SXSW 2008

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SXSW 2008 Radio (65 great songs from the SXSW website and beyond - 221 MB)
Just The Hits (Julia’s and Randy’s Top 15 songs from SXSW 2008 - 54 MB)

No, this isn’t an especially early preview of SXSW 2009. Julia and I really did take over two months to publish our SXSW 2008 review.

It was Julia’s first time, so I’ll let her summarize in her own words:

Sundrunk taco-fueled days, languid bean-fueled nights. Crowded thoroughfares, shoulder to shoulder with rock stars living the life and life stars living the rock.

Welcome to Julia and Randy co-authored review extravaganza.

Favorite Shows
Yeasayer
Bowerbirds
Best Friends Forever
Bon Iver
Land of Talk
A Place To Bury Strangers
Tim Fite

Runners-Up
Lucky Dragon
Duchess Says
Deer Tick
Ponytail
The Raveonettes
Hey Willpower

YACHT – The electrogenius behind The Blow’s last two albums who alternately channels Devo, T-Pain, and N.I.N.. Live he presses play on tape and goes into seizures.

Bowerbirds – Sparse melodies and sea shanty percussion reminiscent of dark children’s storybooks or a remote cabin in the wilderness with some birds chirping and a dash of summer rain. Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsome aren’t in this band, but you’d never know it.

The Raveonettes – So clean it’s dirty, clean as a bloody razor blade. Breathy vocals, surf guitar. A downbeat shoegaze band named like a garage band.

The Mae Shi – Blanket forts and candy tantrums. A rag-tag, electro spaz punk hive mind.

The Shout Out Louds – Like a mopier Swedish version of that part in Under Pressure when David Bowie sings “Why don’t we give ourselves one more chance?” Earnest dudes who couldn’t get in sang along through the slats in the fence.

Best Friends Forever – Sweet and sharp like hornets in your orange soda! The twee kids tried to get them kicked out of indie rock summer camp, but it backfired when they were discovered to be misunderstood geniuses. Outrageously amped like Watts at a Martin Luther King Day block party.

Soiled Mattresses – Absurdist shuffling band geeks with brass instruments and synths, shrieking like a vulture plowed down on the interstate; save it or shoot it? Muppets in a former life, reborn as autistic humans.

The Air Waves – A sparse Fender/Marshall indie rock minimal jangle with lilting vocals, as predictable but no less poignant than heartache, death, and taxes, led with an charming hesitation and insecurity.

The Black Ghosts – Snappiest drums and freshest synths, then this homeboy ambles onto the stage and busts out with the slickest soul vocal you’ve ever heard from a white dude. LA cocaine slamming electro with most of the pretension and meaninglessness filtered out.

The Dodos – This cocksure baby semi-asian knows he’s pretty enough to be a rockstar. Love lorn lyrics over hyperactive acoustic blues heavily reliant on delay pedal harmonies. His music was good, but he sure was a dipshit.

Bon Iver – A rich emotional blend of cobwebby folk, a signature crackling voice that had even more presence live. Bon Iver shares his sadness with a personal warmth.

Lykke Li – In the US this would just be cheesy teenybopper pop, but coming from Sweden it has depth, sophistication, and instrumentation with personality and subtlety. I overheard a White Southern devotee to the Gza say that he would like to ask this girl out on a dinner date.

A Place To Bury Strangers – Unchecked Brookyln gutter hipsterism unleashes a sudden torrent of post-My Bloody Valentine disaffected noise. He hunches over his guitar like a scarecrow with a broken spine. Photographers cluster like feeding mosquitoes. Leaves the candles burning all night long, and moves hot bitches like metronomes. Tightly wound and rhythmically fraught; a sensuous, frenzied, orgiastic wall of sound.

Panther – “We forgot our laptop, so we’re playing off an iphone. It’s so stupid.” Hip and grimy mood music by computer. Bad show, but awesome album – shifty soul rock.

Pig Out – Slow building techno by Electronic Garbage Pail Kids on a desert walkabout. Feels like when my fillings adhere to diamond hard candy and there’s de nada between the sugar and the nerve endings.

Tristan Perich – I met this guy before. He retrofitted a rotary phone to be his cell phone. He solders circuits to program his 1-bit-music, each board a different song. This time he was loud. He was playing drums 20’ away, and we couldn’t hear it over the amped cacophony. Silent helicopters went by overhead. You are in a cave with buzzing bees, these bees play Tetris.

Dynasty Handbag – Calling her the Danny DeVito to Peaches’s Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t do justice to her storied and disturbingly funny performance art. Think Strangers With Candy the musical. Takes on entire armed gangs with her ass!

Tim Fite – Southern Baptist Revival preacher gospel is just a hair away from hip hop bombast, as Tim Fite demonstrates by blending the two. Brought to you by “The Man With Itchy Legs.” Albums are free online, but it’s all about the live show.

RANDY INTERMISSION – IHEARTCOMIX VS. MAD DECENT AUSTIN BLOWOUT 2008 @ JELLY NYC's TEXAS GARAGE FEAT. THE NYLON/GUESS LOUNGE PRESENTED BY VIVA LA ROCK, SCION, & MONSTER ENERGY DRINK
A bizarre, Warriors-reminiscent, post-apocalyptic, sprawling party in a vast multi-tiered parking garage where 20-somethings indulged in all their vices: beer, Twister, Guitar Hero, DJing, shuffle board, popsicles, pools, fire pits, live video art, photobooths, and oh yeah hip bands. Like a combination of a Grateful Dead show and an LA after after party. It was kind of unendurable.

Deer Tick – Snaggletooth twangy folk rock band sporting plaid shirts and frizzy unkempt mops, chain smoking Winstons. Personal ballads custom made for holding your beer aloft with a stiff upper lip, like when the honky-tonk bar band catches you off guard by closing their set with something heartfelt and close to home. Lead singer totally made me do a double take. Did someone let my uncle Jerry from Detroit out on parole?

Shout Out Out Out – SXSW electro dance rock regulars who finally got what they wanted: a crowded club full of hipster dancers. Sadly they were too drunk to cement the hype with a signature solid set.

Yeasayer – Collective consciousness whipped up on the spot from scratch, with drums and harmonies sending messages up ahead along the trail deep into the forest. They capture and rework the hope of 60’s hippie jam music and inflect it with urgency and modern relevance. My spine ached for days from resonating so hard with this band.

The Virgins – An up-tempo post-coital cigarette. I thought they were this contemplative, light indie disco thing, but instead they turned out more like cheerful bar rock, with a Jonathan Richman sort of charming naivety.

Icy Demons – Their lead dude was a big burly man with fabrics and cat toys sewn into the front of his corduroys and a highly animate face. With Chicago jazz influence a la Hefty Records their infectious energy made them irresistible. Would you stop on the side of the road to give what is so obviously an escapee from the Fraggle-Rock Detainment Facility directions to SXSW? Kinda like a musical adaptation of My Side Of The Mountain, sorta like the dude crawled into a hollow tree for like fifteen years with an eight track and when at last he emerged he had one million grove raps about love, life, and socioeconomic disenfranchisement!

JULIA INTERMISSION - Hecuba
In case by some bizarre quirk of fate the aforementioned artiste happens across this review: let’s please, please, please, be friends! It is not to your discredit that you sound a bit like a feline in estrus, it is your art. Some memorable lyrics: “ I taste the red, I taste the blue, I taste the black, I taste the white, I taste the brown, I taste the Filipino, I taste the rainbow” “He is the mouse I am the cat, cover my cherry” “Money, money, money, money, money, come to me in my geodesic dome.” I am not in any way joking or telling lies, she is this awesome!

Lucky Dragons – At first he lurched around and mumbled, and we liked it but were a little worried for him. Then he invited a big group to hold rainbow knitted cords and touch each other’s skin to produce extraterrestrial, crystalline, whirring, popping, shrieking, cascading Kabuki electro harmonies. In short, we made beautiful music with our bodies. It was a lot like being under the parachute in kindergarten, but a version for angsty, jaded adults. Dear Mr. Dragon, when you start up your planned community/cult/spiritual retreat give me a call day or night.

Telepathe – A trio of cute girl dancers, they had kind of an icy cold, super spacey Kate Bush thing going on, with smooth playa-listic lead vocals.

Yellow Fever – Sprightly tomboys, wicked guitars, angular compositions, and strong feminine vocals, but not as much like late Raincoats as I’d hoped. Write lyrics about cows out to pasture and Steely Dan!

Santogold – Less lean and hungry than expected, a wink and a nod to everything edgy about her music, too squeaky clean and choreographed. American Apparel dressing room vibe. The rumor is that she’s been hand groomed through several incarnations.

Land of Talk – Cathartic release of hyper competent Fugazi girl rock merged with 90s alternative, a highly promising but previously unexplored branch of the evolutionary tree.

60 Watt Kid – The mp3s are really imaginative, but antirock freebase bullshit in a Liberace Jacket isn’t for everyone.

Half Japanese – Jad Fair looks like a melting witch and lumbers about like a shaved bear with glasses, and all his songs are about Rosemary’s Baby and getting a new bike in the third grade, as far as we can tell. Exhorted the crowd to throw all evil records on a fire and play with their piñata.

White Rabbit – Go all Great Gatsby on the hairdos and dress shirts. Tight sinister prep school rockings, occasionally lustrous.

Shy Child – Put some sexy Brooklyn boys in tight jeans and give them instruments like white Corvettes. Have them prance boisterously to aggressive keyboards and so forth.

Tokyo Police Club – Who’s the shy child now!? Acoustic only, but so sincere.

Devotchka – Slavic Chris Isack. Brut Essence Of Man Mariachi! If George Clooney had a band in a Robert Rodriguez movie, this would be it.

Die! Die! Die! – Table climbing, chair tipping, cord whipping punk rock, but more reinventive than we make it sound. Die! Die! Die! spit and kick on stage but require spectacles and reading materials for the flight back home.

Team Robespierre – The keyboards and mp3 made me worried they might be a dude with a MacBook, but turns out they were an uncompromising punk band complete with #1 fan (14 year old Korean orphan girl), all “Oy!” and songs about drinking and balls. “Legalize it cause I like it.”

Back Ted N Ted – At their best, they sound like the Shins over tight 80’s New Wave which is really something. You want to believe in them but can’t help but suspect their creativity is co-opted and they’re desperately trying to sell out.

Ponytail – It’s high time there was a band fronted by the Play Dough eater from Kindergarten where the only vocals are emotive screeching and wooing. Like this: AiiieeeeeyipyipyipiAiiieeee!!! ARRRGH AH AH AH! I believe our guttural harmonizing and singing along frightened several patrons from the establishment.

The So So Glos – We tried to see Afrobots, but since it was accidental punk rock night, and saw The Clash instead. In a good way. Why not?

Duchess Says – Frenzied sweat drenched femme punk debauchery, she crawled on the ground like the exorcist, and Julia dueted with her and broke my glasses and her microphone and it was noise core electro dance!

Hey Willpower – Indie gay Justin Timberlake? Hell yeah!

Comments

[Allison]

THANK YOU

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hi guys...this is alicia...not sure if you check this...but r u going to this again this year...well my friend yarah bravo was booked for this-she is also known as a member of one self and a touring partner with abstract rude...anyway...she desperately needs help in getting other shows, interviews, and or money making opportunities in the Texas area...she is hoping with someone with contacts in the cultural or musical scene of Austin or Texas in general could help her out to offset the cost of the trip....apparently the fest is a great honor but doesn't really pay! Do you guys know anybody who could help her?

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[My Little Vibrator]

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