March 18, 2010 Thursday
Garbage removal. It’s the first thing that I notice as we arrive 10-ish in the morning. Last night, with the St. Pat’s day revelry and all, this place was trashed. Literally. Very close to the condition of the Paddock at Churchill Downs circa 7:30 pm Derby night. Amazingly, the streets are utterly devoid of the cans, wrappers, bottles, bags, paper plates and flyers from the previous day. Much respect for Austin for making that happen.
First on the Agenda is picking up our credentials at the Convention Center, the nucleus of Official South by Southwest, with it’s myriad workers and volunteers and signs and lines and sign-in booths for press, radio, labels and performers, most of whom have that overwhelmed and lost look in their eyes. It’s a good thing that there is an artist’s lounge on the fourth floor stocked with snacks, beverages, internet and chair massages. The Convention Center houses the music panels, discussions, mentoring sessions, trade show and performance spaces. This year, SXSW now touts 1900 bands on over 80 official stages throughout the city.
The way all of these stages work is this: a club/bar/restaurant allows a business (NPR, Billboard, Labels, Magazines, etc.) to essentially take over for the morning or evening, allowing as many bands as they choose to play short sets. This, as you can imagine, is a logistical nightmare for most people involved. There is often a backline provided (a drum set, a bass amp, a guitar amp) in order to facilitate set changeovers, but even so the streets are constantly buzzing with musicians franticly rolling amps and carrying cumbersome instrument cases, loading them into illegally parked vans while navigating the influx of scheduled performers. This happens about every 45 minutes all day long at every venue across town.
Credentials in hand, we walked to the 700 block of west 6th to see our good friend Sean Cannon at the Buzzgrinder Buddyhead room, packed with a full two day list of bands like Wax Fang, Apteka, These United States, Henry Clay People, Vandaveer and the Seedy Seeds, a hand selected list reflecting Buzzgrinder’s personal favorites in a cavernous room with competent sound. Our compliments to Mr. Cannon for successfully managing his first foray into partydom. Another key to an efficient SXSW trip is the ability to find the best places for free food and drinks. Arriving at the Speakeasy on S. Congress for the Vevo/Fontana party, a small buffet of southwestern themed foods and drinks allowed us to make it through an underwhelming Sass Jordan set. We caught a few tunes from Rey Fresco, providing island rock grooves and meshing a rhythmic Latin sound triangulated between Marley, Maxwell & Legend. The name means “king fresh” in Spanish, and with a passionate singer from Fiji, a drummer who builds his own drums, an incredible harp player, and a big bass player with a pencil-thin mustache to accompany his fedora, they definitely have a California feel. Their album came out in December & had a Song of the Day on NPR, and made the short list of Bands To Check Out Post SXSW.
We headed to the Galaxy Room for the Paste day party and caught the last few songs from Fanfarlo, a London based indie pop band, playing for a packed house of enthralled fans. The band multitasked trumpet, violin, mandolin, bass, drums, xylophone, keys, clarinet, and melodica. They had a great sound, reminiscent of Crowded House and the Talking Heads. After their set, we stepped out back to the outside stage under a tent and was treated to a set with Gordon Gano, singer of Violent Femmes fame. Despite having one of the most distinctive voice in alternative rock, his set began with little fanfare, the crowd meandering about, apparently not quite sure who this was. Except for those in the front, who were well aware and questioning the mental capacity of the sparse crowd behind them. With what could be described as a gravelly Midwest tenor, Mr. Gano worked his way through songs from his September 2009 release “Under the Sun”. Multinstrumentation seems to be the order of the year, with guitars, violin, accordion, mandolin, saxophone, bass and drums. By the time that the set was winding down into American Music and Blister In The Sun, the crowd had made the connection and packed in all available space.
The lull between day parties and night parties is usually the opportune time to grab dinner, and immediately afterward made our way to the Cedar Street Courtyard. Over a sunken patio area located between two buildings that contained a stage and a few hundred people, we perched on the balcony directly overlooking stage, giving us a nice vantage for the upcoming Miike Snow show. In the meantime, we had the Paris based Uffie, a synthpop disco rapper attempting to placate the crowd, who really couldn’t quite get into her. Described by one fan as a “crackhead caricature of herself”, she and her DJ were obviously hoping for a crowd more familiar with her work, or at least more sympathetic. When at last it was time for Miike Snow, 6 guys in black t-bird jackets took the stage. They are more like a production supergroup; electronic cyborgs whose instrument is whatever is lying within arms reach, generating a sublime stream of electro pop that also made the Bands To Check Out Post SXSW list.
We met up with a couple of friends at the New West Party as things were wrapping up with Kris Kristopherson, Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin. Deciding not to wait for the Harper Simon show in order to catch the Ben Sollee Daniel Martin Moore performance, we trekked down 6th and made our way to an old church building, the Central Presbyterian Church at 200 E. 8th. It seemed the perfect setting for such a reverent, commanding performance in support of their album Dear Companion, which we reviewed earlier. Accompanying Mr. Sollee on cello and Mr. Moore on guitar was Cheyenne Mize, an amazing female violin/electric guitar/vocalist and an incredibly tight drummer, Dan Dorff, who pulled out his old Stomp skills on an amazing rendition of Bury Me With My Car. Surprisingly, expanded songs from Dear Companion were enhanced in this setting and were everything and more that the album could suggest. Afterward we headed to the immortal Stubb’s and caught the absolute end of Besnard Lakes set, spontaneously deciding to treck across town and press our luck trying to get into the much-hyped Stone Temple Pilots reunion. Feeling nostalgic for the 90’s, it was great to see that they still had it, the jerky strut of Mr. Weiland still able to capture the attention of a crowd. The songs sounded great, the band in good form, but the crowd was a bit too fist-pumpy-glory-days for my tastes. The final stop for the night took us back down 5th to Antone’s to see the Courtyard Hounds, the side project led by two of the Dixie Chicks who aren’t named Natalie Maines. In the same vein as Taking The Long Way, sweetly delivered vocals, acoustic driven guitars and fiddles and tight harmonies define their alt-country sound. The songs were really enjoyable, with even Jakob Dylan joining them for a couple.
As the day wrapped, I regretted not purchasing a pedometer. I would very much like to know how many miles we traversed throughout the day. My shoes immediately shouted "One Hundred!" as we slowly lurched like Boris Karloff in the Mummy, dragging one foot behind us on our way to sweet sleep.
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