New York Music Blog

Nate "Igor" Smith

Just some guy

Two red-eye flights there and back, a night in a camper without a pillow or blanket, another crashed uninvited on an angry stranger's futon, no consistent shower or WiFi in sight--with pilgrimages like this, I think you're supposed to find God, but instead I found Dent May. In no particular order, five personal highlights:

Well that's over with. To complete my spiritual journey, I will now both provide my top-five greatest moments (Metallica excluded) and explore how non-SXSW revelers might enjoy their music, immediately or in the immediate future.

1. Ms. Janelle Monáe, of course. Her deeply, defiantly weird dystopian-diva routine is way more exhilarating live than on her Metropolis: The Chase Suite EP, wherein the lovesick-android-on-the-lam shtick gets a little distracting. More Suites are planned soon, though, and power-r&b smash-in-the-making "Tightrope" is a monster, so. See her on tour this summer opening for No Doubt, of all people, including stops at PNC Bank Arts Center June 26 and Nikon at Jones Beach Theater June 27.

Couple of typos here, but the point stands.

If you ain't a Montana cowboy, you ain't shit.

Fast zombies suck.

Don't mess with Arkansas... either.

Green shirts are for pimps.

Barack & Michelle & Sasha & Maliah.

Dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians.

Dip me in beer and throw me to the drunk chicks.

Fantasy football legend.

Rose & Blanche & Rose & Dorothy.

I don't have to go church -- I tip.

Be the person your dog thinks you are.

Holiday Inn Cambodia.

Slash & Barack & Britney & Robocop.

I want to be inside you. [Picture of smiling cheeseburger.]

Dennis Kucinich for President.

We're full. Fuck off. [Outline of Texas.]

She could use a little help here.

Janelle Monáe (Vice)
SXSW Saturday Night, March 21

Ideally at this thing you find someone to champion, whether they're a relative unknown or already loudly championed by myriad others. Definitely the latter here: Janelle's been hailed as the future of r&b for what feels like years now; should that come to pass, the future of r&b will apparently be fantastically incoherent.

Playing the exact same set as at Stubb's a few nights ago -- with a way worse soundsystem (her strutting-badass guitarist reduced to amorphous distorted howls) but a far more devoted audience -- she vacillates gleefully from Orwellian space-funk to skronking heavyy metal to her pretty incredible torch-song cover of Nat King Cole's "Smile" to the new "Tightrope," a fantastic pop-r&b anthem with serious "Umbrella"-of-2009 potential. Throughout, she dabbles in diva howls and operatic lunacy, all while dancing like a robot trying to do the Human. And at the show's histrionic climax, she leaps into the crowd; 98 percent of the time "crowd surfing" is a misnomer, but she glides from the front of the stage to the back of the room, borne mostly by bewildered, bearded dudes three times her weight who are both fascinated by and deeply afraid of her. We can get by with one Beyoncé, but we need as many Solanges as we can get.

Jensen

Kanye West with Common at the Fader Fort

Backstage at the Fader Fort, half of the Voice team escaped to the Shockhound.com/Hot Topic trailer, hiding out from Kanye West's security, who swept through the backstage area at 7:25 and removed everyone without an all-access pass. When the coast was clear, we emerged and watched as West introduced and performed with a bunch of G.O.O.D. artists, as well as Common and Erykah Badu. More info later.

Perry Farrell
Pangea
March 21, 2009

Jensen

One guitarist, one bongo player, one Powerbook, one wife, two go-go dancers, and Perry Farrell.

Danced-up versions of Farrell's songs, which were not half bad, but the crowd was not in the mood to dance. A guy toward the back of the room held up his middle finger for the first half of the show. "Jane Says" for an encore, during which Farrell invited a guy with a "Jane Says" t-shirt onstage, who was as happy as a guy in a "Jane Says" t-shirt onstage with Perry Farrell.

This one's for you, Zeke.

Jason Lytle (Home Slice Pizza)
Explosions in the Sky (Auditorium Shores Stage)
SXSW Saturday Afternoon, March 21

So I've got this Grandaddy fixation thing I'd just as soon not gas on about. (Anymore.) Suffice it to say that ex-frontman Jason Lytle remains a person of interest, of confusion, of concern -- following the ELO-playing-NES indie-rockers' untimely demise, he decamped from Modesto, CA, to Montana, and has now reemerged with Yours Truly, the Commuter, a solo album of lovely and defiantly solitary digital-campfire tunes, the tenderest of which, "Ghost of My Old Dog," is this afternoon dedicated to "Zeke."

Lytle still peers aloofly from under a pulled-low trucker hat, his randomly amassed backing band (old bandmate Butch is back on drums; the newer, Montana-based bassist is introduced as "a really good skateboarder") shuffling lazily, creakily, sweetly half-assedly through a couple Commuter jams and some vintage Grandaddy tunes: "Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake" with more melodica, "Levitz" and "Chartsengrafs" with less surly propulsion, and most enjoyably "Jed the Humanoid," Lytle's ode to an neglected robot who drinks himself to death. He sings it as though it's autobiography, and retains his shy-to-completely-withdrawn onstage demeanor, but that doesn't mean he's not enjoying himself. Notable stage banter: "This microphone smells like Doritos."

Camille

Taylor, Adam, Bun, James

Right now, Tinted Windows are sitting on the couch across from me at the Driskoll Hotel lobby. Tinted Windows?!? Yes, Tinted Windows: the mind-boggling "super"-group of Taylor Hanson, James Iha, Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schleslinger, and Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos. I am here pilfering free WiFi and they are here answering questions from a barrage of interviewers. We are not equals.

Watching these reportorial transactions--and that's what they are--are hilarious. So far, we've had a blonde television reporter spend her 15 minutes leading up to the investigative gem, "So have you guys had the chance to catch any shows while you're in town?" All smooshed together on a couch, they grin uncomfortably. Taylor answers something to the effect of Ah, nah, we've sort of been in our own world.

Next? Taylor and Adam, the best talkers, are then paired off with a slouched-over, middle-aged/middle-America writer (no camera, only a notebook, Tim Allen haircut) who's comparing Tinted Windows to the Traveling Wilburys (not quite) and Bad English (more like it). "It is sort of interesting that you say that," says Taylor, clearly wanting to be perceived as a Traveling Wilbury. Adam Schleslinger proceeds to explain that there's no real master plan behind this band. "Dude, it's just some guys that like each other and want to make some music." They also concede that Tinted Windows is a "joke name," purposefully pretentious--because they are not. And for what it's worth, Taylor Hanson seems like a pretty sincerely nice dude, at least from across a hotel lobby.

Next? Derek from the Tripwire, who asks James Iha if Billy Corgan's gone crazy. There is laughter.

You could probably join this band if you wanted. More pics below.

Mere hours after joining an awestruck cast of thousands to celebrate the imminent release of Guitar Hero: Metallica, we encounter the exact same level of glorious exuberance, offstage and on, with roughly 1 percent of the people. Gleefully anarchic Bay Area ska outfit Still Flyin' are a double-digital ensemble playing to not much more than a double-digit crowd at 1:30 a.m. at the Independent, a venue represented in our official pocket venue guide by a rather intimidating map of I-35, though it's only like two blocks from "the action." But crowded as close to the stage as possible, regarding a whirling dervish of dancers, horn players, amateur cowbell enthusiasts, and backup singers, the effect is just as transcendent as "Sanitarium" was, anthemic malevolence swapped out for outrageously catchy odes to -- well, I'm not clear exactly, but weed and beer are prominently involved.

Black Lips walked on to "Liquid Swords" with GZA's voice booming from the back room. When he came out, the crowd went apeshit. The rest of my notes: "This is a trainwreck."