SXSW Blog - 2011 Edition

THEMUSIC GROWS IN TEXAS

Got Texas fever? It's that time of the year when Austin becomes the centre of the music world thanks to the annual SxSW gathering. This year, Street Press Australia (publishers of The Drum Media, Inpress, Time Off) is going to be on ground and keeping those of us back home up to date via themusic.com.au. here will be daily blogs, live Twitter feeds and Facebook updates, keeping us informed of the latest buzz bands, the backroom deals and, most importantly, the local talent representing Australia. This year, over 50 Australian artists are showcasing at SxSW, including Art Vs Science, Bliss N Eso, Washington, Wagons, Wolf & Cub, The Jezabels, Hungry Kids From Hungary, The Holidays, DZ Deathrays, Cloud Control, Blue King Brown. Boy & Bear, The Amity Affliction, Wagons, Little Red, Drawn From Bees, Dan Brodie and truckloads more. This year's SXSW promises the usual mix of arena names, underground blog faves, comebacks and chancer buskers. This week in Austin is where Duran Duran, The Strokes, TV On THe Radio, Gayngs, Yuck, Grimes, The Fleshtones, Wise Blood, Wu Tang Clan and Yoko Ono can all be found gigging in the one city in the same week. And our team have pledged to keep sober so we can be the first to find out how it unfolds. For daily updates and breaking news, subscribe to the Your Daily SPA newsletter (sign up via themusic.com.au)

SXSW'S PROBABLES AND POSSIBLES

What could be bigger news for conference pilgrims than the prospect of a SXSW duet between Kanye and Kate Moss? A source told British newspaper the Daily Mirror that the pair were freestyling together during Paris fashion week, with Yeezy reportedly so enamoured with her skills that the invitation has gone out for not one, but two sets of auto-tuned microphones to hit the stage.

The wheels on the bus go rock and roll, as the man behind The White Stripes and Raconteurs puts the pedal to the metal. No stranger to such adventures, Jack White brings his mobile record store to SXSW. Attendees have hit up the official YouTube video to know what to look for, and will be treated to the chance for limited vinyl, as well as special performances thanks to a kitted out PA rig.

How great is this gig going to be? Catch Friendly Fires and Mount Kimbie at the Allsaints Spitalfield party on Wednesday (SXSW time). Let's hope the two hook up and trade remixes.

Expectations are rising for Radiohead with SXSW attendees still buzzing at news of frontman Thom Yorke's surprise DJ set at a small club in Los Angeles last week. The team from Daily SPA are looking in every corner, at every busker and in every basement for what could be the surprise set of the event.

Buzz continues about the Mark Zuckerberg diss from 4chan founder Christopher Poole (and no, we wont risk your work internet access getting cut, and your job, by linking to 4chan). Poole has been at the event to drum up interest in his new site startup called Canvas, as well as comment on the value of anonymity online. According to Poole, “Zuckerberg's totally wrong on anonymity being total cowardice. Anonymity is authenticity. It allows you to share in a completely unvarnished, raw way,”. 4chan Vs FB @ SXSW? Stay tuned!

In other SXSW news, you might want to keep those phones in your pocket when going to the bathroom with Jake Gyllenhaal. Attending the festival to launch his new movie Source Code, the actor hit the headlines with a beat-up about an over-eager fan whipping out his phone to get a snapshot of the star while in a bathroom. It may be a festival, but this is still Texas, so holster those phones with some common sense.

SXSW SLEEP DEBT STARTS

A city of noise, colour and and increasing sleep debt. Daily SPA are in the thick of the action at SXSW, with more to share than we have hands to type.

Things are off to a rough start for OFF!, arrested in Arizona on the way to the SXSW. They barely made it in time for the first show of the tour with Bad Brains, alerting fans on Facebook that there will be time for tall tales later, but “For now there's business to take care of at Emo's”.

Keen to see hear more from Ravonettes? Too bad, it looks like they've cancelled. The band blames visa issues, but all other US dates are safe. More bad news? Anna Calvin has cancelled too. Good thing that there's exactly eight billion more bands to see.

Maybe wear a mask to Hunx and His Punx shows, with one fan reporting that a pube fell on his face during a performance. That's not quite the rock'n'roll we're looking for, but we're not in Kansas anymore.

Great to hear Operator Please get through their first show, despite sound problems plaguing the performance.

Treme

ARE THE BIG GUNS IN AUSTIN?

Just passed one of the stars of Sons Of Anarchy in the street – the mother really looks likes a scary biker.

Wonder if he's in Austin for the HBO party to launch Treme Season 2 (launch pictured) or if a new stash of guns just arrived in Austin. Yep, SxSW is in full swing… Now to see some bands.

White Denim

3 QUESTIONS - WHITE DENIM

White Denim are an Austin psych garage four-piece. TheMusic.com.au grabbed James (guitarist) for a couple of minutes after their set in Austin.

Three words to describe:
THE BAND
“Friendly, challenging and humorous.”

SXSW EXPERIENCE
“Friendly, challenging and rushed.”

AUSTRALIA
“Tame Impala, Pivot and a high level of players. (And we heard there's less of a wanly music scene).”

More info on the band here.

SXSW Day 1

The first song I hear upon arrival in the US (playing in a cab outside LAX) is Beach Boys' 'God Only Knows'. That's gotta be a good sign. Less than 24 hours later, it's the Ghost Room and HBO have chosen Austin's SxSW, the world's biggest music conference/festival as the place to launch the new season of their New Orleans musical/drama Treme. Not only does it begin with one of the show's signature second line celebrations (which goes a little awry at the end as someone is knocked down by a car) but inside Orleansesque Ghost Room we are immersed in the jazz keys of Henry Butler. There are no Treme cast to be seen but stepping outside, there's Mark Boone Junior, star of US biker series Sons Of Anarchy… he looks just as scary off screen as he does in the show – note: doesn't look like asking for an autograph is a good idea.
A long trek east from Austin's CBD (past the long lines into the Fader party) and the Thrasher party is in full swing at the Scoot Inn. While skaters do their skatey thing on a ramp in one outdoor area, hardcore bands entertain those doing non-skatey things in another outdoor area. But it's what's inside the dank, dark bar inside that interests most. “I wanna fuck every skater out there,” pants queer indie icon Hunx, leader of the Hunx & His Punx pack. The crowd screams encouragement – Hunx ignores them, he's already moved on to shaking up a warm beer and spraying across those of us in the front rows. Yep, Hunx… guaranteed to leave you sticky. As Hunx powers through his anthems 'Cruising' and 'Hey Rocky', the room is over-heating. “How many songs do we have to do?” Hunx asks nobody in particular. “Ten!”… “No. Fucken. Way.” But with the help of this all-girl edition of His Punx, Hunx delivers a more-than-satisfying set of lo-fi girl group fun.
But there's no escaping the Scoot sauna room as Nashville garage duo Jeff The Brotherhood enter the stage next. JTB do that wondrous thing where two folk make the kinda noise that you'd expect from at least twice that amount of folk onstage. The sheer energy as they tear through cuts like 'U Got The Look' is just too hard to resist and some old style moshing breaks out upfront. The moshing only stops to make a path for one of the Brotherhood to make a run to bar for a bar-top guitar solo. All hail the Brotherhood.
Back in town, in fact, at the heart of the festival in the convention centre, local indie psych outfit White Denim work hard to win a tough room of 'industry types' sitting back with that 'come on, prove yourself' vibe dripping off them. White Denim prove themselves. A dash through a blur of bands follows before the night's most looked-forward-too moment, Nite Jewel at the Bat Bar in Austin's main music venue strip, 6th Street. The LA team DO NOT disappoint and their wonky disco stylings are captivating. Love is experienced in this room.
Over at Emo's, The Kills played a stripped down (yes, it's possible to strip their minimal rock further), no nonsense set (none of those usual Kills dramas played out tonight) of new material. The audience is torn between those loudly bitching about the changes in direction and those of us ready to order the new album Blood Pressures now.
Following a trail of winklepickers and 'taches leads to the 'it' gig of the night, Gayngs at Mohawk. Suspicions of this Minneapolis indie supergroup (on record this collection of blue-eye soul boys from Bon Iver and the likes sounded a tad ironic) subside by the time the ten-piece hit their achingly beautiful take on Godley & Creme's 'Cry'. Eventually, after a parade of guest vocalists that includes Har Mar Superstar, the crowd aren't just eating out of their hands, they are sucking the sweat of their fingertips. It ends with all the boys on stage getting their tops off (surprisingly not Har Mar – the man usually leading onstage strips) and a giant lovefest breaks out as Gayngs kiss, hug and generally touch each other for the night's finale.

The first song I hear upon arrival in the US (playing in a cab outside LAX) is Beach Boys' 'God Only Knows'. That's gotta be a good sign. Less than 24 hours later, it's the Ghost Room and HBO have chosen Austin's SxSW, the world's biggest music conference/festival as the place to launch the new season of their New Orleans musical/drama Treme. Not only does it begin with one of the show's signature second line celebrations (which goes a little awry at the end as someone is knocked down by a car) but inside Orleansesque Ghost Room we are immersed in the jazz keys of Henry Butler.

SXSW Day 2

While gigs that fall outside the official SxSW jurisdiction tend to be where you find more left-of-centre bands, it's also where you experience schedules not being kept to and slapdash set-ups. While this Friday in Austin is plagued with missing bands because of unofficial gigs not keeping to schedule, the day also begins with some disappointing soundbleed at a non-SxSW gig at Betsy's Bar. NY band High Highs (who included an expat Aus amongst their numbers) struggle in the back room against the overflow of live music from the front room. High Highs play a quiet, thoughtful form of indie pop (not too far from the likes of Lotus Eaters) but they play on unperturbed, ending on a simple but stunning note with their shimmering single 'Open Season'.
Determination to see if Tune-Yards really can be as good as everyone says (coz the recordings don't quite convince) means a half-hour wait in line outside the Other Records party on the lush lawns of the French Legation Museum). Then it's another half-hour-plus wait as electronic pin-up boy James Blake drags his set out. He sounds like Paul Young – that's not healthy. But Tune-Yards are worth the wait as they launch into Onoesque, ESG-influenced arty funk track to open with. While their percussion-fuelled cuts are more enchanting than their freaky folk forays, it makes for a pleasant afternoon in the sun.
Hardly Art (Sub Pop imprint) talent Colleen Green is nothing short of astounding on stage at Red 7. Tiny and unassuming looking, she lets loose with buzzing riffs and wry lyrics. It all comes together best for the Ramones-inspired 'I Wanna Be Degraded'. Punx leader Hunx watches close to front of stage – Green has received the nod from the garage queen.
Witnessing Chilean singer/multi-instrumentalist Gepe at Prague is nothing short of a religious experience. His unpretensious mix of folk and lo-fi electro is romantic and joyous. Gepe had this basement-rammed crowd swooning by set's end and received the loudest calls for an encore heard so far this SxSW. And while the encore was disallowed (definitely an official SxSW gig), for the English-only speakers in the room we at least learnt that his glorious song 'Por La Ventana', translates as “By The Window'.
Checking out Toro Y Moi's set of psyched-out Balearica at Klub Krucial was cut short due to venue's sweatbox atmospheric – but it at least suited the Moi mood. And a visit to locals Ringo Deathstarr at Easy Tiger was also cut short but that was due to their shitness. Their sub-JAMC fuzz and bad singing could have almost been bearable if it wasn't for tantrum about bad equipment. And the homophobic, “Surely there's someone out there who sells amps? Give me an amp, fag” was a sure sign too much time had been wasted on them already.
At Latitude 30, the air was heavy with industry expectations for UK buzz band Esben & The Witch. But they delivered their primal goth musings by the Virgin Prune-ful. Bleak melodies, squalling vocals and raucous drumming – with the drums somehow ending up in the audience for the night's closing song – filled the room and scared the bejesus out of non-believers.
New Orleans mod-touched indie outfit Generationals have all the songs that one-hipster-wonders Foster The People don't have. The songs are catchy and crisp. The look is study hall geek. The live show at Mi Casa Cantina is sweaty and rapturous. They prove there is far more to them than 'When They Fight, They Fight' (as heard on that car insurance ad), although live that song is BIG singa/jumpalong fave. Closing with the ridiculously alluring 'Trust', it's hard not to head off towards the freeways of Austin wishing that SxSW official gigs weren't so strict on times afterall.

While gigs that fall outside the official SxSW jurisdiction tend to be where you find more left-of-centre bands, it's also where you experience schedules not being kept to and slapdash set-ups. While this Friday in Austin is plagued with missing bands because of unofficial gigs not keeping to schedule, the day also begins with some disappointing soundbleed at a non-SxSW gig at Betsy's Bar

SxSW Day 3

When a day starts with Edwyn Collins and ends witnessing raw New Orleans bounce at “Austin's only gay nightclub”, even the inbetween disappointments (and there were many) can't seem that bad.

To see Collins perform feels like the greatest privilege – he suffered a near-fatal cerebral hemorrhage in 2005 – and his booming baritone manages to warm the cold atmosphere of the convention room he's playing today. The band performs seated, and drummerless. Collins' is still unable to use the right side of his body and when talking inbetween songs has to carefully annunciate his words in a sing-song style. It has hard for this not to inform the emotion of the proceedings. But it does. And it is hard not to be wiping away tears as he sings the words of his classic Orange Juice hit, “Rip it up and start again” (Rip It Up). Collins has done just that and the new songs that he is 'starting again' with are the best of his solo career. 'Losing Sleep' and 'What Is My Role?' are as potent here in acoustic form as they are on the Losing Sleep album. This set has the affect of making you wonder 'WHY THE FUCK IS THE WORLD NOT GETTING THIS?'. But perhaps that's not what Collins is about. He ends the set with his 1994 hit 'A Girl Like You'. Collins leaves the stage to a standing ovation.

Today is the Australian showcase at Maggie Mae's, beginning with the notorious Aussie BBQ (which tours the US this time every year). Brisbane's Sampology finds that he has explain his VJing set to the newbies here but they are soon getting it. However there's little dancing here as most are transfixed by his visuals which run the gamut – from Kermit The Frog to Kenny “Fucken” Powers and even some Little Shop Of Horrors. Impressive both in style and the lack of copyright lawsuits so far. The band getting a lot of the Aus buzz is DZDeathrays, the powerthrash pop duo make a huge, exhilarating noise, it's hard not to take notice. The highlight of the locals though is Wolf & Cub. Although rumours ran rampant not long ago of an imminent split, what we saw here was a band on a career high. The band have fleshed out their sound and are now exploring an almost Primal Screamesque element to their post-angular rock'n'roll. It sits well with their twin-drummer pummeling. A definite SxSW highlight. Across at ND, Sydney's The Holidays are another playing a career best. Their glistening guitar pop is now sounding immaculate onstage and their touring percussionist is adding a groove that hopefully finds him a permanent Holidayer.

It's about now that the day's series of disappointments unfold. Comedian Donald Glover cancels, with the audience only informed after sitting through an hour of warm-up folk (not entirely disastrous though, as that number includes the vicious Amy Schumer); schedule delays/clashes mean missing Kurt Vile, Death From Above 1978, Mount Kimbie and Big Freedia; and Canada's Grimes does not live up to all the hype (just another baby doll voice over some lo-fi electronica).

Back on track, at the Red Eyed Fly there's Exene Cervenka. The former member of US band X (who reformed and toured the States last year) has honed her storytelling and guitar playing ways into a rootsy country style that is as arresting as her work with her influential punk buddies. A less succesful icon outing is Yoko Ono at Elysium. Desite her rare performance including son Sean with members of Deerhoof and Wilco, it's a case of the event overwhelming the music. The gig is rammed with douchebags, aging LA/NY scenesters who look like their faces fell off twenty years ago but who still rudely, and loudly, demand attention (they all claim to be friends of 'John').

An 'official' photographer fires a laser at anyone daring to take photos of the gig, an act so douche-like itself that people who were obeying the 'No photos' notice originally begin taking photos in defiance. So Ono's wails to an alt.adult contemporary soundtrack were mainly going unnoticed. This gig was just for folks who no doubt will be boasting for years that they were there. [If someone ever makes that boast to you, ask them what songs she played. Bet they can't tell you.]

But the night doesn't end on that sour note. Across town at Kiss & Fly there is raw-as-fuck bounce to be heard. The audience hangs off every one of Vockah Redu's sexual commands and party calls as his dancers shake more than their money makers and their non-money-makers. It's frenetic shit and light years more innovative than anything Ono and her Plastic supergroup were messing with.