SXSW DAY 1: Jarvis Cocker Sucks At DJing & Neil Young Plays Salesman

Slight preamble – The Day Before Day 1

Registration for the music component of SXSW kicks off on Monday, while the interactive geeks and film fans are still swilling around the Convention Centre in the heart of Downtown Austin, homebase for SXSW for the last 20 years. Jarvis Cocker, in town for the world premiere of an offbeat Pulp documentary, idles by on an escalator, while around him the nerd elite line corridors, hunched over their Macbooks, feeding like locusts on the free wi-fi.

Lena Dunham is in the packed Vimeo Theatre, returning triumphant to the festival that first embraced her work to spread the wisdom gleaned from five minutes in the spotlight. Somewhere out there is Kevin Bacon, at SXSW because he is Kevin Bacon and does he really need another reason. There is an air of tidiness in Austin. SXSW Interactive & Film are well in gear – almost over in fact – but Music doesn't officially start until the following day, and with Music there is mess.

There is a preview on Monday night of the madness to come, in the pop-up 'Mobile Movement' megaplex on East Ceasar Chavez. The SXSW interactive venue is a collaboration between VICE and AT&T exploring the awesome potential of mobile technology, like tweeting and instagramming and stuff. Our hosts screen a film featuring Instagram sensation Shrampton The Cat. At the end of the screening, the MC pulls back a cover from a large box, revealing the evening's special guest, Shrampton The Cat. The crowd erupts in delight.

Reggie Watts

In a different part of the venue, Reggie Watts begins a beatbox comedy set, followed by a slow-burning performance from US glitch/deep house artist Machinedrum. Part way through the Machinedrum set, there is a burst of commotion at the back of the room. Lady Gaga, surrounded by a presumably paid entourage of fifty-odd people, explodes into the venue, does a quick PR-courting lap, and disappears again. DJ Shadow's vicious, jungle-tinged turn at the decks, which is supposed to be the headline act, pales in comparison.

Day 1

An empty lot on East 6th Street is spruced up with astroturf, cane furniture and flower pots, transformed into The AirBnB Park. A white picket fence dissects the event, separating the freeloaders from the media scrum around Snoop Dogg. Playing brand ambassador for the afternoon, Snoop hosts rotating clusters of journalists in his AirBnB kit home, a tiny, glass-sided "man cave" thrown together by designer Emily Henderson, styled in the theme of Snoop (It has a mandatory herb garden and a flashing sign that reads 'BOSS' on the inner wall). Its existence is a non-specific celebration of AirBnB housing. Snoop had nothing but positive things to say about affordable short-term rental accommodation.

This gets us excited about affordable short-term accommodation

Snoop aside, Day 1 is a slow-starter at SXSW, relative to the days that follow. Huge swathes of the music industry are still flying in and picking up their badges at the Convention Centre, oblivious to the dozens of smaller “unofficial” day parties that have kicked off. The bigger daytime events today include Pitchfork's hardcore showcase, Show No Mercy, and Day 2 of the Spotify House party, with sets from Mexican dance act 3BallMTY and 4AD synth pop group Future Islands.

Outside the Marriott Hotel, which may or may not house Coldplay (who are headlining the iTunes Festival event at the ACL Moody Theatre that evening), a kid is playing Viva La Vida on the flute. Inside the nearby Convention Centre, Rushmore's Jason Schwartzmann and Tunde Adebimpe from Tv On The Radio host an aimless panel on a film they are currently shooting in town while next door Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen talk straight-faced about the serious cultural essay that is their sketch comedy series, Portlandia.

Panel it out

Shortly afterward, the canvernous Ballroom D is filled with an enthusiastic cross-section of tech and music fans for the Neil Young "interview", which is less an interview and more an advertorial event for a new high fidelity portable audio storage system, the PONO, which allows music fans to hear music “the way artists intended”. Neil, like a latter day Steve Jobs, takes to the stage amid a standing ovation, and proceeds to sell his ever-loving heart out. Find out more about the PONO on Kickstarter.

The official music showcase events kick off around eight. Dozens upon dozens of bands are unleashed, in every bar, bandroom and street corner or the city. Brooklyn outfit Sannhet bring their menacing post metal to the Pitchfork party while classic soul four-piece Vintage Trouble swing it Commitments-style over at the Empire Garage Control Room.

He's trying hard…

In a random SXSW incident, Jarvis Cocker appears at Hype Machine's Hype Hotel as the Desperate Sound System, spinning psych funk, sixties psychedelia, spectral trip hop, Le Tigre and Bill Callahan. He DJs like a clumsy lover. There is no personality on stage, no engagement, just the nervous mixes of a man twiddling knobs seemingly for the first time in his life (which after some time seems both belligerent and deliberate, if you can believe that someone could be at the same time so inept and conniving).

“The only thing that could save this,” one punter remarks, “is if he dropped Disco 2000 at the end of the set.” “Do you think people are too nice to tell him that he's bad at this?” says another. But we are still standing here, because he is Jarvis, and we love him, because his style and charm extends beyond his ability to spin great tunes.

At the Central Presbyterian Church on 8th Street, a polite but packed crowd waits with baited breath for Dutch siren Agnes Obel, who released her second album Aventine in 2013. In the stately church setting, with a cellist and violinist accompaniment, her sounds are crisp and luscious, a note perfect symphony of art pop elegance. Meanwhile, two blocks away at Red 7 Patio, fans waiting to catch a glimpse of mega-hyped Chicago act Chance The Rapper have shut down the street. The venue has put out an alert via Twitter, telling people to stay home. They hit capacity five hours before Chance's set, but the hoards keep coming.

A smaller but still impossible queue has formed outside of Latitude 30, where UK act Bipolar Sunshine are playing deep, wide, emotional indie pop at an event hosted by BBC DJ Huw Stephens and some kind of unsexy sounding UK Trade Alliance. They are followed by Jungle, an NME Band Of The Week not long ago, who have been dubbed the new Disclosure.

Australia represents over at Haven on Colarado Street, with a monster set by The Preatures that finishes on a crowd-pleasing high with Is This How You Feel?. They are followed by LA wunderkind and Harvest labelmate Banks, a diminutive hipster diva who overcomes a stop-start tech set with her lush, dark R&B flavour. The night, still churning away at dozens of other venues across the city, peaks with her cover of The Weeknd's What You Need, and Banks takes a bow in front of several hundred new fans.