So five British guys decided to come to Austin and play a little prank on us Yanks.
"Let's wear all white jumpsuits," one of them said.
"And we'll say we're from Kansas!” said another one.
"No, Oklahoma!" chimed in another. "Just like the Flaming Lips."
“Awesome. They will never know. We will play our brit rock. We will get them all sexed up. We will swirl our guitars, and make the pit pogo. It will be grand.”
“And we’ll call ourselves Colourmusic,” said the last one. Ah, the spelling almost gave them away.
“But we’re not shaving our beards, right?” said the first one.
“Hell, no,” they said in unison.
And there they were on Maggie Mae’s rooftop on the last night of SXSW, pretending to be a handful of bearded guys from Oklahoma.
You can’t tell much from the photos, but I implore you to go to their MySpace page and listen to the closer of the set "Yes!"
Now listen to the entire thing. Now pretend you are on a rooftop in Austin at nearly midnight, after four days and night of music, your blood thinned to turpentine status, your body begging for Sunday afternoon. Ahh, you now see. Colourmusic are not a bunch of cuddly Oklahomans with a penchant for matching white jumpsuits and beards. They are not Man Man. Yes, they can sound like Wayne Coyne’s stepchildren, but on this track, I’ve got their number. They are some sort of supergroup filled with members from Primal Scream or the Happy Mondays, or whoever the hell else. At least that’s what I was thinking as I watched them close out their set with that song, the crowd being more into it than any band I had seen to that point in Austin, including Lou Reed. This is bullshit. The chants. The harmony. The crunchy chords. The guitar wails. The handclaps. The cowbell. Yes, the cowbell.
After their set, I find myself standing at the edge of the stage now occupied by British Sea Power, talking to the tall one from Colourmusic. He hands me his card. It reads “Roy G. Biv.” I later learn this is a mnemonic device for remembering colors: R(ed)O(range)Y(ellow)G(reen)B(lue)I(ndigo)V(iolet).
We are shouting over the sound of his compatriots pounding in front of us. He is masking his British accent, trying for some sort of Midwestern twang. It sounds convincing considering the circumstances.
“Fucking bullshit artist,” I think. “Go back to Glasgow or Manchester or wherever the hell it is you’re from.”
Posted by Camille Dodero at 3:56 PM, March 19, 2008
Elijah Wood at the Playboy party; photo by Lacy Weathersbee/Playboy
If you've deigned to scroll through the thousands of blog droppings about this year's South by Southwest, you'll notice that, as usual, the coverage is littered with an inordinate amount of (oft-faux-) celebrity sightings. Juvenile to report breathlessly, but spend four days in a small land area with a very high concentration of (arguably) notable performers and it's very likely that you'll be drunk, spot Diplo shirtless in the crowd of a Dark Meat show, and find yourself reflexively taking a picture. This was why Al Gore invented the Internet, right?
Diplo at the Dark Meat Vice party; photo by Rebecca Smeyne
Diplo (left) at Dark Meat; photo by Rebecca Smeyne
Rachel Ray at her day party; photo by Craig Hlavaty
Lou Reed at the Lou Reed tribute, examining a photo of Dr. Dog; photo by Cami D
Kate Nash
Driskoll Hotel, Austin
Saturday, March 15
Kate Nash is taking her boots off.
She has slipped off her acoustic guitar and is settling in behind the keyboard, pulling her legs underneath to reveal two little feet covered in bright blue socks. The room—at least the front half of the room not out smoking on the patio—is melting. Her delivery is vulnerable, with the endearing accent and the lightheaded cadence, may have disarmed you when first heard it streaming on MySpace. But near the end of this 120s-hour-long binge of alcohol and feedback, that voice is like a big bowl of smiles and sunshine. It's a voice that, when matched with the "Death of a Disco Dancer-esque" intro, can make the line “Why are you being a dickhead for?” sound downright sweet.
Nash has been running around full on since the beginning of last year. She sprinted from Glastonbury to Reading and Leeds, then made it to Jools Holland, then the Top of the Pops on Christmas Day. But the British Islands are small. This year, she will start April in Belgium and end it in Detroit—with Boston, Stockholm, New York, Indio, and a whole bunch of other cities in between.
But here’s Kate Nash today in Austin, taking her boots off. Getting comfortable with us. Slowing down for the marble room at the Driskill. Like she must have looked like in her bedroom, recording tracks on Garage Band, and uploading them to her MySpace page. Oh the mythic legends of a generation. Never mind that we learn quickly, as we watch her blue toes hit the floor pedals, that the boots would have been too cumbersome for her footwork.
She starts into the simple intro of "Foundations," continuously kicking the shit out of the anonymous boy she flogs throughout her set. She has gotten flack for these verbal beatings. Too much complaining, they say. But when is music not essentially bitching about boys and girls? And she can pull it off.
She finishes, does one more song, then looks over to her handler at the edge of the stage. He motions with his fingers, making them run in quick strides in the air off the imaginary stage. It’s time to run. Let’s go. Kate Nash has to go.
The venue: marble covered room on the mezzanine level of the Driskill Hotel. Chandeliers, dark wood, big boring paintings.
The crowd: RSVP only and the selective list shut down days ago, so it's 300 connected Brits, corporate wanks, lots of legs, twee lasses, a gaggle of shaggy hipsters.
Openers: These New Puritans. Tight, loud four piece. Singer has pipes and presence to compete. "They’re Coming to Take Me Away," if written in a South London Garage in 2007. Drummer redeems himself after playing a dreadful round of Guitar Hero—dude didn't realize you had to strum and press the colored buttons. Drummers.
Lightspeed Champion: Endearing acoustic Smiths meets Camper's sad fiddle. Late-night comedown music. The ten-minute closer, "Midnight Surprise," is my take- home song from Texas. Champion also did a killer cover of "Get Free" by the Vines, trading verses with Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man.frontman Frederick Blood-Royale.
The Pigeon Detectives: After Kate Nash, half the room emptied, leaving the Pigeon Detectives and their standard post-Brit pop a little lonely, and me sitting in a chair in the back of the room writing this down.
My favorite: The tiny platinum blonde with the leopard skin shirt, go-go-going like she was on Laugh In. I will see her hips in my nightmares (but in a good way).
Runner up: the middle-aged guy wearing white shorts and a white shirt with Canada written on it, walking around holding a squash racket. I think wandering-into-the-room-while-looking-for-the-gym-but-rolling-with-it was genius. I am wearing my ice hockey gear next year.
Marketing mistake of the day: Co-sponsor Guitar Hero had three Guitar Hero stations set up in the back of the room. With no headphones. And they didn't have a complete demo, only the songs from level 1, which means there were only five songs everyone could play. So before the shows start, I have to listen to all these Brits fucking up "Even Flow" over and over again. At least they had their product out there: Would it have killed Q to have a table with their latest issue?
The drink: Cash bar, drink tickets. Lots of champagne and Corona.
The food: Parmesan-crusted chicken, vegetarian pot stickers, salmon tar tar.
Favorite line from the stage: "This is a song about a prostitute. . . enjoy your food," Lightspeed Champion.
Posted by Rob Harvilla at 11:28 AM, March 16, 2008
The Constantines
The Parish
Sat. March 15
Smoke machine follies
This SXSW has made me feel sorry for the bands. Just how many of them there are, the astronomical improbability of their bid for superstardom, the grueling load-in/load-out for a lousy 25 minutes in front of an apathetic crowd waiting to see the band two hours from now. So to see these Canadian dudes (three albums deep, well loved but not exactly overexposed as these things go) trudge onstage in basically the same clothes they wore to their 1 a.m. gig at Antones the night before (that crowd thinned out after Vampire Weekend, naturally), the lead guitarist's left hand broken, wrapped in a cast, with his pinkie and ring finger taped together, a merciless smoke machine burping on them as they set up, well, suddenly "Turn the Page" seemed much more poignant.
And they were magnificent. Frontman Bryan Webb's voice is outstanding in its haggardness, a Bruce Springsteen rasp in full atomic bloom as they thrash through an indie-rock-paying-homage-to-classic-rock set not dissimilar to Spoon's, but more desperate and violent, devoured without utensils. "Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright)" is the one you remember; "Hotline Operator" is the one you forgot. The crowd (much larger than the Antones mob, thankfully) was in thrall, and they didn't even pull out their cover of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck." Climactically, Bryan picked up the smoke machine and turned it on us, a subtle smirk on his face. I don't feel sorry for this band any more. I feel sorry for every other band.
Posted by Camille Dodero at 4:46 PM, March 15, 2008
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Emo's
Friday, March 14
The only thing offensive about Does It Offend You, Yeah? Their name. Of course. A flagrant abuse of proper noun responsibilities, really, and the rest of us are forced to live with the inevitable consequences. Exhibit A: during their set last night at Emo's, the drunk guy in front of me yell-badgering everyone within earshot, "Are you offended?" A minute later, " So are you offended?" Three minutes later, "I'm so offended! Are you, yeah?" Ugh.
As for this horrifically named band from Reading UK, they are fun, a four-bloke piece with a frontman who doesn't actually sing. His duties are literal: he fronts. And smiles. He changed T-shirt once onstage, from a striped medley to a Mickey Mouse cartoon-print, dangled the microphone cord into the audience, and made good-natured demands from us. Like "Dance!" We did. Or "Show us your palms!" We did again.
As for the minor matter of their songs, they all sound like the breakdown in "U Got the Look," over and over and over. Occasionally, there are words and phrases, sung not by the frontman but the bass player amd mechanized through a vocoder and also repeated over and over and over, as in "LET'S MAKE OUT! LET'S MAKE OUT! LET'S MAKE OUT!" (The other refrain that stuck: "OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD!") Consummate GBH/Studio B act—expect them soon at the Hiro with, I dunno, Walter Meego. Not particularly challenging, but definitely not offensive.
Update: Does It Offend You, Yeah? is playing the Highline on Friday, May 16 with Yo Majesty? and the Shalitas. Ticket info here.
Posted by Camille Dodero at 1:32 PM, March 15, 2008
Donna F, right after I saw you step on my toe
You: the only Donna that can belch on command @ Red Eyed Fly for Tokyo Sex Destruction on Thursday, rocking a red trench coat and wearing pointy-heeled boots. When TSD frontman RJ Sinclair climbed onto the bar during his band's set, you were so wowed that you stepped back dramatically and almost spilled your drink. Me: the person who would have been wearing your drink. I also own the toe your boots nearly punctured when you fell back. Thanks for smiling at me apologetically, but if you're really sorry, how about you let me be Donna D and play back-up bass?
My foot (left) your boots (right). Not pictured: that harpoon heel!
In the event you are a PR company, publication, or band considering shipping promotional materials down to Austin next year, to be greedily devoured by the masses, let these giant piles of unwanted crap looming in the Convention Center serve as a valuable cautionary tale. People are posing for pictures next to this. It's like Lenin's Tomb, just not as cheery.
Hello from the gutters of Austin, which are filled with promo flyers, vomit, stale beer, and pizza crusts. Hello from the sewers of Austin, which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the very young. Hello from the cracks in the sidewalks of Austin, and from the transplanted scenesters that dwell in these cracks, and feed on the dried hype of the dead that have settled into these cracks.
This is after four hours in the heat, drinking free imported beer and whiskey. After listening to Yo La Tengo, Mark Kozelek, Thurston Moore, and a smattering of other bands play Lou Reed songs in a tribute to Lou Reed 2-song-a-piece show. After knowing there were a million other bands to see in Austin as the day shows turn into night, the crowd stays. He was in town. “He has to show up, right?” we all thought collectively. Hundreds of us skewing slightly older, maybe a thousand. Seven bald spots in the pit. One ponytail offset by a white Axl bandana. A camerman wearing a John Deere trucker. White sunglasses. Retro T-shirts and other relics of "alternative" yesteryears. If it were 30 degrees colder, flannel would have been broken out.
All that converging under one tent to see a tribute and--maybe, hopefully--one song from the original. The guy we all point to when asked who was the first. Who showed us how to play without knowing how to play. Who taught us all about Lexington and 125. All sitting through songs that should never be played acoustically (“Venus in Furs”), songs that can be played acoustically if the singer is willing to have a pulse (“Heroin”), and songs that just don’t sound right when they are not sung by a meek-voiced woman (“If You Close the Door.”)
After Thurston Moore’s unimpressive romp, Moby comes on for one song with one of his buxom blondes singing, and you spied Lou offstage. More shriveled than ever. Watching the buxom blonde do a mediocre impression of Nico.
The observation that Lou looks like the walking dead is not unfair. He should have been dead a million times over. He was gaunt in 1976. And to look at him now, compared to a picture of him tooling in Berlin they're silkscreening on T-shirts inside the Fader/Levi's maze, you would think the son-of-a-bitch aged pretty damn well. Mostly cause the lines and creases had nowhere to go.
Lou was afforded the opportunity to kill his legacy a million times over, something so many of his late '60s, early '70s compatriots were not privy to. Metal Machine Music in hindsight is one of the classic middle fingers in music history, but there is also Sally Can’t Dance.
But there is Lou. The survivor. He came back swinging in the early '90s, and along with Neil Young, can show the scars of living through disco phases. And as we trot him out to induct Leonard Cohen into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, or suffer through this opera or that, we show the respect. The reverence. The original sewer dweller. The man who consistently showed you could be both full of shit and genuine at the same time.
As the blonde closes up “Femme Fatale,” Lou shuffles onto the stage. And the cross-generation scensters love it. A roadie puts the guitar over Lou’s head, Lou accepting it slowly and deliberately. You can hear the crowd say to ourselves. “Man, he looks old. And weak.”
He starts the chords. Two of them. Slowly. After four hours of free beer, it could go either way. “Heroin” or “Walk on the Wild Side.” But the three women on stage give up the jig.
“Holly came from Miami, F.L.A…”
He trades verses with Moby. The three women are not “colored,” as the story goes, but the crowd has its fill of authenticity to worry about it and we all sing along. More often than not, Lou’s songs live are never better than the originals. It’s hard to capture the sparseness and desperation of “Heroin” amidst hundreds of drunks. They are acceptable imitations--until he gets to the end. When he goes batshit. Like on that live versions of “Coney Island Baby” or “Berlin” when he stretches out the two chords, turns up his fuzz, and the walking dead starts to live.
He does that here.
He bangs out his chords, at one point going face to face with Moby, trading a stare from his big round glasses into Melville Jr.'s chunky black frames. They bang for a few measures. Moby leans over and pecks Lou on the check as the chords still pound. Lou gives him a genuine smile. The other Lou Reed you know. The never-meet-your-idols Lou Reed, comes out in the middle. As he tries to teach the drummer mid-song which beats to emphasize. But you let it slide. Cause it’s Lou. And he’s only doing one song, so fuck it, make it perfect.
And it is. But it can’t last all night. Lou looks to the drummer again, gives the kill sign. And in two thumps—Dant!......DANT!—it’s over.
Lou goes to the center of the stage, and raises his arms above his head. Self-satisfied. Then he walks over to the microphone.
“I. Love. Punk. Rock.”
We the crowd. In Austin. Skewed slightly older. Retro T-shirts and bald spots and ironic t-shirts and white sunglasses, smile in unison.
I totally blew out my right eardrum taking this picture of Genghis Tron. I hope you enjoy looking at it.
Genghis Tron
Emo's Annex
Anathallo
Spiro's
Thurs. March 13
A ragged throng has gathered outside Emo's Annex, trudging slowly through the badge line, and as Philly prog-metal dudes Genghis Tron (possibly a Top-10 Band-Name Pun, maybe even Top 5, though no threat to unseat, say, the Self-Righteous Brothers) are hammering away inside, some dudes stand on tip-toe to glimpse the chaos over the chain-link fence. As I walk out a short time later, I also see several gentlemen enthusiastically air-drumming. This is an amusing sight on its own; all the more so because Genghis Tron don't have a drummer. If they did, they might look even more like the heavy-music Blue Man Group.
No, all the spastic, pulverizing drum parts are sampled, as the GT three wail mercilessly, finger-tapping guitar gymnastics punctuated by lung-scouring shrieks. But all that's overshadowed by the tubes. There are a series of a tall, thin cylinders hanging behind the band, and they light up and change color in time to the beat, be it slow and droning or double-time histrionic. Depending on your mood this effect is either bizarre, mesmerizing, or hilarious. In any event it gives you something to look at as Tron cycle through their violent mood swings: brood, scream, wail, jam, repeat. You sit around waiting for the deceptively calm synth-pop parts to get all badass; eventually they do. And when they do, it sounds like Dan Deacon covering "Happiness in Slavery" with bitchin' lighting effects.
This is one way to put on a show.
Anathallo, packt like sardines in a crushd tin box
Another way to put on a show is to cram as many folks and as many wacky instruments onstage as possible. Horns. Keys. Giant-ass bass drums. And shakers. You can never have too many shakers. Chicago's Anathallo make relentlessly precocious indie-pop with Sufjanesque symphonic toy-factory aplomb, a blizzard of handclaps and singalongs and goofy facial expressions. Very appealing. "Fey, Christian, and into music theory," smirks my companion, who'd suggested the show. We watch for awhile. "Don't tell anyone I like this," he eventually adds. He shouldn't be so ashamed. This here is 10 pounds of cute in a five-pound bag, the frontman's cheery banter rambling on so long they run out of time and have to scrap the last song he'd promised us. All the while a blaring capital-R Rock band -- not quite Genghis Tron, but forceful nonetheless -- kicks up a clearly audible din at the club next door. Like the noisy, hostile outside world encroaching, threatening, but failing to overwhelm us.
The band after Genghis Tron was called Municipal Waste, writ in that gnarly, barely legible metal-dude font. You can buy T-shirts with that logo on the front and a few different slogans on the back: either "Thrashin' of the Christ" or, even better, "Sadistic Magician." Another reason I found both of these shows equally endearing.
There are construction workers standing on the balconies of the half-finished condos across the street, staring intently at our boozing/taco-scarfing/networking asses as we bask in a cool breeze and guzzle free Coors. I cannot tell if they are forlorn or merely amused. Regardless, an insistent jackhammer joins the clamor as Pusha-T and Malice tear into "Momma I'm So Sorry," both more shrill and excitable onstage than on record, but redolent with the same ominous egomania that makes even a chorus of "Mama I'm so sorry I'm so obnoxious" sound like a boast. I don't think they're sorry. Call: "What we got, y'all?" Response: "We got it for cheap!" Pretty great, lively, responsive crowd, given the circumstances. (It's 4:30 in the afternoon, etc.)
This fine afternoon they're closing out Rhapsody's yearly hoedown (disclosure: The event's MC is in my wedding, and I bought him the T-shirt he's wearing ), which began with British Sea Power at the ungodly hour of 12:30 p.m. and cycled through No Age (physically tremendous, remarkably Beastie-esque in their brashness), Cut Copy (a slightly dull drone-rock band periodically possessed by the spirit of the Pet Shop Boys), and Sons & Daughters (Scottish, pretty, vacant). But Clipse is undoubtedly the star attraction, delivering a triumphant set from a group that only sounds triumphant maybe 70 percent of the time: Every Hell Hath No Fury cut, the pinging, mesmerizing "Keys Open Doors" especially, is pretty great, the bass set to jackhammer-overpowering levels. But Clipse's latest product, the Re-Up Gang mixtape We Got It 4 Cheap Volume 3, is a much crabbier, moodier affair—myriad sordid tales of drug-dealing from minor rap stars who've unfortunately realized that drug-dealing pays far better than minor rap stardom. When Re-Up partners Sandman and Ab-Liva take the stage (towering over their scrawny, more famous compatriots), the quartet sticks to the harder, more cocksure stuff—Lil Wayne disses, declarations of their target audience ("20k Money Making Brothers on the Corner"), etc.—and avoids all the complaints about music-industry bullshit. After closing with a rush of greatest hits ("Wamp Wamp," Grindin'"), they make only a brief allusion to all that, in the form of the least believable boast of the whole set: "New Clipse album coming this fall!" Bet on these guys, but don't bet on that.
Posted by Camille Dodero at 3:51 PM, March 13, 2008
Apologies in advance for being one of the many assholes to blog-taunt you from Austin. But if you're into schadenfreude—and NYC, I know you are—you'll be delighted to know that the SOC family-town laptop keyboard committed suicide early this morning, so I spent the last few hours with an Apple Genius at a Texan mall. And so I present the only SXSW snapshot that won't make those at home jealous: the Barton Creek Food Court.
They're not very good live. Maybe you knew this. Maybe you've chosen to forget. Tonight, we simply overlook. What is first evident, as they triumphantly take the stage at one of the bigger-name SXSW fetes (second, perhaps, to Motörhead), is that the dudes are looking a bit peaked. Wearied. Old, is what I'm saying. Five or 10 years from now they'll play the Super Bowl halftime show (Browns 24, Vikings 13), and you will be just as alarmed as Tom Petty made you this year -- alarmed for both their health and yours.
So we are inundated with new shit tonight, from the imminent Accelerate, which at first blush probably won't be as moribund as Around the Sun, but ... ehhhh. The songs are a bit louder, brasher, angrier, but still exploding into that sunny, boppy sort of R.E.M. chorus that's simultaneously recognizable and forgettable. The song bitching about Barbara Bush's post-Katrina Superdome quips is half-finished at best; "I'm Gonna DJ" is half-clever at worst. Michael Stipe these days is prone to corny non-sequitur exclamations -- "Hey!" "Whoa!" "Yeah!" -- amid his typical half-loopy, half-preachy banter: anti-war, pro-Obama (called that one), etc. He's endearing, but the band's flaccid, and the crowd is even worse, beaten down by New One after New One and barely perking up when the dudes deign to toss out "Drive" or "Fall on Me" or "Man on the Moon." (The way Stipe howls "Coooool!" after every chorus still inexplicably annoys me.)
Late-period R.E.M. isn't a total wash, generating a hummable string of second-tier singles: "Imitation of Life," "The Great Beyond," and "Bad Day," wherein Stipe proves to be the worst harmonica player in recorded history. But their old transcendence is hard to come by: The nearest we get tonight is a surly take on "Walk Unafraid," from the underrated Up, the band's last great album, bizarre electronic flourishes and all. Too early to say if Accelerate has that kind of spark, but watching Stipe and the boys beat a festival crowd over the head with it for an hour and a half, I doubt anyone's convinced just yet.
Incidentally, Mike Mills remains the sweetest dude ever.
It's a bit absurd, perhaps, to haul it all the way to Austin just to enjoy the grandeur of something available back in the Village for the past decade, but if you’ve not yet had the pleasure of DJ Rekha's monthly Basement Bhangra party, held every first Thursday at S.O.B.’s and celebrating its 11th anniversary in April, you had best bone up on your Punjabi MC trivia and stop by. Rekha is NYC's unchallenged goddess of the buoyant, bombastic South Asian style, a breathtaking surge of Bollywood sentiment and hip-hop bravado. She’ll bring a welcome gust of fresh air to the white-dudes-with-guitars-besotted SXSW scene, and now, finally, she's got an excellent mix CD to hawk as well, appropriately titled DJ Rekha Presents: Basement Bhangra. Look out for "Dhol, Dark and Handsome."
SXSW shows are rarely transcendental affairs. Burnout is inevitable—by Saturday night, you have no idea where you are, what’s in your drink, and who’s onstage, nor do you particularly care. So it’s a great compliment to whirlwind guitar virtuoso Kaki King that her gig last year in a small courtyard left the crowd spellbound and deeply attentive, to the point where anyone speaking above a whisper was immediately and angrily shushed. Her sound demands such intimacy and attention, mixing gauzy, complex folk balladry with stupefying fretwork wizardry—a New Age guitar-goddess act of fingerpicked, slapped, and pedal-altered pyrotechnics that somehow fuses Sarah McLachlan and Yngwie Malmsteen. Kaki's new record, Dreaming of Revenge, is excellent, but this is an in-person phenomenon: It must be seen to be believed, preferably in complete, reverent silence. The fooking fury has never been so delicately unleashed.
Kaki King also headlines the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, April 9. Ticket info here.
Yes, Firewater frontman Tod A has indulged in a long, globe-trotting sabbatical these last few years—“for reasons of mental health,” the band’s official site explains. “Following the re-election of George W. Bush (and other assorted tragedies), Tod took a protracted leave of absence from an idiot-run America, the cut-throat music business, and the Western world in general.” You’ll be happy to know he has since returned to all three. Firewater is a longtime world-punk favorite—former members went on to join the gypsy revolution portended by Gogol Bordello and Balkan Beat Box. Tod’s take on the sound is just as exuberant but profoundly seedy, hard-nosed, and sardonic—he’s not hopeless, exactly, but it takes a lot to cheer him up back here in idiot-run America. Firewater’s latest, The Golden Hour, doesn’t look to be out yet but is currently streaming on their MySpace, once again perfectly balancing the catchy and the cynical. As an alternate title, we suggest Fiddler Beaten to Death on the Roof.
Firewater also headline the Bowery Ballroom on Monday, May 26. Ticket info here .
Yeasayer's clearly having a little van trouble.
photo by Doron Gild
Every year at SXSW, there's one ubiquitous hot-shit band that plays 10,000 parties and leads off 50,000 blog posts—past luminaries include Bloc Party, the Go! Team, and Peter, Bjorn and John. As for the 2008 title, (the actually quite splendid) Vampire Weekend's got it all locked up. Bah—let 'em have it, and the withering overexposure it brings. Yeasayer is just as deserving, however, with a deft, deep, droning brand of spiritual pop that wears its vibrant drum-circle influences a bit less blatantly and more elegantly: Feels perfectly natural, Peter Gabriel too. Last year's All Hour Cymbals is slick and dense and quietly foreboding, but with a warm, hippie-ish glow that slowly overtakes you: The in-the-round chanting of closing number "Red Cave" is a stirring, beautiful climax and denouement. Their live show is apparently rad these days too, if Voice guru Tom Breihan can be believed, which I suppose he can.
Just as Stephin Merritt re-reads Ethan Frome every year for spiritual rejuvenation (which is ludicrous, incidentally—do not read that book under any circumstances that don’t involve a syllabus), it is highly advised that every month or so you brew a cup of tea, draw the curtains, dust off your comfiest chair, immerse yourself in silence and solitude, and bask in the restorative glow of Wesley Willis’ “I Whupped Batman’s Ass.” Put it on repeat for a while. It is, in its own inimitable way, as rousing and inspiring as “Eye of the Tiger” or “America, Fuck Yeah”: a stirring tale of adversity, resistance, and triumph.
Batman beat the hell out of me
And knocked me to the floor
I got back up and knocked him to the floor
He was bein’ such a jackoaf
Not jackoff: jackoaf. Jack oaf. An important distinction. (It meant a great deal to me at 19, in any event.)
We all have our favorite WW jams—“Rock and Roll McDonald’s,” “Kris Kringle Was a Car Thief,” “The Chicken Cow”—and our own private misgivings about enjoying them. A bit of a conundrum, that. Willis was a morbidly obese schizophrenic plagued by “demons;” he wrote essentially the same song—deploying a tinny, goofy Casio beat—over and over and over and over, with Wesley wildly, profanely ranting o’er top about vampire bats, Urge Overkill, Superman, etc. He was thus beloved in an outsider-music/Dr. Demento sort of way, but he clearly took his work more seriously than we did. It’s the old “laughing with him or at him?” debate, which has raged on even after his death from leukemia complications in 2003.
Given the warm reception afforded The Devil and Daniel Johnston recently, it’s evident that Willis, too, would be excellent fodder for a full-length documentary—or, as the makers of Wesley Willis’s Joyrides prefer to call it, a “Rock You Mentary.” For those of you who’ve convinced your employers to scoot you off to Austin a week early this year—the SXSW Film Fest begins Friday, though the tunes don’t begin until next Wednesday—here is your Pick to Click, etc. This is actually not the first film about Willis (see 2003’s day-in-the-life flick Wesley Willis: The Daddy of Rock ’n’ Roll), but Joyrides would appear to the first biopic: talking heads, wacky drawings, etc. The filmmakers (Chris Bagley and Kim Shively) seem to sense what makes their subject both fascinating and somewhat controversial, so hopefully this won’t be two hours of a mentally ill guy raving about “whipping a cheetah’s ass” and whatnot while people laugh at him. Rock over London. Rock on Chicago. He went to Jared!
Screening info for Wesley Willis’s Joyrides available here
Posted by Camille Dodero at 7:01 AM, February 8, 2008
photo from SXSW 2006 by me
There was this adorable moment last year on the last night of South by Southwest, when proud Williamsburgers Matt & Kim were playing the backyard rattletrap-gazebo of the amazingly rad dive Ms. Bea's. Matt was standing up on his stool, looking out at the hundreds of drunk kids swarming around him, and suddenly realized that he recognized nearly everyone in sight. If I remember correctly, he squeaked out something about how it good to see so many familiar faces, how this was the "most Brooklyn-feeling shit I've been to in Texas," and then offered us all a ride back.
So yes, Brooklyn's gonna empty out for five days next monthto chase after Dolly Parton, but there is something reassuring about encountering New York faces in a foreign place. Matt & Kim are again heading to South by Southwest this year, but there's a long list of other local folks you might recognize: A Place To Bury Strangers, Asobi Seksu, the Big Sleep, El-P, Earl Greyhound, Jeffrey Lewis, Matt & Kim, MGMT, Eugene Mirman, O'Death, Parts & Labor, Phosphorescent, Ra Ra Riot, Santogold, Scary Mansion, Sightings, Shellshag, Shooting Spires, Team Robespierre, Telepathe, Vampire Weekend, White Rabbits, White Williams, Yeasayer.
Full NY-band list, culled from here, after the jump.
A-Alikes (Brooklyn NY)
Activator (New York NY)
Air Waves (Brooklyn NY)
Akron/Family (Brooklyn NY)
American Babies (Brooklyn NY)
Anamanaguchi (New York NY)
Antietam (New York NY)
A Place To Bury Strangers (Brooklyn NY)
Apsci (Brooklyn NY)
Joseph Arthur (Brooklyn NY)
Asobi Seksu (New York NY)
Maya Azucena (Brooklyn NY)
Band of Thieves (New York NY)
Todd Barry (New York NY)
Bear in Heaven (Brooklyn NY)
Bell (New York NY)
The Big Sleep (Brooklyn NY)
Bing Ji Ling (New York NY)
Bisc1 (Queens NY)
Bit Shifter (Astoria NY)
Blacklist (New York NY)
Blues Control (Brooklyn NY)
A.A. Bondy (Palenville NY)
Bryan Scary & The Shredding Tears (Brooklyn NY)
CAMP LO (Bronx NY)
Rufus Cappadocia (New York NY)
Caps & Jones (New York NY)
Care Bears on Fire (Brooklyn NY)
Cassettes Won't Listen (Brooklyn NY)
Children (Brooklyn NY)
Cobra Krames (Brooklyn NY)
Corn Mo and the .357 Lover (Brooklyn NY)
Cosmo Baker (Brooklyn NY)
Danielia Cotton (New York NY)
Crystal Stilts (Brooklyn NY)
DBR (New York NY)
Mark DeNardo (Brooklyn NY)
DJ Rekha (New York NY)
Donny Hue and the Colors (Brooklyn NY)
Doveman (New York NY)
Dr. Delay (Brooklyn NY)
Dub Trio (Brooklyn NY)
Dynasty Handbag (Brooklyn NY)
Ana Egge (Brooklyn NY)
Eldar (New York NY)
El Michels Affair (Brooklyn NY)
El-P (Brooklyn NY)
The End of the World (Brooklyn NY)
Ali Eskandarian (Brooklyn NY)
Firewater (Brooklyn NY)
Tim Fite (Brooklyn NY)
Foreign Islands (Brooklyn NY)
The Forms (Brooklyn NY)
Freshkills (Brooklyn NY)
The Gang (Brooklyn NY)
Genghis Tron (New York NY)
Earl Greyhound (New York NY)
Haale (New York NY)
Hangar 18 (New York NY)
Harlem Shakes (Brooklyn NY)
Hearts of Darknesses (Brooklyn NY)
HEAVy (Jamaica NY)
The High Class Elite (New York NY)
Jolie Holland (Brooklyn NY)
Home Video (Brooklyn NY)
Hopewell (Brooklyn NY)
Human Giant (New York)
Brendan James (Brooklyn NY)
Jaymay (Brooklyn NY)
Richard Julian (Brooklyn NY)
KaiserCartel (Brooklyn NY)
Kaki King (New York NY)
Matt Keating (New York NY)
Ladyfingers (New York NY)
Dawn Landes (Brooklyn NY)
The Lemonheads (New York NY)
Jeffrey Lewis (New York NY)
Longwave (New York NY)
Samara Lubelski (New York City NY)
Made Out Of Babies (Brooklyn NY)
Matt & Kim (New York NY)
Mary McBride (New York NY)
Men (New York NY)
MGMT (Brooklyn NY)
Ingrid Michaelson (Staten Island NY)
Raul Midon (New York NY)
Chris Mills (Brooklyn NY)
Roger Miret and the Disasters (New York NY)
Eugene Mirman (Brooklyn NY)
Misha (New York NY)
Miz Metro (New York NY)
Moby (New York NY)
My Brightest Diamond (Brooklyn NY)
Nada Surf (Brooklyn NY)
Nullsleep (New York NY)
O'Death (Queens NY)
Ohmega Watts (Brooklyn NY)
Ola Podrida (Brooklyn NY)
Anders Parker (New York NY)
Parts & Labor (Brooklyn NY)
Paul Collins Beat (New York NY)
Peelander-Z (New York NY)
Tristan Perich (New York NY)
Phil and the Osophers (Brooklyn NY)
Phonograph (New York NY)
Phosphorescent (Brooklyn NY)
Pistolera (New York NY)
Power Douglas (Brooklyn NY)
Project Jenny, Project Jan (Brooklyn NY)
Pterodactyl (Brooklyn NY)
Puny Human (New York NY)
Radio 4 (Brooklyn NY)
Rana Santacruz (New York NY)
Ra Ra Riot (Syracuse NY)
Ravens & Chimes (New York NY)
The Raveonettes (New York NY)
The Red Romance (New York NY)
Right on Dynamite (Brooklyn NY)
Pete Robbins & Centric (New York NY)
Anna Rose (New York NY)
Roxy Cottontail (New York NY)
Salt & Samovar (New York NY)
Santogold (Brooklyn NY)
Scary Mansion (Brooklyn NY)
Scavone (New York NY)
Tony Scherr (New York NY)
Christian Scott (New York NY)
Services (New York NY)
Shellshag (Brooklyn NY)
Shooting Spires (Brooklyn NY)
Shy Child (New York NY)
Sightings (Brooklyn NY)
The Silos (New York NY)
Alex Skolnick Trio (Brooklyn NY)
Slow Six (Brooklyn NY)
Soiled Mattress & The Springs (New York NY)
Son Lux (New York NY)
So Percussion (Brooklyn NY)
The Sound of Urchin (New York NY)
Spottiswoode & His Enemies (New York NY)
S-S-S-Spectres (Brooklyn NY)
The Subjects (Brooklyn NY)
Super Chron Flight Brothers (Brooklyn NY)
Swati (New York NY)
Takka Takka (Brooklyn NY)
Tall Firs (Brooklyn NY)
Russell Taylor (New York NY)
Team Robespierre (Brooklyn NY)
The Teenage Prayers (New York NY)
Telepathe (Brooklyn NY)
Luke Temple (Brooklyn NY)
These Are Powers (Brooklyn NY)
Pyeng Threadgill (New York NY)
Tigercity (Brooklyn NY)
Tiny Animals (New York NY)
Tiny Masters of Today (New York NY)
Todosantos (Brooklyn NY)
Tommie Sunshine (Brooklyn NY)
Truth & Soul (Brooklyn NY)
The Upwelling (New York NY)
Vampire Weekend (New York NY)
Via Audio (Brooklyn NY)
The Virgins (New York NY)
Abigail Warchild (Brooklyn NY)
Eddie Whalen (New York NY)
White Rabbits (Brooklyn NY)
White Williams (New York NY)
Heloise Williams (Brooklyn NY)
Tim Williams (Brooklyn NY)
World/Inferno Friendship Society (Brooklyn NY)
The XYZ Affair (Brooklyn NY)
Yeasayer (Brooklyn NY)
Young Lords (New York NY)
Zambri (New York NY)
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