Center's Exhibit Hall 4/Bat Bar, I was approached by a very nice lady in a DirecTV polo shirt who inquired about my television service back in Chicago. We chatted innocuously enough about the advantages of satellite and how in the world I can live without a DVR, but when the line started to move and another very nice lady posted at the door told the camera around my neck "no pictures!", I realized I was walking into a trap.

I didn't go to SXSW last year, but I did sit on my couch and fiddle with the remote a bit, and I recall seeing a few very slick productions of mostly middling bands "live from South by Southwest" on one of those channels way up in the hundreds. This, it became quite clear upon almost getting smacked in the face by a camera crane, was that. I must've stood for about 15 minutes snapping photos (which were, it turns out, no problem before the broadcast began) watching Earlimart frontman Aaron Espinoza crack wise with the crowd and exchange incredulous looks with cohort Ariana Murray. That they shared my sense of the ridiculousness of this thing was the set's main saving grace.

We were told to clap on cue as the set began and the band rolled through their pleasantly gooey but largely forgettable pop tunes, including a pretty mess from their forthcoming Hymn and Her LP. They're not a bad band, really, there's just not a whole lot that they do that one can latch onto: Their first few records had moments, but their most recent stuff is so pleasant as to be unpleasant, if that makes sense. People tuning in at home: The Bat Bar isn't so much a bar as a stage and an elaborate series of neon signs, with a little enclave to the side where beer is served. And, in a town with a ton of real bars hosting a ton of rock bands, the facade of this thing was a bit hard to shake, even, I suspect, for Earlimart. Still, that's a lotta channels for $54.99 a month.

These New Puritans [Antone's; 9 p.m.]

"We're These New Puritans," frontman Jack Barnett mumbled in the middle of the band's way too short set, "and we'll play our songs now." So they did. These New Puritans deal in reserve, not blunt force. But damn if I wasn't pummeled anyway by their almost scarily powerful set at the Domino showcase at Antone's. These kids wielded that wiry post-punk energy like a weapon, giving the songs plenty of room to fly around inflicting their art-damage. Jack Barnett exuded an eery confidence with his mumbled/shouted vocals, wearing a menacing gold-feathered vest. The rest of the band alternated between tumult and near-lethargy, creating a perfect medium for their detached yet debilitating tunes. Yeah, with their chanting vocals and nervy hooks, they sound a lot like Liars in their dance-punk days, but Liars never had a pop tune as good as "Elvis", and "Elvis" is a pretty friggin' menacing pop tune. It's a little scary how much These New Puritans get out of so little, and I left wishing I could see them again right off.



Times New Viking [La Zona Rosa; 10:30 p.m.]



I've often wondered why no one can get a convincingly raucous photo out of the convincingly raucous Times New Viking, but then again, I'd never attempted it myself 'til tonight. Sure, their set was the same glorious shit-pop muck they've learned to cultivate and we've grown to love, but they do it with such ease, it's as spooky as Jack Barnett's collected menace. Beth Murphy stands in place at the organ, occasionally bending a bit at the knee. Guitarist Jared Phillips holds the axe like a rifle and fires with the confidence of a master marksman, rarely letting the blowback lift his wrist. Adam Elliott gets a little wild behind the trapset, but as often as their music threatens to spin out of control and become unbearable noise, these kids are in total control.

The set was typically great, with Present the Paisley Reich's "Imagine Dead John Lennon" serving as the highlight amidst a lot of fine ones, mostly from Rip It Off. "This goes out to anyone born in the early 80s, or Paul McCartney," Elliott chimed in before tearing into another one, giving me further ammo for my claim that Times New Viking are the Beatles of noise rock. Cut some of the murk (and the live show does remove their fourth instrument, the tape hiss) and they're writing some of the catchiest songs going, and, hey, those Beatles had nifty little numbers about drugs and teenage lust, too. Though perhaps Mariah, not Ringo, ought to be the one watching the fuck out for this lot: John Norris from MTV News was in the wings, looking on appreciatively.



Bun B [Fuze; 1:15 a.m.]



I met Joel, a SXSW volunteer from Austin taking a break from his duties at a club across downtown, outside the Bun B show at Fuze. Despite the badges around our necks and the "Badges Only" sign on the door, neither of us were allowed in, though no one was manning the door and not a single official from SXSW showed in the half hour or so we were waiting in a formless line outside the club. Miffed, we went and grabbed a late-night Shiner together, and Joel explained to me that, after the recent death of Bun's UGK partner Pimp C, he'd all but given up on listening to rap music.

Bun was the dude I wanted to see more than any other at SXSW, and I guess that means I should've stood in the line I saw forming outside the club around 7:45. Those folks probably saw Bun B last night, but Joel and I weren't among them. And, though a glance into the side door lead me to believe it was a capacity issue, no one could say for sure. The scene outside was electric with confusion, and the pair of bicycle cops who showed up just as we left only added to the static.

It was a nice night, all told, but it's not the kind of night you're supposed to have at SXSW. You're supposed to see Bun B if you want to. As Dave Maher, who caught UGK's showcase last year kept telling me, rap shows at South by Southwest are a little different. Now, why is that?

SXSW: Wednesday [Matt LeMay]

[Photos by Christine Tadler]

Pattern Is Movement [Mohawk Inside Stage; 2 p.m.]

As the Mohawk's inside stage cleared out after A Place to Bury Strangers (who, at least from across a crowd of people, I didn't really get at all), singer/keyboardist Andrew Thiboldeaux of Philadelphia two-piece Pattern Is Movement announced, "we're a happy band." They certainly delivered on that claim, playing a brief set of music driven by the contrast between spare, ambient keyboards and thunderous, complex drumming. A cover of Radiohead's "Everything in Its Right Place" recast the song's mantra in much less menacing terms-- a kinda goofy move for sure, but well in keeping with the band's stubbornly positive stage energy. Case in point: Thiboldeaux applauded for drummer Chris Ward after every single song, emphasizing both the band's good-naturedness and the musical rapport shared by its two members.

Shearwater [Mohawk Outside Stage; 4 p.m.]

By the time Phosphorescent took the stage at 3:45, the inside room at the Mohawk was totally packed; we opted to move outside and get a good spot for Shearwater's performance. This was my first time seeing the band, and while I loved Palo Santo, I was completely unprepared for their impressive live show. Jonathan Meiburg's voice is a thing of beauty, and his band's just-so-slightly atypical arrangements (Thor Harris's teeny-tiny hi-hat cymbals and crackly, busted-sounding snare drum in particular) flatter the nuances of Meiburg's performance and songwriting.

I have trouble letting myself be moved by a band if I get the sense that they're trying to pull something on me, or to elicit a specific reaction via means outside of their music, but I was entirely won over by Shearwater's earnestness and ease. I was so enthralled by Shearwater's set that I didn't even notice the construction on adjacent Red River street until Meiburg pointed it out.

Upright Citizens Brigade [United States Art Authority; 8 p.m.]

After dinner, we got word that three of the founders of Upright Citizens Brigade were going to be doing one of their famous A.S.S.S.S.C.A.T. improv shows at an artspace near the UT campus. With so many big-name comedians in town, many with ties to UCB, there was talk of a star-studded performance. The show turned out to be just Matt Walsh, Matt Besser, and Ian Roberts, but it was far from disappointing-- lack of celebrity cameos notwithstanding. Breaking from the show's protocol, Walsh, Bessner, and Roberts engaged the crowd constantly, polling its male members as to how many shave their junk and soliciting stories from the audience at large.

The Judy's [Austin Music Hall; 9 p.m.]

Finallly, we headed down to the newly renovated Austin Music Hall to catch the Austin Music Awards. And it was a weird, weird combination of David Lynch-esque Americana surrealism and the kind of cultural grandstanding (WOOOO WE GOT A BIG, TEXAS-SIZED MUSIC SCENE) that makes me kind of hate Austin. On the stage, local cult heroes the Judy's were playing what I believe to be their first show since the early 1990s. I've heard and enjoyed their recordings, which sound like a more straightforwardly power-pop take on the B-52's kinda jokey new wave, but I was pretty distracted by the band's decision to trot out thematically relevant items (TVs, water) for each song. Prop rock? Really?

Okkervil River [Austin Music Hall; 11 p.m.]

From there, the night only got weirder. Roky Erickson was presented a lifetime achievement award by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, Spoon was presented pretty much every major award, and acceptance speeches ran long and gratuitous. It was well after the scheduled time of 11 when Okkervil River took the stage, but the wait was worth it; the mood at the front of the auditorium changed drastically when the band launched into a stunning set of three songs from last year's excellent The Stage Names. The band's on-stage presence reminded me of a more sharp-focus Arcade Fire, more attuned to the ebbs and flows of individual songs than to broader, grander gestures.

Roky Erickson with Okkervil River [Austin Music Hall; 11 p.m.]

After Okkervil closed their set with a stirring rendition of "Unless It's Kicks" (my fave!), they were joined on stage by Texas psychedelic music legend Roky Erickson. I'm more familiar with Erickson's back story than I am with his music, but I was struck by how Okkervil's backing highlighted the power of Erickson's voice and the melodicism of his songs. It was a pretty great end to a very odd night.

SXSW: Wednesday [Matthew Solarski]

Laura Barrett [Emo's Jr.; 12:15 p.m.]




Laura Barrett is that quirky, crafty, half-hip/half-nerdy friend who miraculously managed to escape puberty with her imagination fully intact and who never ceases to charm you with her wiles and whimsy. Like one Joanna Newsom, she's embraced an atypical instrument (the kalimba), she has a serious childlike streak, and her songs have a certain emotional swoop to them that belie their innocent qualities. Yet unlike Newsom, whose ambitious compositions have found a comfortable home in orchestra halls by now, Barrett's tunes seem custom made for house shows and gatherings of friends. They didn't mingle so well with the strangers packed in at Emo's Jr., but then again, who or what does mingle well on a Wednesday just after noon?

Planningtorock [SESAC Day Stage Café; 3 p.m.]

Of the 13 or so performances I witnessed on Wednesday, the most eye-opening by far belonged to Planningtorock, who spent the entirety of this brief afternoon set perched on a table, with avant-garde video projections behind her and a pair of homemade space helmets beside her that she would occasionally don.

Taken together, her status as a British expatriate in Berlin, penchant for ridiculous headgear, and tendency to do unusual things with her voice all tempt me to brand her a female Jamie Lidell, though she's too willfully eccentric and stylistically unhinged to cultivate an audience on his level. As performance art, however, this was pretty exciting stuff.

The Russian Futurists [Habana Calle 6 Patio; 11 p.m.]






Early in this set Russian Futurists mastermind Matthew Adam Hart accused the audience of being a bit "static," though the same charge might have been leveled at him. While Hart is more or less solely responsible for the infectious, effervescent pop found on the Russian Futurists' three excellent albums, live he has a guitarist, keyboardist, and drummer conjuring most of the music, leaving him to twist a few knobs and sing.

It would have been nice to see Hart take advantage of this relative freedom and just let loose some more, to really inhabit the frontman role that I'm sure he's more than cut out for. We got glimpses of what might have been in Hart's steady stream of between-song wisecracks ("Okay guys," he quipped late in the set, "we have one more and it's called 'We Just Got to Austin and We're Looking to Buy Drugs Right Away'"). I'd love to see that sort of mischief manifest itself in the performance.

But we'll cut the guy some slack; this gig marked the Canadian band's first Stateside appearance since being turned away at the border during a Caribou/Junior Boys tour in 2005, and they were probably on their best behavior (apart from soliciting the audience for drugs, of course). Also, they hit pretty much all the RF catalog high points-- "Let's Get Ready to Crumble", "Paul Simon", "Precious Metals"-- and even whipped out a (okay, a little goofy) cover of Sally Shapiro's "I'll Be by Your Side"!

Gowns [Habana Calle 6; 12:10 p.m.]






Like Gowns' fantastic 2007 album Red State, this set was positively charged with desperate energies and highlighted by moments of profound focus and clarity. During those brightest moments (light and brightness being a leitmotif of Red State) it feels as though Gowns are grasping at some quintessential truth, and in so doing, tottering at the edge of oblivion. And then oblivion always wins. Dear world: Please produce more bands like this one. Love, Matthew.

Silje Nes [The Velveeta Room; 1 a.m.]




There's something oddly fascinating about watching someone take the electric guitar-- the instrument that brought popular music performance out of the parlor-- and use it to create delicate percussive effects and faint resonances, all of which fly in the face of the instrument's traditional macho and phallic associations. Silje Nes here essentially turned the electric into a parlor instrument like its forbearer, creating an intricate sound-cocoon that felt a million miles away from the chaos raging just outside on 6th Street. That's pretty goddamned punk rock, if you think about it.

Additional Photos:

Radar Bros. [Emo's Jr.; 1 p.m.]


Mala Rodriguez [SESAC Day Stage Café; 2:30 p.m.]


Shearwater [Mohawk Patio; 4 p.m.]






The Wedding Present's David Gedge and Terry de Castro [Emo's Annex; 5:15 p.m.]


Abigail Washburn/Sparrow Quartet (featuring Béla Fleck) [Mother Egan's; 6:30 p.m.]

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