SXSW 2005
3/18/05
2:00 pm
Brian Wilson/Smile @ Austin Convention Center
Thursday morning after a breakfast hosted by Sony/BMG Legacy publicist Randy Haecker and Commotion PR rep Kay Clary, I went to the only panel I attended this year: a discussion of Brian Wilson's resurrection of the Smile project. (The day parties were more impressive than ever this year, which accounted for what were reportedly low turnouts at the panels.) Wilson himself was present, as was his Smile collaborator Van Dyke Parks, and it was pretty amusing watching earnest Brian Wilson acolytes of all ages ask open-ended questions and getting short, to-the-point answers from the former Beach Boys leader. Parks was more loquacious and, frankly, more interesting. I'm still not convinced Smile is really the be-all and end-all of contemporary pop music, but this panel wasn't a bad way to kill an hour and a half.
3:30 pm
Small Stone Records party @ Room 710
From pristine pop orchestration to volume-addicted chaos: yep, it must be time for the Small Stone showcase. The Detroit label specializes in the latest evolution of Black Sabbath/Stooges/Blue Cheer heavy rock, and at this point has just about cornered the market. You want proof? Here it is. I walked in on the full-frontal assault of Axehandle, AKA three-fifths of Alabama Thunderpussy. Bryan Cox and Erik Larson pounded away at a pair of drum kits, sometimes exploring polyrhythms, but mostly smashing the same beat. Ryan Lake supplied downtuned Les Paul riffs so fuzzy they'd choke an industrial air filter; Larson occasionally shouted something into a microphone, but it hardly mattered. It was all about the bang, crash, gouge and pound. I missed most of the set, unfortunately, but even the bit I caught was easily the most purely visceral experience I had this year.
Following a palette-clearing set by Man, Inc., Cleveland's Red Giant beamed down from whatever banged-up spaceship the band managed to hijack. If not for some technical difficulties, this would have been the tightest, most efficient show I'd ever seen RG do. This band just keeps getting better, its riff-heavy cosmic sludge gaining more and more focus as the years pass. Lead guitarist Damien is well on his way to being the heavy rock underground's new guitar hero, but without succumbing to excess wankery, an amazing feat in itself. The mighty Suplecs followed, but I was deep in conversation with Times Beach Records' Phil Dürr and Small Stone's Scott Hamilton and missed it. I did notice how large the crowd had become for the New Orleans band, so I bet it were good.
After a dinner break, it was time for A Thousand Knives of Fire. I saw this Halfway to Gone side project last year, when it was essentially an excuse for HtG guitarist Lee Stuart to jam. Since then the trio has become both a quartet, with the addition of a second guitarist, and a real band, with tighter grooves, a more thunderous attack and real songs like "She's Yours" and the two-part instrumental epic "Yeah." Reclaiming his erstwhile group's Southern rock flavor (despite being from Jersey), Stuart even did the old HtG number "Devil's Spit," and it rocked the house. Damn, these guys got good. The venerable, seemingly long-lost Acid King followed, as Lori S and her crew reminded this crowd of fuzz freaks just why they were one of the best of the stoner rock bands. Lori floated her spacey vocals over a brutal Sabbath-derived grind, all low-end, loud as hell and heavy as a friggin' aircraft carrier. Drummer Joey Osborne is the trio's secret weapon, his propulsive drumming keeping the music simmering even when it was slow as a cooling lava flow. The songs all hailed from the King's not-yet-released record III, but unfamiliarity didn't matter nearly as much to the healthy crowd as the pure thickness of the sound. I missed Acid King the last couple of years, and I'm thrilled that I didn't this year.
Sasquatch was up next. Last year, the L.A. power trio had the element of surprise on its side, blindsiding me with exceptionally high quality heavy rock & roll. This year I should be able to take a step back and give the band a more objective appraisal, right? Except the beast's lean-and-mean crunch rock was every bit as good as I remembered it. The threesome varies its attack with sweet melodies (relatively speaking, that is), varied guitar tones and actual vocal harmonies, but that doesn't mean "Cracks in the Pavement," "Believe It" and "The Judge" aren't still boulder-breaking jackhammers. I tell ya, this band's gonna be as infamous as its namesake before too long.
After Sasquatch stomped the stage, Bottom claimed the debris as its own. I had extremely mixed feelings about You'rNext, the latest slab from the NYC trio (now quartet), but I have to admit, the experimental tone worked better on stage than it did on record. The band started out in an almost ethereal mode, but progressed to aural violence pretty quickly with a suite of songs that owe as much to black metal and avant-garde noise as to Black Sabbath. "I like obstinate bands," Phil Dürr told me in regard to Bottom, and he has a point. This was music as an elegant and sexy "fuck all y'all." So naturally the only thing that could follow it was the inviting chaos of Porn. Tim Moss assembled the ultimate stoner rock dream team for his band, getting über-producer Billy Anderson on bass and the Melvins' Dale Crover on the cans. Crover pretty much dominated the proceedings, beating his huge kit like he caught it fucking his wife, but Anderson and Moss got their licks in with thrashy rockers and extended feedback excursions. Maybe because I knew what to expect, I wasn't as affected by this set as I have been in the previous two years. But I still think no one does this kind of space rockin' sludge metal better than Porn.
The headliner tonight was Dixie Witch, but I've seen the local heavy rock trio many times, and decided to do something I've never done before at South By Southwest: go home early. It meant skipping out on bands I wouldn't have minded seeing, like Isis, the Capitol Years and the rejuvenated New York Dolls, but what the heck, for once I'm gonna do the healthy thing and get a decent night's sleep.
