SXSW 2001

South By Southwest is always a good time of year to experience live music. Bands that almost never come to Austin show up, bands you might be curious about play with other bands you love, and artists with whom you're already familiar get caught up in the spirit and play the concerts of their lives. It's hard not to see at least one phenomenal show a day.

I saw a lot of great shows and heard a lot of exceptional music this year. The Streetwalkin' Cheetahs and the BellRays, two of the best live rock 'n' roll bands in the USA, were their usual balls-to-the-wall selves and received deservedly rapturous receptions. Georgia-by-way-of-Alabama Southern rockers the Drive-By Truckers were every bit as good as I hoped they'd be. Canada's surf power trio Huevos Rancheros, Scotland's buzz band of the moment Idlewild, Denton, TX's Dixie Witch, Nashville's raucous Bare Jr., New York's premiere blues/gospel troupe the Holmes Brothers and Austin's pop sensations the Bluehearts all turned in sterling sets. Even 80s one-hit-wonder Tony Carey was interesting. Good music was everywhere, ready to be tripped over.

That being the case, rather than explain every show I attended, I'm going to instead detail the unexpected pleasures, the acts who took me by surprise, either by virtue of being better than I expected or by playing at a time when I wasn't even on the lookout for them. Some of these artists are somewhat well-known, while most of them are only just crossing over the edge of obscurity, at least in this country. Regardless, they're all artists to keep an eye and ear out for.

I've also decided to skip the usual diary exploring the panels I went to and the people I met. Suffice to say I went to some interesting panels, some not-so-interesting ones, met some cool folks (I gave Wayne Kramer my business card!), wandered around alternately bored and fascinated, and lost a hell of a lot of sleep.

3/14/01
9:00 pm
Curse of Blefescu @ Buffalo Club
OK, I should say up front that friends of mine play in this band, and I'd been promising to come see them for some time. I have to admit some trepidation, as they play unabashedly experimental and improvised instrumental music, but my fears were quickly allayed: they're quite good. Raw guitar, Pere Ubuesque synth-drones, Velvet Underground-style violin drones, samples and Bill Jeffrey's Miles Davis-on-downers trumpet, all shaped and anchored by Keith Palumbo's versatile drumming, turned repetition into an asset, pulling unlikely melodies out of what seems like an unorganized din. Very impressive.

12:00 midnight
Coffee Sergeants @ Downstairs @ the Loft
It's always a pleasure to see the Coffee Sergeants, not only because they're one of my all-time favorite Austin bands, but also because they don't play out much. Tonight's show was all the more remarkable, because I discovered something I never knew about them before: they can rock. In the past I happily got lost in their sinuous psych/folk/pop melodies, such as "The New Crustacean" and "The Blessing House." This time I found myself tapping my foot and bobbing my head to garagey new tunes like "Look Around" and "In the Morning." They also turned the Rolling Stones' "Citadel" into a feedback-ridden anthem. A great development in the continuing evolution of one of the most underrated bands in town, this show makes me anxious for them to finish recording their next album.

3/15/01
1:30 pm
How Songwriters Find Their Own Voice panel w/ Kevin Russell, Tift Merritt, Laura Cantrell, Chip Taylor
Besides the novelty of sitting in the same room with the man who wrote "Wild Thing" (and, ahem, "Angel of the Morning," which he insisted on singing in a thin, nearly tuneless warble) and of hearing the Gourds' Kevin Russell play a song he co-wrote with his three-year-old son (no, really!), the chief pleasure spike here was singer/songwriter Tift Merritt. Though signed to record mogul Luke Lewis' new label Lost Highway (which boasts Lucinda Williams and Whiskeytown's Ryan Adams on its roster), Merritt was pretty much an unknown quantity here. A few folks at the conference probably knew about the EP she shares with North Carolina's Two Dollar Pistols, but not much else. Well, let me be the first to tell you that you'll be hearing more, much more from this extraordinarily talented young songwriter. Besides having the kind of soaring, sensuous voice that causes men to throw themselves onto the rocks, she's got some remarkable songs, melodic yet eccentric, with snow-topped peaks and lush green valleys. The cheap and easy way to describe her is as a cross between Gillian Welch and Victoria Williams, but that sells her originality short. Watch out for this one.

3:30 pm
Julien Jacob @ day stage
An African musician based in Paris, Julien Jacob hit the day stage at the convention center as I happened to be walking by. I was immediately transfixed. His catchy Afropop tunes tickled my melody lobes immediately, and he had a nice, grainy voice. What was even more remarkable, though, was the music, played by a mere two musicians, a percolating percussionist and an absolutely amazing acoustic guitarist who combined funky rhythms and fleet-fingered solos like beans with chili—it was impossible to tell where rhythm left off and lead began, and he was as responsible as the percussionist for keeping the tunes in overdrive. Jacob hasn't any records out in America yet, but when he does, I'm going to be first in line to buy some.

4:00 pm
Danny Barnes @ day stage
I've seen Danny Barnes before, both with the Bad Livers and solo, but this was something else. Before he was flailing the hell out of his well-worn banjo and singing his eccentric country songs; this time he was armed with a guitar and slightly more traditional country and folk songs from a forthcoming album. I never knew how good a six-string picker he was until this day, when he seemed to be channeling Doc Watson. His new tunes are great too.

3/16/01
2:00 pm
Paul Burch @ Yahoo! booth
The Nashville roots country singer did only two songs, accompanied by a rudimentary trio, but what songs they were. Besides writing excellent tunes, he also sings like a honkytonk angel. Made me want to run to the nearest record store and buy all his albums.

4:00 pm
Cosmic Rough Riders @ day stage
From Glasgow, Scotland comes this ultra-melodic folk/rock/pop combo. I was originally attracted to them just because of their name, and since I missed their showcase gig because of a conflicting assignment, I made sure to catch them here. Only three of them, the singer and the two guitarists, were on the day stage, but even acoustic their sweet, gently psychedelic love rock was luminous and just plain wonderful.

4:30 pm
Hamell on Trial @ day stage
Everybody's favorite caffeinated acoustic rocker did his usual incredibly entertaining set‹nothing new there. What made this special to me was that this was the first time I'd seen him since his nearly fatal auto accident, and I was pleased to see that, despite some rather interesting scars and bumps on his clean-shaven dome, he's none the worse for wear for his experience. Probably the best live solo performer on earth.

11:00 pm
Shawn Amos @ Waterloo Brewing Co.
I've been groovin' on his great album Harlem for a few months now (see review in the Shinola archives), but experiencing him live is something else again. He stays faithful to the banjo/guitar/steel arrangements that make Harlem such a pleasure, but he sings even more soulfully on stage than in the studio, and the addition of a couple of excellent new songs ("Asshole," "Blood of Moses") made it even better. This guy is one of the unsung greats of Los Angeles right now—it's time the rest of the planet caught on.

3/17/01
8:00 pm
Mike Peters @ the Atomic Cafe
I was pleasantly surprised at how good the ex-Alarm singer's solo songs were, especially the ones on which he accompanied his big-sounding guitar with electronic loops, but that's not what made this show so much fun. That would be the Alarm medley he pulled out for the last third or so of the show, starting with "Marching On" and moving through "68 Guns," "Spirit of '76," "Absolute Reality," "Rain in the Summertime," "Rescue Me," "The Stand" and "Blaze of Glory." The crowd went apeshit, singing along with every song, sometimes more loudly than the singer himself. He even got an encore (something usually strictly verboten at SXSW, but he ended his set proper early, so he could get away with it), soulfully crooning one of the Alarm's prettiest songs, "Walk Forever By My Side." Anybody who hated the Alarm would have been squirming through this melodramatic performance, but for those of us who always got a kick out of the Welsh quartet, this was a hoot.

10:00 pm
Mad For the Racket @ the Atomic Cafe
I knew they would be good, I just didn't know how good. Mad For the Racket is a supergroup of sorts, born of a songwriting partnership between Wayne Kramer, former guitarist for the legendary MC5, current solo artist, amazing guitar player and one of my personal heroes, and Brian James, the original guitarist for 70s punks the Damned, author of some of their most famous tunes (like "Neat Neat Neat"), and founding member of underrated 80s goth-rockers Lords of the New Church. They were joined onstage for this gig by Chris Vrenna, drummer for Nine Inch Nails, and Mani, bassist for Primal Scream. And they kicked and kicked hard. Playing all new songs from an album currently available only in the UK (but scheduled to come out sometime this year on Kramer's new MuscleTone label), they blazed and burned, with Kramer singing the most impressive songs and playing sizzling solos that freely combined free jazz and punk rock. It was the most straight-up rockin' I've heard from Wayne since his solo album The Hard Stuff and it made me salivate waiting for the record to come out on these shores. If you're a rock 'n' roll fan, start trembling now.

11:00 pm
The White Stripes @ Room 710
This set by a Detroit brother-sister guitar 'n' drums duo was the biggest and most delightful surprise of the festival for me. I knew absolutely nothing about them before heading to the club to catch them; the BellRays' Lisa Kekaula had told me the night before not to miss them. They were on right before the 'Rays and holy shit, they were good. They combined raw blues and punk in that garage rock way so many indie white kids do these days, but unlike most of those folks (Jon Spencer, I'm looking at you) they don't treat the whole thing as a minstrel show. The singer wrangled the notes out of his guitar like he would die if he didn't, and he sang as if he were on the edge and the only thing that kept him from losing it completely was his sister's in-the-pocket drumming. Most of the set was strong originals, but the highlight was the loudest and most emotionally charged version of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" I've ever heard. A lot of other folks were impressed too, apparently—the club was packed to the rafters and you couldn't find any of their records for love or money in the days following their appearance. Every time I think the younger generation doesn't get the blues someone comes along and surprises me. Fat Possum should sign these guys up. Michael Toland