Fun Fun Fun Fest Saturday Recap, Pt. 1

Experimental Dental School

With the sun at its back, a small crowd grew slightly less small as one of the first acts of the festival, Experimental Dental School, took to stage 1. Audibly akin to Enon or longtime tour mates Deerhoof, XDS played a 30-minute set of off-key, melodic noise rock — two parts cute and one part scary.

The Oakland trio is now a Portland duo, with former keyboardist Shoko Horikawa filling in for Ryan Brundage on the drums. Horikawa also shares singing duties with guitarist Jesse Hall. On her bare bones drum set, Horikawa had no problem leading the way into multiple time signature and tempo shifts. While not as chaotic as their studio work, Hall freed occasional explosions of distorted sound from an assortment of pedals. With a surprisingly full sound, Hall easily filled the role of bassist and guitarist on his modified Gibson, summoning high-pitched chirps to accompany slaps of fat bass with one hand movement. -Eric Pulsifer

Broken Gold by Phive

Creeping in early to the punk rock stage, Broken Gold brought melodious harmonies to a crowd sporting every hair color in the rainbow. The Austin-native band gave their faithful followers a gripping array of emotional vocals and grunge rock rhythms. While it's hard to differentiate from the seas of hometown acts of Fun Fest, the ensemble managed to make emo bearable. The sound is pretty dark and not for everyone, but the young, tight-pants wearing crowd seemed to enjoy it. -Candace Birkelbach

Colourmusic

With a reputation for kooky stage shows, Oklahoma-based Colourmusic brought some theatrics and fun to the first day of the festival. The bearded four-piece was dressed in white from head to toe, save the drummer who was decked out in orange. Their mix of stage spectacle and psychedelic rock isn't far off from another Oklahoma act, The Flaming Lips. And though they lack the captivating charisma of Wayne Coyne, the band has a strong stage presence for an act less than four years old.

Dabbling with several different styles, each song sounded different enough to keep the set list fresh. The band showcased their classic rock chops on "Gospel Song," a track which sounds like a spacey, Southern take on Jet's "Are You Gonna Be My Girl." But the guys didn't keep things too straight-laced, playing up the whimsical stuff with sound effects and plenty of screaming. On the garage rock-like "Put In A Little Gas," the energetic act even managed to coerce some clapping and dancing out of a less-than-enthusiastic early afternoon crowd. -Eric Pulsifer

Octopus Project by Patrick Dentler

Austin's own The Octopus Project attracted a sizable crowd to the heavily shaded side of Waterloo Park Saturday afternoon. Backed by dancing green and white ghosts that came to life halfway through the show, the local quartet played a 45-minute set of playful indie pop featuring Casio drumbeats, samplers, guitars and the always impressive theremin – the electronic, eerie-sounding Moog contraption Yvonne Lambert controls without touching.

Although songs with vocals seem to be weaker, the band's largely instrumental tracks continue to please, as evidenced by the closing song, arpeggio-driven crowd-pleaser "Truck." -Eric Pulsifer

Golden Arm Trio

The quintet (yes, this time it was a quintet) sat in a circle onstage with Austin's composer/bandleader Graham Reynolds down front with his back almost completely to the audience and his attention fully on his massive keyboard. The drummer (and the crowd) showed up late to this performance. It came as little surprise when the composer of the soundtrack of A Scanner Darkly asked the crowd “How’s it going?” he got no response. Reynolds mildly answered “okay” and proceeded to beat his keyboard into submission with an extended classical solo until he got into the lower keys. Manipulating the limitations of the keyboards output, the accomplished pianist began to use his hand as a synth-tremolo so when the police sirens cued up on Red River, they did not sound out of place. Despite trombonist Freddie Mendoza exiting the stage three times due to sickness, the band trudged on through exciting numbers that left the audience’s mouths gaping. The highlight of the show (and one of the festival) came with the last number—enter Duke Ellington. With a an amazing drum solo to start, the bass came in, the sax player nodded, and Mendoza’s color came back long enough to add yet another great solo. The band finished by coming apart—this time, on purpose.

Unlike other bands who needed a light show, onstage alcohol consumption, or commands to the audience put their hands in the air (again), Golden Arm Trio’s energy came from its cohesive talent. It is a travesty that the crowd never swelled to more than roughly 150 people. Yes, they are local. Yes, they were on the now-infamous Stage 2. However, the raw musicianship onstage was unrivaled the entire weekend. To avoid any further sins, go see them bring down the house November 22 at Club de Ville. -Joshua Philips

Walter Schreifels

If unaware of Walter Schreifels post-hardcore pedigree — he was the leader of the influential Quicksand and Rival Schools — it would have been easy to overlook the skinny, middle-aged man in shorts with an acoustic-electric guitar on stage 2 Saturday afternoon. Schreifels' rhyming monosyllabic lyrics and bland guitar balladry didn't draw a big crowd, but his fans in the front seemed pleased.

Schreifels affinity for The Smiths is obvious. He played a medley of the band's songs in his solo set and a cover of "How Soon Is Now?" with Rival Schools later in the evening. But admire as he might, Schreifels is no Morrissey. With lines like, "Everyone I know is starting to pray. Don't worry, be happy, okay? It's harder to do than to say," Schreifels isn't going to win any awards for songwriting, but his distinct voice is intact and sounds as good live as it does on record.

His performance was far from amateur, but Schreifels' solo work isn't as rich as it should be for a man who has been involved in a number of solid projects over the last two decades. It would be hard to recommend listening to Schreifels to anyone other than die-hard fans of his previous bands. -Eric Pulsifer

Tim Fite

Wearing a tie, suspenders and seersucker pants, genre-mashing multi-instrumentalist Tim Fite brought his unique mix of bumping bass beats, bluegrass, rock and county swagger to the festival Saturday evening. Instantly likable, Fite is a foul-mouthed, bluegrass bizarro Mr. Rogers. Within moments of his first song, it was obvious he had won over the crowd at stage 2. Witnessing Fite's goofball charm in person makes songs like "More Clothes," "Big Mistake" and "Line By Line" even better than their studio counterparts.

On most songs, Fite and his equally well-dressed assistant Sexy Leroy were backed by a band of one to three Tim Fites on the projector screen behind them. For segues, nonsensical drawings and short vignettes — such as one about a duck and a cat considering going outside to "stab a motherfucker" but deciding to eat sandwiches instead — were narrated by Fite with the singsong tone of a teacher reading to a classroom of kindergartners. Sexy Leroy managed to keep the rock show antics alive throughout the night, dragging his microphone stand with him into the audience and disappearing in the crowd for minutes at a time. After a couple of tunes with an anti-consumerism message, Leroy ducked backstage to retrieve a 24-pack of Red Bull, which he began to dump in the dirt (to the obvious disappointment of some audience members near the front of the stage hoping for a free energy drink).

One of Fite's strongest works, "Away From Snakes" has the simplicity of a drinking song, both woeful and completely silly, and begs for a full crowd sing-along. "While the rich get rich get rich, well us poor don't get shit except shit on by rich men, and shit on by women, and shit on by everyone shitting," Fite sings with a Southern draw. Fittingly, for the song's conclusion, Sexy Leroy climbed a stack of speakers and pretended to defecate on the crowd below with a bottle of water.

Though Fite didn't get the masses to join in on that particular chorus, with little effort he did convince them to join in singing (and touching themselves) along to the children's song "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" as well as repeatedly chanting "fuck" at the end of the hip-hop heavy track "It's All Right Here." It's exactly that strange mixture of story time and rock show that make Tim Fite a live act to keep an eye out for. -Eric Pulsifer

Atmoshere by Patrick Dentler

By the time Atmosphere rolled on stage, a sea of fog had filled Waterloo Park. But fog may have played to this highly anticipated act's advantage, creating the feeling of an all-consuming rave for those who just wanted to get-get-down. The Minneapolis duo captivated the Austin crowd, making sure to bring something special to those spoiled by so many good musical options at their fingertips. Rapper Slug kept the pretentious at bay by shouting "God loves ugly" and telling all the ugly people to put their hands in the air. Hey, we like being ugly.

With hands bouncin' in the air throughout the set, Atmosphere had a raunchy but flavorful tone. The delicate, soulful beats set the backdrop for meaningful raps about taking life in stride. The hip-hop outfit played some earlier material but a lot from their latest release When Life Gives You Lemons You Paint That Shit Gold. Atmosphere's humorous but sincere mantra makes them approachable for nearly any musical taste. -Candace Birkelbach

the National by Dániel Perlaky, City On Fire

Ah, Saturday evening. Let us set the mood. The ever-present dust was settling, preparing for it's Sunday afternoon assault, FFFF audience peeps were all a-twitter, and we apprehensively nursed ever larger - swear to god they were growing - cans of Fosters. All of a sudden, one of the greatest bands in the world walked on stage: CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH! Just kidding, it was The National, bro-ham. Here's what we remember. It was Scott's birthday! Matt Berninger made that very clear several times. In a way, though, it was a rather bittersweet evening because it was the last time that the ol' Nash was going to rock for awhile. These dudes were obviously in need of a recharge after relentlessly riding the momentum from Boxer, and were preparing to hibernate, living solely on the nutrients from the giant gelatinous gobs of critical praise they had received in 2007. The upswing? Fun Fun Fun was going to reap the benefits of a band letting its collective hair down and straight-up not givin' a fizzuck.

First off, Matt was unabashedly drunk and getting drunker. Making it happen. Everyone knew it and he didn't care. We could all see the just-about-empty bottle of Maker's Mark he was nursing via a non-descript plastic cup in front of the kick drum. The taciturn twins did their best to control him, but not before several pieces of back-line equipment and his glasses - which were politely returned by the motherly crowd - were hurled into the audience. What does one say about the set? They played "Start a War" and we all thought about our ex-girlfriends. They played "Fake Empire" and we all thought about our ex-girlfriends. They played "Squalor Victoria" and we all thought about Elvis Costello. You start to realize that Matt sings they way you feel when you wake up from a break-up: frazzled, weirdly hopeful, hungover, a millisecond away from shrieking madly and waking up your roommate. Jolted from our reflection, they careened into "Mistaken for Strangers," peeling its skin back, exposing every nerve, the kidney tenderizer setting us up for the knockout punch. And so it came to pass - awesomely fitting - that our new BFFs closed with "Mr. November" - celebrating last Tuesday, obviously - and every single person in the world lost their shit. Matt stumbled around, futilely attempting to balance on various objects around the stage, screaming his head off, insisting he wouldn't fuck us over. KO'd, we reeled. -Josh Huck