SXSW'08: Saturday

I blew off most of the day out of mental and physical fatigue, and went on a BBQ run to Spicewood, TX, about 30 miles NW of the city. The place was called Opie's, we bought about $140 worth of various meats, and had a big old feast with about ten of us there. It was good times.

We then made a pit stop at the Outside Records party at the Saxon Pub, where I saw both Jill and Matthew Barber, though I have to confess I wasn't really paying attention to either. Their songs seemed nice enough but I was busy digesting.

From there, Flatstock was next, and I picked up five posters to add to my collection, featuring The Pernice Brothers, the Weakerthans, Centro-Matic, Okkervil River and the New Pornographers.

I then went back to the hotel and started trying to track down several of my friends who I had barely seen all week, and got a response from one that led me to hop into a cab and head to the French Legation Museum, which was hosting a daytime party that day. I "saw" She & Him, a new duo featuring folky M. Ward but mostly concentrating on the songs of the her, Zooey Deschanel. I liked them, though I couldn't actually see them because of the tent and sun in my eyes.

They were followed by the thing that lured me, another set by Okkervil River, who brought the, um, tent down with their eight-song set. Will Sheff has found his mojo and had one of my favourite lines of the festival when he was encouraging the crowd to clap along and said "C'mon, put down your iPhones and clap your hands!"

I went from there to see Welsh soul-pop chanteuse Duffy, who was nice enough though not anything I would rave about. I left the venue even though the mighty Okkervil River were the next band on, deciding that no matter how good they were I couldn't justify seeing them twice in four hours when I had only a few hours of festival left at all. So I walked over to another venue and saw Chicago's The Redwalls, a retro pop-rock band that has a big ole crush on the Beatles, which is alright by me. They were really good, and featured easily the best vocal harmonies I heard all week, which given that two of them are brothers isn't all that surprising.

I then decided to check out Justin Townes Earle -- no pressure there, your dad is Steve Earle and he named you after Townes Van Zandt, arguably the greatest songwriter country music has ever known -- and his five-man country ensemble. I enjoyed him well enough, and found the debate going on around the room about whether or not he looked like his daddy or not was amusing. (I swear I heard at least four different conversations about this in under 40 minutes.) Next up were Chicago's The Deadstring Brothers, a band I first discovered at SXSW in 2006. They were once again excellent, bringing their worship ofExile on Main St.-era Rolling Stones back to Austin yet again.

I was thinking about going to see the Slits after that, but was worried that the late start of their set, 12:15, might cause me to miss what I knew would be a great ending to the festival, British Sea Power's official showcase, at 1 a.m. So I decided to take my chances with the Autumns, from Los Angeles, who were playing before BSP, and while I didn't hate them, I didn't love them either. They were basically a shoegazer band with a Thom Yorke-wannabe singing, and their low point was certainly the song that I wrongly assumed was the end of their set which ended with all three guitar players and the bass player on their knees or lying on their backs noodling away. Tedious.

British Sea Power came on a bit late (as they had on Friday, again with the British tardiness!) but it was well worth the wait. They were absolutely off the hook, and the 20 or more other people I knew at the show, including quite a few jaded music-industry types who don't get excited about anything, all agreed it was one of the best things they saw all week. The crowd chanting "Easy! Easy! Easy!" along withHamilton on "No Lucifer" was exhilirating, and the freakout at the end while everyone wondered where guitarist Noble was going to end up was rock bliss, and a fabulous way to end a great week of rock music. Here's how that show, and my SXSW, ended on Saturday night. I think you can see my head in this shot, I must have been a few people in front of the cameraman.

That's it. I'm happy to entertain questions about any bands, and I can't guarantee I didn't miss anything in this writeup as it's all pretty jumbled still. Can't wait until March 2009 to do it all over again.

SXSW'08: Wednesday

In the early afternoon I saw Catfish Haven, a crazy soul-inspired psych pop band from Detroit. They won the award for most facial hair of all the bands I saw, and I dig them enough that I will seek out their records. After that I went to the Guitartown party and saw a singer songwriter -- I think it was Tom Freund but I wasn't sure and I didn't stick around all that long.

I ended up at Emo's Annex to wait for some friends and saw Toronto's Jason Collett, who I've seen a few times before, and enjoyed his country-ish pop songs well enough. Another band followed that were so forgettable I don't even remember their name, and then on came The Wedding Present, or at least a facsimile of them, as there were only two people onstage, David Gedgeand a bass player. They were alright, but I liked them much better a few years ago at Lee's Palace.

Following that show, I ended up seeing singer-songwriter A.A. Bondy on a friend's recommendation, who said after seeing him earlier that day that "I felt like I had never heard any of his songs before, but thatI knew them all for a long time." That about sums this guy up -- his songs were sometimes quirky, but he has an element of the songwriting quality that made Bob Dylan great, and you know I don't throw that around lightly. I will definitely keep him on my radar.

Following that, I found nothing too appealing in the 9 p.m. timeslot so I opted for a band called Radio Radio, figuring if they named themselves after an Elvis Costello song they had to be okay. I was wrong. They were a band after that early 80s sound that launched so many MTV careers, and the front man had clearly spent more time singing in front of a mirror than a crowd.

Disappointed, I left after a few songs and went to see a British band called Carlis Star that some friends were seeing. They were uneven, mostly because it seemed to me that they hadn't decided what kind of band they wanted to be so they were doing all kinds of different styles. They had moments, but not enough of them. They were followed at the same venue by Ed Harcourt, so I stayed for a while to see him -- he was like a cooler version of Ben Folds, basically, and I enjoyed him well enough. Nice pop songs, catchy.

After that, I headed to the Austin Music Hall where the annual AustinMusic Awards were taking place. The basic gyst of the ceremony was that Austin really, really likes Spoon. They won 7 awards, I think -album of the year, band of the year, songwriter of the year, song of the year, male vocalist of the year, and a couple of others, including probably an award for winning the most awards. Once the awards were finally handed out and the ladies present had stopped swooning over Spoon's Britt Daniel, Okkervil River took the stage and performed what is arguably the best three-song set I ever saw at SXSW (the other contender being Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 inside at Stubb's back in2004 or 2005). Okkervil River were then joined onstage by psych-rock legend and Austin native Roky Erikson (the man behind 13th Floor Elevators) and backed him on three of his own songs, which were stellar as well. Okkervil River are, for my money, the best U.S.-based live band out there right now, or at least close to the top of the list (other contenders would be Centro-Matic and Spoon, off the top of my head.)

After Rokkervil, as they dubbed themselves, was done I walked back to the centre of the city and saw a few songs of an awful roots band, Southeast Engine, including a painful cover of "I Shall Be Released." Wishing I could be, I was, but unfortunately I had to stay because the next and last band of the evening was Centro-Matic, one of my favourites. They put it in their normally strong set, unveiled a few songs from their forthcoming record, and finished the evening off by indulging the crowd with a rare encore and even rarer cover song, the Beat's "Save It for Later" - nice way to end night one.