9pm, Kyle: I think SXSW should incorporate a slogan a friend of mine uses to describe touring: hurry up and wait. For all of the festival's transcendent moments, there are hours of drudgery—standing around in the venue, waiting in long, confusing lines, and general tedium. Right now, it's the line outside La Zona Rosa for the Free Yr Radio showcase, featuring Times New Viking, Yeasayer, and Simian Mobile Disco. And, more pressing to me, food for supposed VIPs like myself. I've fooled them again!
9:05pm, Sean: According to my wife, country-rocker Johnathan Rice used to date Jenny Lewis, so at least he’s got that going for him. Unfortunately his music isn’t as noteworthy, blending every lyrical cliché—it seems as though every chorus falls back on the words “love,” “baby,” and “the road”—into a twangy frappe. “It’s a long, long way to the middle of the road,” he sings. Actually, I think we just found it.
9:16pm, Marc: My first official SXSW 2008 show is at the Central Presbyterian Church—yup, pews and all. The rather odd setting makes sense for the other shows I plan to see here (Retribution Gospel Choir and Mark Kozelek on Thursday, Jandek on Saturday), but Zookeeper lacks that certain something to make the whole thing feel as magical as it should. The new down-home band (in an indie rock sort of way, of course) fronted by Chris Simpson of Mineral and The Gloria Record fame also lacks the hooks to keep me interested.
9:35pm, Sean: During a text exchange, my friend Alex (who’s manning the sound over at Antone’s) chides me for being at Stubb’s, saying, “Sean sure does love the old man rock.” Looking around I notice there is indeed a heavy touch of grey at the R.E.M. show. Lots of paisley and bolo ties too. Then a ponytailed dude in a Gene Loves Jezebel shirt walks by. Holy shit, what year is this?
10:05pm, Sean: I run into Whitney Matheson, who runs the excellent Pop Candy blog. I tell her we often steal from her for Newswire, and she says it’s okay, because she links to us almost every day as well. This is my first “blog-ebrity” meet-up—and yes, I want to kick my own ass for using that word—and unfortunately I think I made her uncomfortable by asking about her many stalker-ish fans and whether she ever finds their adulation a little creepy (a common watercooler discussion around these parts). She affirms that, indeed, she occasionally gets creeped out…although that could have all been directed at me.
10:15pm, Josh: Hit and run! From a distance, we see a pickup smash a car, realize he did wrong, and hit the gas. The wronged, wrecked car gives chase. It's like the Wild West down here!
10:20pm, Sean: What do you call a band featuring someone who’s not really famous but her family is? Papercranes doesn’t exactly count as a “vanity project” because it’s Rain Phoenix’s main gig. Nonetheless, I sort of doubt she’d be sharing the R.E.M. stage if she wasn’t who she was. The band’s music is pleasant enough—sort of smokey, vaguely trip-hop in places—but it still feels like a secondhand copy of something that was done better the first time. Hey, kind of like O! (My wife, by the way, says it reminds her a lot of Shy, the band led by the female werewolf “Veruca” in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I love my wife.)
10:34pm, Marc: Back down on Sixth, the Peter portion of Peter Bjorn And John is doing his solo thing at The Parish, which finds a string section backing him up. Peter Morén's singer-songwriter fare is pleasant enough, but man, strings always make everything sound so much better. I wonder if I'd actually like Tapes 'N Tapes if they started touring with a string section. In a sign of Scandinavian solidarity, the Shout Out Louds dude jumps onstage at the end to help out with an excellent cover of A-Ha's "Take On Me."
10:35pm, Kyle: I'm going to sound like a cranky old rockist when I say this, but whatever: It seems the majority of buzzing indie bands have some non-traditional instrumental setup. And more often than not, it strikes me as gimmicky. I'm reminded of this by Times New Viking—whom a staffer from local college station KVRX accidentally refers to as "Times New Roman"—whose organ-guitar-drums setup, admittedly, isn't cloyingly quirky. Still, the sound they create is absolute mush—overdriven guitar with no low end, surprisingly noisy keyboards, and vocals that sound like they're running through a distortion pedal set to "UNINTELLIGIBLE." Drummer Adam Elliott is a chatty guy, but I can't make out anything he says. A couple minutes into their set, Josh says simply, "They're just not very good."
11pm, Kyle: The holy grail of SXSW: a place to sit. Hours and hours on your feet is taxing, but chairs at Austin venues are as rare as a Nickelback T-shirt. Zing! (Alternates: a dude with a normal haircut; pastel clothing; a rep from a money-making label; or a black person.) Chicago Sun-Times and Sound Opinions critic Jim DeRogatis has snagged on hidden by the soundboard. Bastard!
11:11pm, Marc: Against my better judgment, I'm in line to see R.E.M. at Stubb's, whose employees have already told the wristband people (who have less power than those of us with badges) that there's no way they're getting in. The line is still long enough to be snaked around the front of the venue and spilling onto the street.
11:20pm, Sean: Shoegaze-y Southern rockers Dead Confederate have an excellent Neil-Young-meets-Spacemen-3 vibe, all needling vocals and huge waves of reverbed guitar. For the first time tonight, the rolling smoke machines and strobe lights on the Stubb’s stage seem appropriate. Highly recommended listening—my first genuine endorsement of the day.
11:31pm, Kyle: Seriously, how long does it take Yeasayer to set up? All told, roughly 40 minutes—excuse me, 40 goddamn minutes. I know you guys didn't get a sound check, but how much tweaking do you possibly need in the monitor mix for a 45-minute set? In the end, they screw themselves: SXSW generally runs on a tight schedule, and all that dilly-dallying ate into their set. They only get half an hour.
11:39pm, Marc: The band is supposed to be on at midnight, so I'm still holding out hope. The line has started to thin out a bit, and when I look up at the roof of the large parking structure across the street, I realize where everywhere has gone.
11:47pm, Marc: Thirteen minutes and counting, though the bouncer guy has given me and everyone in front of me hope by saying that everyone behind us probably won't be getting in. That means everyone is front of his waving motion will be getting in, right?
11:59pm, Kyle: Ladies and gentlemen, Yes. Or Rush maybe? Yeasayer's MySpace page describes their sound as "Enya with Balls," and that's also appropriate. The longhairs on bass and guitar look like they could unleash some rock, but it doesn't arrive. Instead guitarist Anand Wilder favors Eastern scales that sound like Led Zeppelin at their Kashmiriest.
12:10pm, Sean: Michael Stipe confirms what everyone has been dreading: “We’re gonna do a bunch of new songs tonight.” He ain’t lying: R.E.M.’s set is almost wall-to-wall songs from the still-unreleased Accelerate and the handful before that (a.k.a. the ones nobody really likes), with only a few bones tossed the crowd’s way in the form of “Drive,” “Fall On Me,” “Auctioneer,” and “The Great Beyond.” Stipe is in full-on pundit mode, introducing “Electrolyte” with a longwinded treatise on how he’s “terrified historians will look back on the first decade of the 21st century as a time dominated by our overreaction to 9/11,” and later avers that he’s “tired of politicians telling me what to be afraid of” before thanking Austin for strongly supporting Obama. He’s also big on dedications tonight: “Animal” goes out to the guy who booked the band’s first ever show in New York; the band brings out a cake and sings a rocked-up version of “Happy Birthday” to a crew member; and somewhat oddly, he dedicates “Until The Day Is Done” to Heath Ledger, whom Stipe says “really understood it”—uh, whatever that means. The applause gets more and more tepid as the hour grows later and later, although anticipation is high for the encore—traditionally a time for bringin’ it on home with some hits. Unfortunately, all we get are a couple more new songs, Reveal’s “Imitation Of Life,” and the other Andy Kaufman tribute, “Man On The Moon.” Just before the encore, Stipe sang, “It’s been a bad day.” Not completely, Michael, but it’s certainly been a long one; would it have fatally wounded your artistic integrity to send us home on a crowd-pleasing note? For fuck’s sake.
12:10am, Kyle: Yeasayer frontman Chris Keating grumbles about having time for only one more song. He advises fans to photocopy SXSW badges because it's "not worth it," then does an immediate 180. Disparaging SXSW is a bootable offense.
12:15am, Josh: The scruffy Scots of Frightened Rabbit offer angry jangle and the sort of desperate energy that's impossible to fake. Their second album, The Midnight Organ Fight, is coming out in April, and they play like they're ready to kill you with it. (That's a good thing.) Singer Scott Hutchison seems grateful that people showed up, noting "You could be at R.E.M. But you wouldn't want to be there." The drummer's a fucking madman, and he keeps bashing as his bandmates clean up their gear. Here's a video from the upcoming album:
12:22am, Marc: Wrong. The line hasn't moved, the band is three songs into its set, and I have yet to recognize anything R.E.M. is playing. It's time to move on.
12:36am, Kyle: I may be a rockist, but I was excited to see British electronica outfit Simian Mobile Disco. I enjoyed last year's Attack Decay Sustain Release quite a bit, and it'll be nice to break up what will undoubtedly be a festival dominated by indie rock. The group immediately delivers with "Sleep Deprivation," and crowd, seemingly a little bored by the previous two bands, erupts. The Daft Punk-lite, seizure-inducing light show is both mesmerizing and a little hard to take because it's so blinding.
12:59am, Kyle: A guy crowd surfs, and people actually cheer him on. The good vibes are thick in the air.
1:03am, Kyle: Signs posted around La Zona Rosa strictly forbid the use of cameras, cell-phone cameras, or any recording device, but no one enforces it. How can they? Everyone has a camera, and taking pictures is hardly plugging up someone's revenue stream.
1:06am, Josh: The first casualty of bad booking: super-quiet Bon Iver, who take the stage after Frightened Rabbit, but who can't fight the buzz of a talkative crowd and simultaneous music crashing through from other stages. If you're not squashed up front, you can't hear or see a thing. Add to that the indignity of the rooftop stage at Maggie Mae's also serving as a pedestrian thoroughfare to another part of the club, and you've got a less than ideal situation to see something so mellow. It makes it easy to head to bed early-ish.
1:10am, Kyle: Few things sound as impressive on a good sound system as a thudding house beat. Aside from some occasional popping that sounds like a shorted cable, the sound for Simian Mobile Disco is perfectly huge.
1:21am, Kyle: Simian Mobile Disco leaves the stage after less than an hour—an encore is certain. A guy behind me says "Sick beats, man." The group is back within a minute.
1:30am, Kyle: SXSW is usually overloaded with after-hours parties, but tonight's surprisingly slow, and that's fine by me. Tomorrow, the intensity kicks up a few notches. Best to ease into it.
1:50am, Marc: Back at the church, I'm watching Ola Podrida—whose bass player is none other than Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set fame—playing its mellow, pretty pop, which is much more appropriate for the venue than what Zookeeper offered—one could even call it divine! Kenny initially suggests having a nightcap after the show or taking a stroll through the park, but we all decide it's too late, and really, I need to get up early to write this blog…
« Previous | 1 | 2
- Comments