Recap Fun Fun Fun Fest 2009

“It’s raining in Austin—there must be a music festival” is close to becoming our unofficial motto around these parts, but while the talk of rain and mud dominated most of Sunday’s conversations at Fun Fun Fun Fest (followed only by, “I’m missing Mad Men for this?!”), it shouldn’t be the whole of the discussion. The way we see it, the final throes of Austin’s outdoor music festival season came to an appropriately chaotic climax with a bill heavy on noise and unpredictability—and what better companions in a storm? Here’s what else we were left talking about as we sought shelter from Waterloo Park.

Seriously? This again?
Offering definitive proof that outdoor festivals are a crime against nature—crimes which are finally being answered, Charles Bronson-style, in a series of vigilante downpours—this weekend’s weather was a virtual mirror image of ACL, with a beautiful first day giving way to soggy, muddy misery on the second. Some of you went so far as to blame it on little old us for our jokey promises of “No ’Dillo Dirt” in the official guide, to which we can only say: 1) Hey, we’re not the freaking weather service, and 2) all we ever promised you was a lack of reconstituted sewage. We were assured that the muck everyone was forced to ski through this time was composed of good old-fashioned, American mud, and we’re sticking to that story. (But next year we probably won’t joke about rain again.) And hey, if you want to blame it on someone, blame it on Danzig: During his set, he boldly proclaimed he’d “brought the Danzig Black Clouds of Rain” to help us ease out of our “drought.” Yeah, we needed that maybe three months ago, Glenn, but thanks for thinking of us.

Less likely cause of Sunday's rain
Of course, Danzig was just perpetuating the most oft-overheard joke of the weekend, which went—to paraphrase the members of James Husband—something like, "Good thing Danzig ordered these gloomy skies/this rain/the hellish sea of mud!" And even though in his own mind, Danzig’s stature (Danzig-is-short joke!) should be enough to whip up whatever awful weather tickles his twisted fancy, the Sunday skies were actually never clearer than when he took the stage, so that theory doesn’t totally hold water either. So who should shoulder the blame for the rain (aside from the forces of evaporation, condensation, precipitation—and us, of course)? We nominate San Marcos-based post-rock quartet This Will Destroy You, whose initial noodlings were accompanied by a steady drizzle which—in time with the epic rise of the band's instrumentals—grew to a downpour by the time Donovan Jones wrung the last bit of feedback out of his amp. 

Further backhanded acknowledgment of our existence
While most took umbrage with our taunting whichever one of the Fates is responsible for fucking up people’s shoes, Atlas Sound frontman Bradford Cox publicly called "bullshit” on our "no jam bands" edict before playing for the crowd at the Orange Stage. Leaving behind his usual loops and pedals, Cox brought a full group of backing musicians along for a set that could have been described as “jammy,” we suppose, though not in the traditional sense that we meant it in. Theirs dodged both the “Zappa Zone” and Terrapin Station (despite being partially powered by an auxiliary percussionist playing djembe and conga with maracas) in favor of Krautrock-inspired song structure and Neil Young-esque, smeared soloing that, true, went way past the fabled “seven-minute mark.” But really, that’s the good kind of jamming—and hence no giant vaudevillian hook this time, Brad.

Grisliest, yet most oddly appropriate tribute
You didn’t have to be deep in the devil horn-tossing crowd to know that Danzig brought some serious diehards to Waterloo Park; we’re pretty sure the fervent sing-along to “Her Black Wings” reached the upper levels of Brackenridge, where it hopefully brought a smile to the face of a terminally ill child or something. But none were so dedicated as the lady who fought her way to the stage just as the final crush of “Mother” had faded and Danzig had scuttled off to his elf blood-driven mega-bus: Before anyone could react, she whipped out an urn and dumped her recently departed friend’s cremated ashes all over the spot where Danzig had just played, making a big, mournful mess. Apparently it was her friend's dying wish—although we're not sure said dying wish also included being swept up with a discarded set list, then deposited in some dude's Danzig III: How The Gods Kill LP, as was related to us by fest organizer James Moody this morning.

Hey, you’re gonna hurt yourself!
He may be pushing 50, but age clearly hasn’t made a coward of The Jesus Lizard’s David Yow, who launched himself into the crowd with the very first notes of “Puss.” Throughout the band’s gloriously ramshackle homecoming, Yow ping-ponged through the crowd and jerked about on stage screaming for another “Boilermaker” and making everyone “Seasick” like he was still some punk kid with nothing to lose; his antics offered the best “up yours” to the idea of aging gracefully we’ve ever seen, but man, his chiropractor must be totally fed up by now.

We’ve still got another 15 years or so to see if Les Savy Fav’s fearless jester Tim Harrington spazzes himself right into a wheelchair, but in the meantime the crowd was treated to a set heavy on Let’s Stay Friends tracks like “The Equestrian” and “Patty Lee” which ended with Harrington—dressed (chronologically) in: a spacesuit, a wedding dress, tiny briefs, purple tights—hauling out a ladder during “The Sweat Descends,” planting it in the crowd, and then dragging a fan up to its top step where they both balanced precariously. On Sunday night, Crystal Castles’ Alice Glass topped off her group’s pummeling, strobe-and-smoke-filled digital whiplash by tossing herself into the eager hands of the audience sans safety net, but the crowd gladly held her aloft (while also copping a few feels). She’s just lucky there weren’t still-angry Dallas fans in the mix—or Vega’s Alan Palomo, for that matter.

Easiest bedroom-to-big-stage transition
Speaking of which, the antiquated electronica of Neon Indian's Psychic Chasms seemed like iffy source material for a good live translation, but all rough edges were worn down well before the band took the Blue Stage by storm on Saturday night—thanks, no doubt, to leader Alan Palomo working out most of the kinks with his afternoon set as Vega. For both sets, Palomo's hazy beats and drugged-out vocals sounded as wonderfully muddled live as they do on record, capturing the crowd in their laconic pulse. Still, festival fans apparently aren’t as comfortable with seeing brand-new acts, judging by how many requests were yelled out for hits "Deadbeat Summer" and "Should Have Taken Acid With You." Guys, he only has the one album. Chill.

Most distractions overcome
Things intruding on Dan Bejar's set of stripped-down Destroyer songs on the Yellow Stage, in order of intrusiveness: The Jesus Lizard; an EMS helicopter; obvious intoxication; and some dude who really wanted to hear City Of Daughters' "I Want This Cyclops." How Bejar dealt with each: cutting remarks ("This song is 15 years old, but there are older things going on right now"), staring it down, giving into it (though references to heroin and morphine made his ambling more worrisome than endearing), and playing the damn song after the 11th cry of "CYCLOPS!" The latter, of course, was preceded by yet another stab at The Jesus Lizard's "fuckin' ruckus."

Most aided by the general shittiness of outdoor sound
Even the best outdoor music festival sound systems occasionally can render whatever’s being played onstage as garbled transmissions from some sun-warped cassette tape—which was all the better for Times New Viking and James Husband, two bands whose skewed pop sense is best conveyed when the instrumental mix is a little muddy and the vocals are slightly buried. Working with the shortcomings of outdoor sound rather than against them, James Husband's Saturday set sounded as if it were being amplified from one crummy amp in the middle of the stage, and for once, that was okay.

Most overheard adjective that sounds like a compliment, but less so the more you heard it
“Solid”—as in, “Yeah, The Night Marchers were totally solid. I just wish they’d played more songs I liked.” Which we know is really just a way of saying they’re not Hot Snakes or Drive Like Jehu, but still a batch of talented rockers who know their way around a guitar. See also: Young Widows, whose churning, atonal rock lacked the abrasive edge it has on record, but were totally solid nonetheless. We mean that in a good way, we swear.

Worst time to show off the new saxophone player
Mika Miko's untimely demise on the Black Stage earlier in the day pretty much made co-vocalist Jenna Thornhill a full-time member of The Strange Boys, with whom she's been sitting in on backing vocals and saxophone since this summer. Thornhill had an unfortunately timed coming-out party, however, as the Sunday rain reached its peak during the Boys’ performance on the Yellow Stage. Waterlogged and buried low in the sound mix, the one saving grace of Thornhill’s sort-of official debuts is that at least she wasn't electrocuted. She'd already lost a band that day; she didn't need to lose her life, too.

Stage show only slightly less ridiculous than Of Montreal's
Only a 90210 performance and playing with a symphony orchestra away from becoming to the '10s what The Flaming Lips have been to the '00s, Of Montreal continued to inch toward its own Soft Bulletin-style spectacles with a set populated by a dancing Santa Claus and miniature confetti canons. It was a less ostentatious show than the one the band brought to Fiesta Gardens last fall (performances that don't involve frontman Kevin Barnes taking part in a mock gallows execution usually are), but there were still ninjas and some weird S&M play during "Cato As A Pun.”

Still, those slaves had it far easier than the ones employed to provide the canned laughter for The New Movement, who put on a set of ancient Egypt-themed anti-comedy. Dressed in the best pharaoh finery a thrift store could provide, Chris Trew channeled his comedy hero Neil Hamburger through some awful-on-purpose jokes, only to be slain by a Roman heckler and have his throne and queen (an impressively straight-faced Tami Nelson) assumed by said Roman. Trew's costumed slaves then traded their foam pyramid blocks for their fallen ruler, transporting him to his burial ground—on the other end of the park. Trew's not a hefty guy by any means, but that's an absurd length to go for a few laughs and some awfully confused double-takes.    

Most overdue mosh pit
Some 44 years after being denied its rightful place in the proto-punk pantheon, Death's "Politicians In My Eyes" finally inspired the flying elbows and ricocheting bodies its righteous fury demands…

Most pointless costume change
…although it was overdue in more ways than one, as it felt like another 44 years before the trio finally took the stage, some 25 minutes past its set time. Part of the reason for that delay was so the group could put on their matching black cloaks—which they shed right before playing the first song. Yeah, that was worth it.

Least sincere mosh pit
The halfhearted, probably ironic circle of smirking, flailing kids who were shoving each other around as No Age plied its goopy noise-punk on the Orange Stage. We need to invent something to do at concerts that falls somewhere in between just standing there nodding and self-conscious nostalgia. It’s getting kinda ridiculous. 

Best mosh pit
What those smirky jerks didn’t get is that a real mosh pit needs to have a sense of actual wild abandon, balanced by a communal concern for everyone’s safety. The mix of fresh-faced high schoolers and old-school, inked-up punks slamming into each other during Fucked Up's no-bullshit hardcore combined the energetic folly of youth with the painful wisdom that can only come from catching an elbow in the eye socket. 

Most harried security detail
The security on the Black Stage had it tough enough already—pulling crowd surfers over the barricades, making sure the pit maintained a reasonable level of chaos—without having to make like telephone poles in order to ensure Fucked Up's Damian "Pink Eyes" Abraham had enough mic cord to mill about the masses. For their trouble, Abraham announced that the Fun Fun Fun Fest security workers were "the coolest [they've] ever had" at a festival, a title they most certainly earned after making sure the not-exactly-petite frontman stayed aloft after a climactic stage dive.   

Further adventures in nostalgia
It's always been said that Mission Of Burma was a band before its time, so hearing songs written a quarter-century ago was less of a nostalgic cash-in than just seeing a still-vital band finally getting its due. And although they joked that they were the “kings of disappointment” for not dutifully plowing through “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver” in favor of tracks off the new The Sound The Speed The Light (although “Academy Fight Song” and B-side favorite “Devotion” both made appearances), the band commanded respect without having to sacrifice dignity, which is really the opposite of disappointing.

And even though they’ve mostly slipped into the “looking backwards” stages of their careers, the major power chords, triple-time oompah drumbeats, and “oh-oh” choruses of reliable warhorses 7 Seconds and Face To Face offered a similarly animated rejoinder to the concept of fading away. Both groups (while comprised of men getting slightly too old to be young and angry anymore) delivered sets that were nostalgic without sounding dated—admittedly easy to do when your respective styles of hook-filled, sugarcoated pop-punk and excoriating hardcore are still being imitated by thousands of bands.

Coming up on its 30th anniversary, 7 Seconds crammed approximately 45 songs into about as many minutes—including covers of Sham 69 and Nena (the band’s version of “99 Red Balloons” is arguably its most famous tune)—while dodging an endless barrage of stage-divers and dedicating everything to “the kids” in the audience (the median age of which was probably around 35). Face To Face, recently reunited after a five-year break-up, wisely stuck to the positive pronoun-filled aphorisms of its first two albums (1992’s Don’t Turn Away and 1994’s Big Choice) and the crowd absolutely ate it up. Frontman Trever Keith was self-deprecating and charming, and even bassist Scott Shiflett’s Geddy Lee-esque noodlings during the extended breakdown of “Pastel” were greeted with appreciative moshing. The Jesus Lizard may have been the old band everyone was most looking forward to on Saturday, but there weren’t nearly as many part-time punks pogoing to “Mouthbreather” as when Face To Face blasted through the Descendents’ classic “Bikeage.”

Most welcome new material
Despite being heavy on reunion gigs and proven acts, Fun Fun Fun was also a great place for a preview of Yeasayer’s Odd Blood, already one of the most anticipated releases of 2010. Judging from the brief peeks into what’s being called its “pop” breakthrough album, Odd Blood isn’t likely to be the next Oracular Spectacular as some have claimed, but the band’s slight departure from the already played-out industrial tribalism scene toward a more straightforward, synth-laden ecstasy has resulted in some genuinely crowd-pleasing songs—and “Ambling Alp” only seems to get more epic with each airing. And although it’s not totally new, there was still a fascinating factory sheen on the alternately brutal and blissed-out electro-nihilism of Health’s recent Get Color, which got an extra dose of intensity thanks to a blindingly stark light show that looked like something the group may have purchased cheap off of former tourmate Trent Reznor.

Taste of the future
As America's reign as an uncontested superpower comes to an end, it's time to get on board with the rest of the world: adopt the metric system, start watching soccer, and embrace electronic music with the same relish as the rest of planet Earth. Not the malfunctioning machine, digital punk plied by Health and Crystal Castles and the like, but full-on techno/drum-and-bass/jungle/house/club music. Portugese “progressive kuduro” proponents Buraka Som Sistema made it clear that the future will be full of ethnic rhythms and speakers throbbing with sensual bass—although the black-light face make-up and wanton shaking butts confirmed fears that the future might really end up resembling that rave scene from The Matrix Reloaded.

Highest relief-to-crowd-size ratio
Almost as dubious as the talents the show celebrated, the grand prize in our recent Fame Whores competition was a not-so-coveted spot on the Yellow Stage during the early hours of Saturday’s lineup. But our hand-picked stand-up comedian Chris Cubas managed to pull in a sizable crowd, who sent the contest winner warm waves of laughter in response to some seriously dark jokes about car dealerships holding 9/11 sales and local TV ads for abortion clinics. ("Come on down to Doc Skulnik's Abort-a-torium!") Cubas' association with the Altercation Comedy Tour (which performed immediately after him) probably had more to do with that than we did, but we were just glad we could say, "Hey Chris, nice set" when he was done, rather than "Hey Chris, nice set—sorry nobody showed up." (And once again, we were really glad we didn’t listen to Transmission’s Graham Williams and pick screaming-into-shopping-bags guy.)

Most successful gimmick
As a band who sings nothing but funky odes to feet, Austin's Foot Patrol is dangerously close to being just an eye-rolling novelty act. It’s a limited concept—albeit one delivered with panache by Austin’s own man-who-would-be-Prince, T.J. Wade—rounded out by a three-ring circus of cops-and-robbers costumes, a trio of choreographed dancers, foot-shaped props handed out to the crowd, and on-stage contortionists, which sounds like a recipe for overkill. Still, Wade and Co. pulled it off marvelously, packing their early time slot with plastic foot-waving acolytes who eagerly sang along to the band's toe-sucking anthems. That was in stark contrast to Metallagher, whose clever concept—having a Gallagher impersonator smash fruit and tell intentionally dated jokes in between shaky covers of Metallica songs—was mostly just a mask for a lack of any real musical talent, stupidly fun though it may have been.

Worst product placement
The creepy blue Camel tent covered in cancer warnings and "No Cameras" signs lured smokers with the promise of free cigarettes, but something about its windowless facade suggested that it hid something far more sinister—like some sort of alien probe program, or free Snus. But at least it had intrigue going for it, which was more than could be said for the overbearing campaign for The Men Who Stare At Goats. The camouflage tent, street team decked out in fatigues, and free “No Goats No Glory” T-shirts were fairly standard shilling, but did you really need to bring in a live goat and tie him to a tree for the duration of the festival? Not only does that movie look kind of shitty, but now we associate it with a sad goat stuck standing in the rain while jackasses try to feed it beer cans.

Best product placement
There were a lot of head-scratching moments during GZA's festival-closing set, but even more disorienting than King Khan sitting in on rhythm guitar—which was actually kind of amazing—was when the Genius suddenly started exhorting the crowd to "Go organic: Eat Whole Foods!" Whole Foods should reciprocate and start using "B.I.B.L.E." as its official jingle.

Bands we missed and are bummed about
Tons. Tell us who we should have been watching in the comments, and we’ll see you next year—when it should be around 72 degrees all day, with zero chance of precipitation.