SXSW wrapup, part V (final)

Before starting our evening music experience, I tried to avoid a repeat of the first two nights where my feet gave out before the schedule did. A side trip to the CVS showed I wasn't the only one in Austin with issues – the footcare section was completely sold out of every insert, cushion and anything else to add a layer of relief above the hard venue floors. So at least I wasn't alone in my plight.


28. David Berkeley, Tap Room at Six, 7:30 p.m.
SXSW is, by design, not a place to fully immerse yourself in one artist's music. The sets are short, the crowds always at risk to bolt for the next hot act, and each act might play three or four or more shows in a day. By necessity, seeing dozens of bands at nearly as many venues in a day means you're getting a sample of each of them rather than a full concert experience. For the most part, the musicians seem to embrace the festival and its quirks. David Berkeley did not. In fact, he seemed openly hostile during his set, bemoaning the fact he didn't see real fans in the audience and castigating the industry nature of the event. Tip for anyone getting started in music: open contempt of your audience is not a recommended way to go.

29. Eliza Doolittle, Tap Room at Six, 8 p.m.
The British press compares Eliza Doolittle to Lily Allen. Musically it makes sense – they both cheekily sing jaunty-sounding songs with a heavy British accent – but she reminded me of no one more than Miley Cyrus. Not musically; although they both fall under the very wide net of female-sung pop, it's a pretty meaningless moniker. (And I can't see Miley coming out backed by a group of guys dressed in the aggressively uncool garb of bow ties above red-and-white striped shirts with constant smiles.) But what they do have in common is their eyes, which grab and play with the audience. Eliza Doolittle used hers to great affect, flipping from sultry vamp to innocent fluttering, but always giving the impression she is in control.

30. Sharon Van Etten, Central Presbyterian Church, 9 p.m.
From Eliza Doolittle's pop we moved to another female singer, but the shows could hardly have been more different. We headed up to Central Presbyterian Church in order to catch Typhoon and happened to arrive at the start of Sharon Van Etten's set.

The soaring ceilings flanked with stained glass windows formed a perfect set for Van Etten's soulful voice. Between songs, it was apparent her vocal cords were nearly shot; standing behind a guitar almost bigger than she was, she had to croak out her apologies for the state of her voice along with backstories for the songs. But once she started singing, the slight rasp and raw edge only added to the incredible intimacy and emotion of her songs. Among all the bands we saw, no one gave more of themselves to their music than Van Etten did here. Once she finished, the crowd, which had been sitting in the overpacked pews, rapt in attention, stood as one for the ovation.

31. Typhoon, Central Presbyterian Church, 9:30 p.m.
The only band we saw twice at SXSW. After catching a short set with some technical limitations Thursday, we circled this set on the schedule to catch the band with a full complement of amplified sound and it lived up to all our expectations. As with Sharon Van Etten, the full sound and harmonies were perfectly complemented by the stained-glass setting.

More than any other band, Typhoon's sound stuck with us in the days and weeks after we left Austin. Once we arrived home, we immediately ordered two CDs and they've been in heavy rotation ever since. This was, no question, our find of SXSW.

32. Washington, Maggie Mae's Rooftop, 10 p.m.
One of the few acts I'd listed as a must-see. I first heard Megan Washington on a podcast by Triple J, an Australian radio station, and immediately her songs stood out. On the surface they're catchy pop songs with a female singer, but there seems to be more beneath the surface lyrically and musically than most pop songs, while the hooks stick in your head.

33. The Jezabels, Maggie Mae's Rooftop, 11 p.m. I didn't know anything about the Jezebels before their set started, and I still don't. From the first song, the sound was so washed out, perhaps by design, perhaps from poor sound work. Either way, we decided after the initial song to head down the street to see the Limousines, a band I knew of only from one single.

34. The Limousines, Emos, 11:15 p.m.
Another of the pleasant surprises of SXSW. The two-person electro-pop dance band was pure fun. Even more of a surprise was that Kirsten - whose tastes tend to run more folk than dance - enjoyed the set as much as I did. It was late Saturday night, Sixth Street had filled up, there was party in the air. The energy coming off the stage and reverberating through the audience here swept us up. And when they dropped their hit, everything got amped up several notches. It was time to soak up the revelry and just enjoy being in Austin.

(Side note: Emos had set up a bank of port-a-johns in the back of a courtyard, which we utilized after the show. And then noticed, along with a few others, the odd rockings of one of the units. As the amorous couple opened the door, about two dozen people broke out in applause. The female portion of the pair ducked in apparent embarrassment and ran away. The male looked around and broke out into a grin. There may have been a bow.)

35. OliveTreeDance, corner of 6th & Neches
In our pre-SXSW research, I'd come across a frenetic dance track featuring didgeridoo. Then I learned it was played by a dude from Portugal, and then I was gutted to find out his only SXSW performance was on Wednesday, before we were going to arrive. Seriously. I love this.

And then, we stumbled across him playing street performer on a random corner on Sixth Street between shows. And I seriously could have watched this damn near forever. Although far more amazing was the fact he apparently really could play forever. He was playing again at the corner about two hours later when we walked by again. His instrument of choice, played at a thousand beats a minute, can not be easy to keep up for that long. He did. I tip my cap to that man, who made our night that much more enjoyable.

36. Art vs Science, Maggie Mae's Rooftop, midnight
Originally I'd tentatively scheduled another female singer in this slot, but we decided to cut the folk out of our night and stay with high-energy acts. (Turns out to be a good decision, as our original choice, Brooke Fraser, apparently only played three songs.)

So instead, we headed back to the Aussie showcase (I do love me some Australia) for Art vs. Science, another act I'd been introduced to through Triple J's podcasts. The rooftop was packed for this one, and the band ably filled the criteria we were looking for - keep our energy peaking. Art vs Science doesn't take itself too seriously, and when the beats dropped the rooftop was literally bouncing. In the back, we could turn around and see the madness of Sixth Street, now packed wall to wall with music still coming out of every door and window.

37. Neon Trees, Emo's, 1:15 a.m.
We walked in here to try and boost our flagging energy with whatever remained on stage. Neon Trees gave us a brief adrenaline boost, but not enough to overcome the quick-approaching fatigue. I don't remember anything about this band, and I took no notes. It was time to call it a festival, but even walking to the shuttle bus center and riding home the afterglow of the evening remained.

We'll be back.

SXSW wrapup, part IV

Saturday, March 19, 2011 (afternoon)

22. Yip Deceiver, Side Bar, 2 p.m.

Two o'clock is essentially first thing in the morning for at lot of SXSW attendees, and it clearly was for Yip Deceiver. Playing on a makeshift stage set up in a smoker's courtyard behind the bar, with the afternoon sun beating down on a dozen or so people watching from the bare wood picnic tables set on a bed of gravel, the lead singer looked out made an announcement. “It's hot, we're hungover, but fuck it – let's have some fun.”

He and the rest of the band made good on his promise, with some distorted electo-pop, heavy on 80's influences. Even as the sun baked the outdoor space, the band gave all the energy they had.

23. Venice is Sinking, Side Bar, 2:30 p.m.
I stumbled across this band in some random corner of the Internet and became completely infatuated with their song Okay, enough to mark them as a must-see at SXSW. The swelling strings (seemingly every act with more than three members featured strings at South-by) and chamber-pop harmonies didn't disappoint.

24. Little Scream, Swan Dive, 3 p.m.
Out of every venue we saw where the SXSW stage was crammed into an unlikely space, the Swan Dive was perhaps the least well-executed. The bar appeared to function as more of a lounge club when not pressed into SXSW duty, and the temporary stage stuffed into a corner was completely out of sight of the sound board at the back of the room behind and below an elevated seating section. With the bar empty for setup, the sound guy was probably minimally able to see what was happening on stage, but filled with people he had absolutely no idea.

Little Scream's set suffered a bit from muddy sound, perhaps partially due to the odd setup and partially due to the bar's unkind acoustics. Nevertheless, the music was good. The obligatory string player was bolstered by a bass flute, a novelty even for SXSW. Flute often helps lyric indie sounds, and did so here as well, complementing the strong vocals. This show mostly hit home how incredible the SXSW experience was: seeing this set in a different context, as the headliners in some small rock club one night, would have been an experience to talk about. Here, it was only the second-best show I'd seen so far that day, and there were still more than a dozen shows to go.

25. Blue King Brown, Maggie Mae's Rooftop, 4 p.m.
Maggie Mae's played host to an all-day showcase of Australian music, which was our home for the rest of the afternoon, and which we returned to Saturday evening as well. Our first taste of down under came from Blue King Brown, a roots group which mixed funk, reggae and roots rock sound. I'm not a huge fan of those elements either on their own or in sum, but lead singer Natalie Pa’apa’a's stage presence captivated me. She may have been the smallest person on stage, but she had a regal bearing and the rare quality of commanding the attention of every person in the room.

26. Andy Clockwise, Maggie Mae's Gibson Room, 5 p.m.
We decided to check out what was happening through a side door and wandered into what appeared to be a performance by Zach Galfinakis. Backed by loud distorted guitars and a wall of noise, the bearded lead singer gave a frenetic performance, bounding around the stage, jumping into the crowd, leaving a trail of sweat wherever he went.

27. Bliss N Eso, Maggie Mae's Rooftop
OK, this one is cheating a bit. I barely got to listen to a full song before we headed out to grab some dinner, but if I had been alone I would have absolutely stayed for the entire set. I have a soft spot for Australian hip-hop, which seems to have taken American old-school rap as the starting point but evolved into something slightly different than modern American hip-hop; the Australian genre seems somehow to take itself a little less seriously.