SXSW 2006

3/18/06
12:00 pm
Pop Culture Press Party @ Dog & Duck Pub
It's an annual tradition for locally-produced music mag Pop Culture Press to throw itself a party during SXSW, and I always try to drop in. This year, the performing lineup was pretty astonishing for a rag that's never gotten the mass attention it's deserved. The afternoon began with a relatively unknown group of young men from North Carolina trading under the name the Patty Hurst Shifter. The quartet is a roots-conscious rock & roll quartet in the vein of Grand Champeen—there's a little Faces, a little Stones, a little Replacements, even some Soul Asylum. Good stuff all, though the group hasn't done anything particularly distinctive with it yet. Maybe someday.

Following the PHS was Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey, once-and-future leaders of the influential dB's and the Hall & Oates of 80s alternative rock. Or, more precisely, the James Taylor of same, as the duo played a batch of tame, unremarkable folk/pop tunes from the in-progress sequel to their tepid 1991 duet record Mavericks. (A new dB's album is in the works as well.) Both of these guys fairly burst with talent, and they've made some truly excellent music together in the dB's and separately in their various projects. So why is it whenever they convene under their own names they become boring? Maybe it's just me; the pair drew quite the enthusiastic crowd during their set.

Already falling behind due to weather issues, the PCP folks shuffled the schedule a bit and put Richie Furay on next. The former Buffalo Springfield and Poco singer and current preacher came out of retirement this year with his first secular album in at least a quarter of a century, in as fine a voice as ever. Accompanied by a guitarist and a stand-up bassist, Furay performed the new love song "Forever With You," but it was the Springfield's "Go and Say Goodbye," "Kind Woman" (his major contribution to the B.S. legacy) and a medley of Neil Young's Springfield tunes to which the audience most fervently responded. He opened and closed the set with his Poco hits "Pickin' Up the Pieces" and "A Good Feelin' to Know," the sunny sentiments of which would sound corny if sung by anyone else. He sang well, his distinctive tenor having lost nothing with age, and was clearly enjoying himself. This was one of the most refreshing and effortlessly enjoyable shows I saw at the entire festival.

Next up was a band the presence of which the PCP folks were obviously quite proud: Translator. This early 80s power pop quartet was one of the leading lights of the post-Knack L.A. scene, making several records and nearly scoring a hit with the song "Everywhere That I'm Not." Together once again, the band is working on a new album, but chose today to stick with the oldies, much to the audience's delight. Most of them must have been diehard fans from back in the day, because I was hard pressed to divine what was so special about Translator's perfectly serviceable but fairly unremarkable guitar pop. Like so many bands from that era, it has one great single (the aforementioned near-hit) and some listenable filler. Oh well, guess you had be there.

Austin's Golden Apples have, I think, played every one of these PCP parties. The band is also a straightforward power pop group, but with an energy and love of sharp hooks that Translator lacks. The Apples were almost immediately followed by the married singing/songwriting duo of Matt Keating and Emily Spray, but they made no impression on me whatsoever. The next band certainly did, though. Having mutated from singer/songwriter Nic Armstrong and his band the Thieves into the three-frontman strong IV Thieves, the acclaimed British quartet that seems to see Austin as its second home hit the stage with a sound far louder and more raucous than the one sported on the Armstrong album The Greatest White Liar. In fact, the band ignored that disk completely, playing only tunes from its upcoming record. "Hold Tight," "Miss Catastrophe" and the rest hit hard and fast without leaving melody behind; it wasn't hard rock, per se, but it was definitely more aggressive and kicking than Armstrong's previous work. This got the pulse pumping nicely.

Peter Case was up next. Working with a rhythm section and an amplified acoustic guitar, Case continued to work out the rock & roll demons conjured up by his Plimsouls show from three nights before. Now that he's into his fifth decade, you'd think he'd slow down in the vein of his last few folkie-as-hell solo records. But no, he's enthusiastically pushing the driving beats and sharp riffs of "Lost in the Sky" and "Zero Hour" (an old Plimsouls number), and while his voice has started to fray around the edges, that just makes him more effective. This is one folk rocker who will never forget the second half of that compound noun.

Then it was time, once again, for Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3. Yep, Wynn takes the prize for the act I saw the most times during SXSW, which wasn't difficult, considering how many times (7 or 8) he and the band performed in the last four days. This five songs-plus-encore set as a bit looser and more ragged than the ones I'd already seen, but that's to be expected after so many shows. Besides, it didn't prevent Miracle 3 guitarist Jason Victor from being on fire throughout, but especially on "Death Valley Rain," or Wynn and company delivering titanic versions of his old Dream Syndicate chestnuts "That's What You Always Say" and "Tell Me When It's Over." And you could tell they were having a great time once again; I don't know if I've ever seen a band that gets off on its own songs so much. Fantastic!

I thought Wynn had drawn the biggest crowd of all the party's participants, but I was wrong, as the duo of Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs (plus four-piece band) gathered the biggest tribe. Previewing cuts from Under the Covers, their upcoming collections of 60s covers, Hoffs and Sweet settled into a ragged-but-right country/folk rock groove; the loud versions of Neil Young's "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" and Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" told the story. Hoffs also sang a glorious "Different Drum"—just right for her—and the duo brought it all crashing down with a guitar-happy "Cinnamon Girl." I was expecting pristine, playful pop, not this graceful rock beast. Can't wait for the album.

Unfortunately I had to skip out on the rest of the acts to get dinner before the nightly madness, so I missed Jules Shear and one of my favorite local bands, the Wannabes. I'm sure they were great, though.

8:00 pm
Pong @ Bourbon Rocks
As I've written in previous years, one of the fun things about SXSW is stumbling across some free show you didn't even know was happening. So it was with this Pong show; I was enticed into the door of this recently-opened club for a set by one of Austin's most enjoyable live acts. Made up of former members of the Pocket FishRMen, ST-37 and the notorious Ed Hall, Pong fused classic rock guitar licks, barebones funk/disco rhythms and New Wave keyboard blurts into an unclassifiable, compulsively danceable brew that made the crowd shake its collective ass off harder than any band I've seen in months. Always a pleasure.

4:00 pm
WE/Priestess/The Datsuns/The Riverboat Gamblers/Nebula/The Hellacopters @ Emo's
I was really happy to see WE on the SXSW roster again this year; I saw the Norwegian heavy rock act a few years ago and was mightily impressed. Though fighting one of the shittiest mixes I encountered all week (shortchanging hat-fetished singer Thomas Felberg's colorful voice), the band proved itself once again the master of what it calls "cosmic biker rock 'n' roll." Which is a pretty accurate description—raw riffs, driving rhythms and an element of sleaze bump up against painterly guitar effects (including a lot of processed slide sounds), spacy synths and Felberg's mystical bent. Tunes like "Catch Electrique," "Smugglers" and the epic "Wroom" head for the stars while remaining earthbound—a difficult trick. "And now a song about something we write quite a lot about: the cosmos," explained Felberg." We like to go out in the universe…we hope you'll come with us. Now it's time to put on a little hat." A killer show.

I'd seen Montreal's Priestess before, opening recently for the Sword and Early Man and kicking the asses of both. The young quartet's Motörhead-beating-up-AC/DC style was hardly revolutionary, but it attacked its hooky material with such gusto it was impossible not to love. The band has gotten oddly jammy since I saw them last, even including a momentum-killing drum solo. But when it fires on all cylinders, as on "I am the Night, Colour Me Black," Priestess makes hard rock as well as anyone on the planet.

I'll admit I wasn't expecting much from the Datsuns. I liked the New Zealand former next-big-thing's two albums fine, but the band seemed outclassed on the face of tonight's lineup. I should know better than to underestimate rock & roll—underdogs like this love to effortlessly prove themselves. Since the major-label hype has died down, the Datsuns have gotten harder, faster and meaner, more like Motörhead than AC/DC or Led Zeppelin, the two bands to which it was most often compared. Old stuff like "MF From Hell," "Sittin Pretty" and the glam rocking stomper "Harmonic Generator" held up nicely, given an extra jolt. Most of the new material was in the raging rocker realm, though there was one slide guitar-driven blues rock tune, and the Datsuns threw themselves into the show like it was their last performance on earth. It's amazing what happens when a band gets out from under the hype and has a natural ball.

OK, let's be honest here. Austin's long-running punk standard-wavers the Riverboat Gamblers don't have shit in the way of memorable songs, and their on-stage antics seemed cartoonish after a while. But if the Gamblers can't get your blood pumping, check yourself for impotence.

I've seen Nebula a few times before, and I have to say that this wasn't one of its better performances. The trio seemed tired, though that might well have been because it had just played a set a couple of hours before down the street at the Red Eyed Fly. (The group was substituting for Turbonegro, who had canceled.) If the band had given one of its usual balls-to-the-wall shows then, I'm amazed the guys were able to stand up. Eddie Glass and friends stuck mostly to material from Nebula's excellent new album Apollo, though they ended the set with a surprising, indifferently sloppy cover of David Bowie's "Suffragette City." Not the best Nebula show, but I've seen worse.

I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for this one. I've loved the Swedish action rock ensemble the Hellacopters for years on record but had never seen them play. So in a sense the entire 2006 South By Southwest Music Festival was leading up to this moment for me. That's setting myself up for disappointment, but fortunately the 'copters lived up to my expectations. The band's records have been getting slicker as its songwriting becomes more sophisticated, but really, there's only so much polish you can put on this kind of guitar-happy riff rock, and that polish sloughed right off like dead skin on-stage. The material came mostly from the last two 'copters records By the Grace of God and Rock & Roll is Dead; in particular "I'm in the Band," "Carry Me Home" and, of course, "By the Grace of God" raised the roof. Of course, the band sprinkled in some relative oldies, scorching the stage with "Like No Other Man," "Move Right Out of Here" and "Toys and Flavors." But the biggest surprise was the set-closer. "We're trying to decide if we want to do this one or not," teased bandleader Nicke Andersson, before announcing "Now it's time to—kick out the jams, motherfuckers!" And they were off into the MC5 chestnut, blitzing it with every bit of rock & roll swagger they possessed. Which is a lot. The Hellacopters left me and the packed house as sweaty and satisfied as I'd hoped, closing out SXSW 2006 in volume-heavy, energy-saturated fashion. Time to rest up for next year.

Michael Toland
Editor-in-Chief