Radio IST List: Graham Williams
Book Festival Interview With Jonathan Foer
Fun Fun Fun Fest Previews: Street Dogs and Betaplayer
Wine: Austin Cellar Classic Is Tomorrow
Austinist's Will Mills Gets Dunked For Charity [Video]
We don't remember much of SXSW but of what we can remember, we think we had a pretty kickass time. During the week of March 13th to the 17th, we were out surviving on what little we had time to consume (usually free, alcoholic or "containing artificial flavors"), catching every bit of sanctioned and unsanctioned SXSW goodness.
While we were out on the streets and bars of Austin, we began to realize a lot about our city, the people who live in it and the people who come visit. We gained bits of confidence everyday answering the simplest questions--treating each query from a confused out-of-towner as a mini trivia quiz to see how much we really did know about this city. We got lots of compliments on how pretty Austin was, right along side how crazy our weather is. We utilized our knowledge of venue secrets and venue shortfalls, like informing only the people we liked that flanking stage left at La Zona Rosa is by far the best spot in the house.
And then there were the shows. We all saw the "best show of the entire festival," while somehow missing everyone else's "best show of the entire festival." The musicians and actors/directors gave it their all, performing in the hopes of gaining greater audiences across the world. They gave it their all off the stage too, many of the performers could be seen getting plastered at any given bar, at any given night, regardless of what time of day their performance was.
Put aside the bureaucracy, the controversy and the debates about how it works, SXSW is here to stay. Whoever should be in the crowd, it is a week long gathering of progress and contemporary arts so immense that we should all be proud. Proud to host that no name high school kid inviting all of his friends to watch his five-minute short playing at 2am at Dobie. Or proud to host a gathering of the minds of the world who talk about things most of us can't understand, yet those are things we depend on everyday. Or that no name grunge band from New Jersey who rented an old bus, crammed in their shitty equipment, drove dozens of hours and slept on carpet just to say, "We went to Austin and played SXSW."
We had a good festival and we hope you did too. Since SXSW is often an individualized experience of likes and dislikes, we split up for the time being to give you just some of our individual favorites of the 2007 spring ritual that is SXSW.
Tom Thornton's Top 5 Shows of SXSW 2007
1. Girl Talk at The Diesel Party - Friday night's Diesel show turned into something special the minute Girl Talk began mixing Beyonce's "Ring The Alarm" with Foghat. He invited 50 people onstage, and bedlam ensued. The crowd wasn't huge, but damn, were they excited. As Hot Chip mixed into Oasis and Dee-Lite, everyone danced until they literally fell over on the candy and beer scattered throughout the floor. This was the dance party you've always dreamed about.
2. Peter, Bjorn, and John at La Zona Rosa - In the indie-blog world, one expects bands to be a bit rough-hewn. Thus, it was a pleasant shocker to see P,B,and J fill La Zona Rosa with both their musical talent and their showmanship. The closing show Wednesday night showed a polished, tuneful, and confident band getting ready for the bigger stages that they deserve. The young folks loved it, and so did everyone else.
3. Malajube at Maggie Mae's - When you hear "Canadian indie-pop in French" as a descriptor, it leads you to guess that a band will be very arty and inaccessible. But wow, are Malajube catchy as hell. The tiny Maggie Mae's rooftop was literally teeming with hundreds of swaying fans in love with the fast, pretty, and danceworthy sounds Malajube threw at them. We may not understand them, but they know how to move our spirits and rock a party.
4. Pete Townshend w/ Alexi Murdoch, Joe Purdy, and Martha Wainwright at La Zona Rosa - Townshend's been doing this rock racket for 45 years. But he still obviously loves the job, as evidenced by his sideman role during this songwriter set at La Zona Rosa. Townshend pulled out songs from Quadrophenia and Endless Wire for solo turns, but threw "Let My Love Open The Door" in as a duet and played beautiful acoustic rhythm guitar on everyone else's numbers. The pure joy one saw in Townshend's eyes as
he flirted with Wainwright and sang with Murdoch turned an song swap into an event.
5. Sloan - After hearing loads of obscure bands play songs you don't know, sometimes you need to see a group that has a greatest-hits album. Sloan's powerful turn at the Jane party showed why they're the forefathers of New Pornographers and loads of other Canadian indie-rockers. The riffs were instantly in your head, the hockey hair was not messing around, and everyone's day got better in 30 minutes. We may not know much about Sloan, but after this gig, we're going to take the time to find out.
Matthew DeWitt's Top 5 Show of SXSW 2007
1. Les Savy Fav at the Vice party - Singer Tim Harrington bounding offstage and out into the night after 1 1/2 songs at the Vice after-party, which, after a last-minute venue change to the Elks Lodge off Barton Springs, managed to get shut down by the police and the fire department. A little after 2 a.m., the upper-patio banister came loose and fell 30 feet to the rocks below (peep the photos here)--luckily, no one was injured, but apparently you aren't supposed to serve liquor in an Elk's Lodge, which made all the comped Dewar's a tad suspicious. Oh, what might have been...
2. Deerhunter at Red 7 - The quartet came off as this decade's Replacements. Frontstickman Bradford Cox stripped down to a flowery housedress hidden beneath his indie-wear, baby-faced bassist Josh Fauver generously shared his pint of Maker's Mark with the front rows, and the set-closing water bottle fight ended with a vicious roundhouse-kick delivered by guitarist Colin Mee to Fauver's face.
3. All the gutterpunks with $500 Bono sunglasses at Friday's Turbonegro set at Kenny Dorham's Backyard.
4. The ultra-enthusiastic amateur back-up dancers at Ghostface's afternoon set at Stubb's. - As if there weren't enough rappers, hype-men, and musician's onstage, Ghostface invited a dozen bent-or-getting-there young ladies to back him up; the girls proceeded to upstage everyone around them with a massive display of gyrating, fist-pumping, and general bootyliciousness.
5. Ancient Rolling Stone scribe David Fricke following Japanese psych-rock band Boris from show to show like an enamored schoolboy. - Way to discover the hot "new" band everyone else has known about for three years--after all, it is your job.
Miguel Hinajosa's Top 5 Show of SXSW 2007
1. Snowden at The Bueno Music Bureau Party, The Longbranch Inn - Snowden are without question of the best bands in America. Their songs are post punk dance perfection. So why is it that they are not on the covers of magzines and the home pages of bloggers world-wide? The world is unfair, that's why. On Friday, days of sleep deprivity and sexual frustration came to a head when the band let loose to a crowd of unsuspecting hipsters. The distorted vocals of Jordan Jefferies echoed across the room whilst the drums of Chandler unmercifully pounded and drove the band to ecstatic peak. Make no mistake, Snowden know how to bring it.
2. O' Death at The AAM Brooklyn Vegan Party, Scoot Inn - This group of New York City youths played the dark and smoky parlor of the Scoot Inn to a handful of lucky souls. O' DEATH is one of the mostferal combinations of folk and punk I have ever seen. Using ukulele, guitar, banjo, electric bass, fiddle and drums played by the amazing David Rogers-Berry - with rusty chains and other various metals to an amazing effect. Their songs remind you of if Tom Waits wanted to channel the spirits of civil war ghosts tell you about their demises. The energy is infectious and primal and above all...fun! Imagine a room full of hipsters getting down as if they were hanging out at a whiskey still in the sweltering summer of some unknown backwoods town. Absolutely amazing.
3. 2% Majesty at The Bueno Music Bureau Party, Longbranch Inn - Chicago duo Kyla Cech and Ryan One are very special people. They travelled by Greyhound for 25 hours straight to play for half an hour during SXSW. Not only did they play, but they mesmerized the crowd with their incredible sound. A lovely blend of psyche and folk with incredible harmonies and wonderful stripped down instrumentation. 2% Majesty play music that is intricate, intelligent and delightful. Their influences range from Paris Texas era, Ry Cooder with brilliance and grace of the Fairport Convention. There is something very familar about 2% Majesty ... like deja vu' or a face you've seen before. It's a friendly face though. This is music that will make you smile from within.
4. Peter Bjorn & John at The Little Radio Party - I know, I know ... everybody loves this band. Well guess what? So do I! What's the matter with a band from far away that loves pop music and writes and performs it with out a shred of irony? Nothing. Peter, Bjorn, and John were amazing. They performed with the ease and poise of seasoned veterans, and not only that, the crowd loved them. Lets face it...PB&J are set to take over, so let the love in.
5. Till We're Blue Or Destroy at The Longbranch Inn - Like an elite squad they came and set up their mountain of equipment with expert timing and commenced to rock with the energy of an atomic bomb. The whole club bounced and swayed to the dance spectacle that was Till We're Blue Or Destroy. It was as if the sound was trying to penetrate the bodies, but it was wonderful. Will Rhodes is one the best performers in Austin without question. This band is something special.
Beth's Single Greatest Moment of SXSW 2007
My top five boils down to one solid gold-toothed genius.
I never expected to catch Flava Flav of Public Enemy in Austin, Texas, but I had to get within 50 feet of him at Auditorium Shores last Friday, so I hopped in the (proverbial) drop top with a few friends. Once parkside, we illegally cut through around-the-block lines (flog us in the town square, we deserve it), and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
Pop quiz: was the best part 1) Screaming, "Fuck George Bush/Fuck Dick Cheney/Fuck [some other forgettable administration official]/Fuck Condoleeza" along with the entire audience 2) Watching DJ Lord do ungodly things on the ones and twos 3) Noticing that Flava had to hold his clock in check as he danced 4) Getting out of a hip hop concert by 9pm?
Answer: none of the above. Gotcha! Tops was actually my man's crazy, multiple-minute breath sustained, "Yeah, booooiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii."
Ah, it pays to savor the flavor of an original.
Adam Rice's Top 5 Shows of SXSW 2007
1. Montreal's Champion - The urge to dance has not been this great since the 1992 release of Wreckx-N-Effect's "Rump Shaker."
2. Riverboat Gamblers - The perfect recipe for breakfast at the Beauty Bar: free beer, the smell of vomit and loud music coupled with spider monkey antics.
3. Tie: Earl
Greyhound and Hello Stranger - Two bands that will rock you equally, but in very different ways.
4. The kids with those jeans that are cool. - How do they keep their legs so lean and scrawny?
5. The abrupt end of the Vice after party or "The Elks Lodge can't stand the Rock." - Who needs that much scotch after a day of drinking? The best conclusion to SXSW... ever.
Adi Anand's Top 5 Shows of SXSW 2007
1. Mew at Scoot Inn - Personal pre-fest top pick Mew remains # 1 after a scorching performance to a small-ish audience at the Scoot Inn on Thursday the 15th. Performing a series of tracks from the fabulous And The Glass Handed Kites as well as predecessor releases’, the Danish act seemed little overwhelmed by the sunny day but still managed to champion half hour of the finest dream pop.
2. Matt & Kim at Scoot Inn - The same AAM / Brooklyn Vegan day show
also presented another marquee fave, the delightful Matt & Kim. The duo channeled more energy than many ten-pieces might, and despite the lack of “Yea Yeah” (at this performance), their short set was an energy jolt to the body far more powerful than any perk offered by the free quantities of Crunk energy drink. (They did play a longer set at the Diesel Party on the 16th night.)
3. Wolf & Cub at Brush Square Park - Wolf & Cub rocked out the Aussie Bar-B at Brush Square Park on Friday, and their dual drummer attack was one (or two) to behold.
4. 28 Costumes at Liverpool Sound City Showcase - 28 Costumes served up pure pop delights for Scousers and Austinites alike at the Liverpool Sound City Showcase on Saturday (see attached bonus picture of yours truly with Merseyside legend Pete Wylie, seen here sharing his thoughts on Manchester United).
5. Girl Talk at Pitchfork party - The good times party vibe and mad skills of Girl Talk at the Pitchfork bash remained the perfect climax for many events throughout the week, including the afore-mentioned Diesel event.
Patrick Dentler's Top 5 Shows & Films of SXSW 2007
1. Lily Allen at Waterloo Records - Ever since we discovered this video, we were hoping when we crammed into the front rows of Waterloo Records, side-by-side with anxious middle school girls, that we'd see some acoustic stylings from Britain's latest pop sensation. Once again, her ability to have just a bit of artistic range reminded us why British pop is so much more respectable than American pop.
2. Ghostland Observatory at La Zona Rosa - No Silver City, what gives? We admit it, they're local and we've seen them about a dozen times, but I just had to be around when they performed for a crowd of the yet-to-be-converted. So far, we haven't heard anything, but for some reason the New York Times thought to showcase LAers Cold War Kids in their SXSW feature--we wonder if they even stuck around for Ghostland?
3. The Octopus Project & Black Moth Super Rainbow at Elysium - While both bands appeared anxious to perform as it took them longer than expected to set up their motley crew of instruments, as soon as everything was ready the bands exploded into a catalysmic sound, something like indie rock coming out of a UFO's muffler, but, you know, good. It was also our first time to catch the zhou xuan up close and that thing does wail.
4. Ghostface Killah at Stubb's - First off, I have to address that Mickey Avalon is so L.A. it makes me sick. Ghostface's show Saturday afternoon was his first time ever to play with a backup band, which inhibited him from playing many Pretty Toney favorites, but tracks from Fishscale and his latest, More Fish, suited just fine. Being the first time to see him live, he really does smoke mad shit and still got endurance when he fight.
5. Tom Brosseau at The Mohawk - I admit it, I did not think I would listen to any folk during SXSW, but Brosseau's performance at our own Gonna Gonna Get Get Down 2 was like watching (stay with me) the orphaned child of Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan, that had been left and raised by Townes Van Zandt...
1. Kurt Cobain About A Son - I was trying to figure out whether or not non-Nirvana fans would enjoy this movie--a film that chronicles the life of Kurt Cobain from his life in Aberdeen to Seattle complete in his own words. Vast Northern Pacific landscapes and dilapitated small town America fills the screen as you take in unfiltered Cobain self-deprication.
2. Knocked Up - From the guys of 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up provided the perfect mix of smart stoner/dude humor and relationship humor all wrapped up in what could've been awkward unplanned preganancy humor. This needs to be a film you see with a date, but, don't see it too early in the relationship because you won't know where to laugh, but don't see it too late because it may be a lit-tle weird.
3. Does Your Soul Have A Cold? - I expected this film to be more focused on Western pharmacueticals and their exploitation of an uninformed Japanese populace, but during the Q&A director Mike Mills explained he wanted the focus to be a more personalized look at clinical depression in Japan. From alcoholism to S&M, you would think a film about depression would easily get rundown, but Mills kept it oddly entertaining to the very end.
4. Run Granny Run - This film wasn't originally on my list, but due to scheduling conflicts I ended up sticking around to check it out at the ACC and I was glad I did. The story of 90-year old Dorris "Granny D" Haddock and her run for Senator was a heart-warming documentary covering grassroots politics, unabashed elderly one-liners and rooting for the underdog.
5. The Panel of the Dead - The highlight for this panel was, as it was for many, Cabin Fever, Hostel director Eli Roth. Unfortunately, he fell ill, but was replaced with actor Ryder Strong. Regardless, the panel, moderated by Austin's own Harry Knowles, was an entertaining discussion of the current state of horror films, the direction of horror films and favorite horror films--Zack Carlson of The Alamo, we agree with you, Monster Squard is horribly underrated.
Pete Townshend image courtesy of whittz. Ghostface Killah image courtesy of Chad Wadsworth. Peter, Bjorn & John image courtesy of Dan Machold. Earl Greyhound image courtesy of Mark Trammell.
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Yay for Montreal. They pretty much *almost* owned SXSW this year.
My least favorite thing about SXSW bloggers is when they refer to themselves in the plural first person.
"My least favorite thing about SXSW bloggers is when they refer to themselves in the plural first person."
Really, what is all that about? Doing that makes it seem like each blog post is the product of a super-elitist, lame-ass "hive mind" when it's really just one doofus.
It is done because we are an elite race of robots that pee in laserbeams and burn kittens for fuel. Not really.
It's done because many bloggers that write for an online entity (i.e. Austinist, Gothamist, Deadspin, etc) are invoking that ethos. "We" are writing on behalf of Austinist, or representing that ethos. It's a stylistic choice that "we" are paid millions of dollars to make. It's formal without slipping into the vague, clinical 3rd person: "one should see this movie if s/he likes gratuitous sex and violence."
Also, if you think about it, it can sound even more elitist, and obnoxious, to repeatedly invoke the first person singular. "I think this blog is stupid...it's my contention that you should listen to coldplay at full volume...you should listen to me and what I say."
5. BURNING STAR CORE @ Spiro's
The ear splitting noise heard during soundcheck rather than a mistake was a portent of things to come. Burning Star Core is the project of C. Spencer Yeh. After the lights dimmed, he got out his violin, rosined up his bow, and began with a gentle ambient loop. The line out on his violin was connected to a mess of equipment filling the entire table, so that the sound that came out bore no resemblance to violin. Instead, we heard dense, undulating noise so caustic and beautiful it'd put Merzbow to shame. For the denouement, he settle into pitched noise and slowly turned down his boxes until the clear tones of a violin playing a perfect 5th emerged.
4. THE DIRTY PROJECTORS @ The Peacock
I could live in a Dirty Projectors show. Their sound similar to Joan of Arc -- very clean, "angular" guitar lines that jump around from note to note in a disjointed fashion. On the second video "Imagine It," you can hear the sprightly cluck of their intertwining electric guitars. They also experiment with vocals vascillating from barbershop harmonies to screams to hiccuping arpeggios--reminiscent of Animal Collective. They have humongous stage presence and energy with a very aerobatic drummer. Their set was all too short. Check them out! My videos are under username narikiri on youtube.
3. TETUZI AKIYAMA @ The Hideout
Tetuzi Akiyama is a guitar great who used textbook minimalism for his Hideout set. Each song was just a chord or a fragment of riff or a bluesy lick repeated over and over again. This sounds like a recipe for snooze music, but in fact the songs played out like energetic jams, and were ever-changing as he subtely altered the volume and style of attack.
Even though his songs were made up of simple elements, they were an absolute endurance test to play, because they were so dense, without rests or pauses, and because they droned on uninterrupted for great lengths at a time. Sweat dripped down his face as he swayed and bobbed his head in concert with the music, closing his eyes frequently.
His finale was a purifying drone on a blaring major chord. He announced that "The duration of this piece is 40 years, but I'll just play a little." :) This song was minimalist perfection, just a chord repeated over and over again for several minutes. But even though the notes were the same, the sound was dynamic and evolving, as high harmonics and other hidden features of it emerged the longer you listened. It was mesmerizing and wonderful.
2. CHARALAMBIDES @ Salon Mijangos
The Charalambides played a set of moody, piercing, emotionally intense duets. They have been described as neo-psych rock, though they resist a label that does justice to their unique and otherworldly sound.
The cornerstone of this performance was the synergy between Tom and Christina, two seasoned performers who know each other better than they know themselves. Tom's playing was unhinged, with his passages of rumbling, thunderous fuzz and his soulful electric guitar solos. But it was Christina, queen diva of experimental music, who stole the show. Her vocal arsenal includes ghostly, ethereal utterances, plaintive singing, chanting, moaning, screaming, and most notably here, a range of echoes, warbles and other effects to distort her heavenly wail. At one point, she belts out a long, powerful note while she fiddles with nobs that twist and distort her voice into a stabbing staccato. In another moment, her voice fluctuates in and out while it is looped on top of another note just microtones apart for a dissonant, palpable vibration.
But even when Christina's voice is unfiltered, it's charged with a deep urgency that is jets forth like pressured water from her vocal fountain. It is that intensity combined with their free, semi-improvisational form that makes a Charalambides performance so affecting. And I can say without a doubt that the setting, mood, and the right muse all came together to make this one of the best Charalambides performances I have seen.
1. BORIS @ Spiro's Rumba Room
Boris won the festival. I've seen them before and they still blew me away. Their song development, their sound, and their showmanship are all off the scale. They played 40 nonstop minutes of pure, blistering metalgaze, the title of which I believe is Feedbacker, but I'm not sure.
The piece begins with just the electric guitarist and bassist stating a slow, dark theme with dripping wet guitars. After several minutes of cranking out this wailing, moody theme while slowly growing the feedback and distortion into a dense wall of sound, the drummer finally enters the stage and holds up his mallet, gesturing with his other hand in a "gimme" motion while the crowd goes nuts. Uh oh- STOP! GONG TIME. In a scene of almost Spinal Tapish heavy metal theatrics, he crashes his mallet into the Gong repeatedly while the stage was obscured by a solid wall of metal signs flying up from the audience. CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
Now it's time for Boris to earn the name of their recent album: DronEvil. The guitarist breaks into heavy, trudging, fuzz-laden chords conjuring up the evilest Black Sabbath sludge train. The pace picks up and she breaks into a screaching, wailing guitar solo high up on the bridge while the drummer pounds away like a galloping heard, his long locks flying everywhere with each brutal slam. This ride goes on for an eternity, until finally he overturns his cymbal stand and crashes it into his drumset in a moment of rock n roll orgy.
Everyone in the audience was left stunned and transformed by the show. I was amused to watch the guy standing next to me just start screaming "YES! YES! YES! YES!" over and over again like he had just had a religious experience. Even Marissa Nadler recently posted a bulletin saying "Boris is my new favorite band." I've been watching my video excerpt over and over again since the show. Best SXSW performance EVAR!!1
"flanking stage left at La Zona Rosa is the best spot in the house"
GREAT, now everyone is going to pull the flank stage left.
I'll go right from now on.
Sloan ROCKS! too bad we had to watch it dangling from the front window of dirty dogs, cuz we couldn't even get the drummer to sneak us in the back door or bribe anyone. heheh.
flava4prez.