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SXSW 2006: Teach Your Children Well20 Years On And Still Dancing Strong by Linus Gelber,
Once upon a time back in 1986, in a galaxy far away, a merry band of music lovers decided to grab the world by its vinyl platters and rattle something good out of the mix, in the context of good eats, good drinks, and downhome Texas hospitality. The first SXSW lurched to its feet before a music industry just guessing at the grand lucre in the newest medium in music delivery, the glistening CD. Twenty years later, the conference is America's biggest working shindig for the music industry, with a mighty organizing arm and a wide network of staff and volunteers coping with a record crowd: the numbers aren't precise at press time, but the office tells us there are over 10,500 registrants in town to see more than 1,400 bands in 50+ venues, and that's not counting the scores of day parties, after-hours shows, hanger-on jamborees, in-stores and more. The sky is probably still falling, but judging by the crowded schedule of events, it won't be landing any time this year. Tuesday, Day 0: Sometimes the Swollen Circus unofficial night-before-SXSW revue up at the Hole in the Wall is a weathervane for the days to come, and sometimes it's just a Grand Ol' Operetta, a tasting menu of music served up among friends. One way or the other, it's a traditional way to get the juices flowing. This is Year 11 for the party, put together annually by Walter Salas-Humara of The Silos (New York) and bandman around town Michael Hall(Austin). The hosts have polished their music as smooth as sandalwood grips, and it's as warm in the hand as anyone could ask. The Silos play their rock-edged Americana so easily and with such joyous conviction that they almost look uncomfortable when they're off stage; Hall too has his groove down to an art, and together they anchor a wandering evening that stays for the most part to middle ground.
Jon Dee Graham (Austin) brings the same gravitas to his turn on stage, with eloquent, irresistible loping guitar behind his firm, baked-sand desert vocals. Between them they aren't on stage more than 20 minutes or so. It's remarkable how much good work can get done in 20 minutes. The rest of the lightning night is a mixed bag. Some of the better prizes include The Moaners (Chapel Hill), who mix pell-mell chops and spiky swagger into a brief and appealing come-hither get-lost rush, but this isn't their room to win this time out. Don Piper and Matt Keating & Emily Spray hit stride quickly and snatch luminous moments from thick air, and Cordero (New York) freshen the mix with a splash of Latin indie rock that adds a welcome bit of zest to the lineup - they even have a trumpet on board. It's a sly reminder that music is a pack event, and if you're not lead dog you may be best off running in a totally different direction. Cordero - www.corderomusic.com
Wednesday, Day 1: The Beastie Boys are the luminaries this afternoon if you roll that way, and if you don't, then this is a spin-up-to-speed respite of a prep day. Throngs move relentlessly in on the convention center, eager iron filings in search of a comforting magnet. The first parties launch. It's days like these that make fatted calves really, really nervous. Moral of that story: Hooves 0, Opposable Thumbs 1, and pass the barbecue sauce. The BMI-sponsored Day Stage is parked in a useful spot near the coffee stand in the convention center, properly arranged with care and attention, and finely booked. Band Marino (Orlando) beams infectiously through a noontime kickoff set that matches jammy urges with pop sensibility, mixing heartfelt and goofy songs in a grinning winning combination. Paris Motel (London) follows, an airy quintet dressed in a smart yesteryear welter of fedoras, suspenders, and starched shirtsleeves, fronted by dark-haired Amy May on vocals, violin, and smashing red dress. At first I think this is a clever bit of Paris Hilton cheek, but the band is actually named after - get this - a motel in Paris, which figures into the lyrics of their first number. Their dreamy lounge-a-billy goes down easy, and in fine style. Austin By Night: The Carrots (Austin) lift their schtick from schtick gone by, which makes it feel fresh again: they're a girl band, and for the most part they cover girl band hits. Holding the mirror up to nature passes for irony these days, and they handle their material with respect but not reverence. The unpolished homespun air is probably unintentionally historically accurate, and though they go by Prude, Rude, 'Tude, Crude, Nude, and Lewd, in fact they're all well-behaved and tastefully turned out. The Carrots are a charming one-trick outfit, but it's a fine trick, and they have time to learn new ones. Down at the far creekside end of 6th Street, Sean Costello (Atlanta) is unleashing some mighty guitar blues - he's been a first-water sideman, and he's a performer who lets the music coil through him as he plays.
Running purely on the strength of Band Names That Make Me
Smile, I detour to catch a few songs by My favorite first taste of the night is Coach Said Not To (St. Paul), an unexpected quartet of women who sing boppy and slightly dotty songs pitched carefully between novelty and import, and rendered in pleasant and partially-deconstructed fashion. There's suburbia in this band. Not the suburbia of Stepford pacing and whitebread tastes, but the suburbia of half-finished rec rooms and cluttered garages: you might find anything in there, if you root around enough. All that, and spangly tops. It doesn't get much better than this, at least not on a Wednesday. Band Marino -
http://bandmarino.net
Thursday, Day 2: Thursday is Celebrity Day at SXSW, and before the sun sets over Town Lake, the convention center hosts Neil Young and Jonathan Demme in a keynote interview, reconstituted Manchester Mozzer Morrissey, a twinkling and practical k.d. lang, Eminence Grise Kris Kristofferson, and a few other notables along the way. They're all worthy and fascinating, and each is worth an article of his or her own. At the same time their details and moments aren't entirely relevant - in a larger sense, the fact of Morrissey is more important than what Morrissey might actually be here to say today. In an even larger sense still - Morrissey? Isn't this supposed to be 2006? In the era of geriatric Rolling Stones and the flinching morning-after irony of lines like "Hope I die before I get old" and "Die young, stay pretty," it's commonplace to note that rock and roll got old somewhere along the way. Business-session audiences at the conference skew older, but come night in the venues the popular crowds, in a word, don't. Considering that neither group has much idea what the other is up to, it's a funny state of affairs. Watching the venerable soft parade of speakers from this vantage at the 20th anniversary of SXSW - I'm on my ninth year at the conference - I feel like I'm sitting courtside by the net. Each volley comes from one generation or the other, and everyone's best attempts at communication just involve smacking the ball back where it came from. If there's one thing to take from today, it's a lesson in grace. Whatever the excesses of their early careers, or the twists and turns of their middle ones, the artists here in their maturity are firm in their gifts, secure in their talents, and dedicated to the craft of their art. Time is a self-correcting process, of course - Mrs. Kevin Federline won't be appearing as a SXSW speaker any time soon - but it's hard to look at the careers and gifts of these artists without doing a few unfavorable comparisons to the charting bands of recent times. Hey, I know. I'm just sayin'.
Neil Young's advice to the aspiring: "Be true to yourself. Don't concern yourself with your peers." If you try too hard to trap and waylay a song, he says, "you're gonna lose." And when a song is done, it's done. Don't tweak it to death. He speaks of songs as fickle, timid houseguests - "You trick them into coming by making a nice place for them" - and urges artists to live the lives of artists, freeing themselves from commitments and ties. It's easier said than done.
Eighteen floors up is plenty high for Austin, and the stretch of city lights below is a pretty backdrop in the upstairs lounge at the Capitol Place hotel. I dig in for the count. Persephone's Bees (Oakland, CA) make a dark, tactile music, sleekly redolent of bands like Garbage but with a reckless, raunchy edge. Angelina Moysov fronts the Bees with an air of exotic Old-Country Tolstovian flavor - think Shirley Manson with a glaze of wanton, laugh-while-you-can Grace Slick salted in. "I haven't been this sweaty since I left Russia 13 years ago," she says after one rousing song. I'll drink to that. Their major label debut, Notes from the Underworld, is out presently on Columbia Records. Magnet (Bergen, Norway) lays down layers of solo live looping sound on electric guitar, banjo, and lap steel, painting moody shifting settings for his careful songs. He starts his show simply, without much in the way of tech. "I'm Magnet," he says, "and you are the audience, and I think this is going to be just fine." Half an hour later the room throbs with rough noise, as of great beasts crunching past on hard soil. Denmark's Tina Dico follows with a chameleon set - she's trim and model-pretty with a confident air, easy to like and hard to penetrate. When her songs take a turn for the deep, the change is unexpected. Her poise falters artfully, her face is suddenly bare, the easy shield of beauty is as much a lock as it once seemed a key. It's a fine and canny performance, though whether it's art imitating life or the other way around is anyone's guess. I've been thinking about age and generations all evening, so I
smile when Call the computer a radio, and "Hey Now Now" by The Cloud Room (Brooklyn) went into heavy rotation on my desktop last year. Tonight is my first time seeing the band live. They've got that fashionable weedy thin hipster look, and the chops to follow it up - the single is an astonishing song, and they have a sneaky set full of other pop confections that may not be as sweet, but swallow easily enough. Note to self: it's silly to go all the way to Austin to see bands from home, but sometimes the candy tastes better abroad. The Cloud Room - www.thecloudroom.com
Friday, Day 3: It's hard to imagine two more different women than the star speakers of today's day session: Chrissie Hynde has the bigger crowd, and Judy Collins the more expansive soul. There's no comparing the two, of course - Hynde is the prototypical rock Bad Girl and Collins the free-spirit songbird, and where one grew up in the early Boho of downtown New York the other is, well, from Akron. One probably thought that love could save us all, and the other knew it couldn't.
Early on she plays more cards than she may mean to, noting that in her day you didn't start a band to join trends, you started a band to buck them (subtext: if you didn't have the band you might not have any friends at all). It's a hole card often missed when people look back on the rise of punk, and it illuminates much of the talk that follows. In today's play-along business of monetized streams and social lube, punk is a packaged lifestyle product and there aren't a lot of real rebels left. Scratch that - there aren't a lot of real rebels who have talent to back it up. Hynde is obstreperous and often unpleasant, but she also runs deep. Oh, and for the record: she did not hit Carly Simon. Mostly. Austin By Night: I have no idea why I get in line for Arctic Monkeys - there's no chance I'll get into La Zona Rosa for the biggest nobody's-heard-them-yet buzz-band at the conference, and it's no surprise when I don't. If the grapevine tells true, that's probably for the best. Apart from the Monkeys, this is still crunch night at venues all over town. Everyone who's coming in for SXSW is here by now, hardly anyone has left yet, and there are gruntling lines at just about every musical door. My mission: avoid them. The Japanese contingent here is always garish and interesting, and tonight there is a showcase of traditional music on the east side of town. Keisho Ohno (Niigata), clad in ceremonial garb that makes me think a bit of Vulcan ambassadors (I am blissfully ignorant of Japanese sartorial culture), mixes shamisen music with regulation Western instruments, and comes up with a rich jazz-jam Jade Warrior fusion sound. His obvious glee at striking Western rock-god poses is infectious.
The shamisen, for those who don't ride the New York subways, is a three-stringed guitar-like operation played with a large pick that looks a bit like a putty knife. It also features in the performance of Umekichi (Tokyo), whose Edo-style work is far more foreign to Western ears and whose measured and paced performance is completely fascinating. I don't pretend to understand the lay of the land in her set, but Umekichi is entrancing in a pea-green kimono and florid obi, with a layered hairdo threaded with combs and hanging decorations, all set off by a modern hands-free headset microphone. She enters at a ritual pace, her zori shoes clacking on the floor. There is a choreography to removing them, and then she opens a silk parasol in a mincing, declarative dance. It's probably 10 minutes before she mounts her waist-high platform, kneels, picks up the electric shamisen, and begins to play. I gather we are watching the lin! gering art of the geisha. Whatever it is, it is detailed and spellbinding, attentive and strange. It's good to remember that music thrives outside the natty lines of mass commerce. It's late, and time for a seat up front and a quality beer. That means the Elephant Room, where I'm told Norah Jones dropped by earlier to listen a bit and talk to friends (and, presumably, to have a quality beer). After a loud ramble through the nearby Red Bull House, complete with a skritchy appearance by the unstoppably trendy Lady Sovereign (London), who I'm sure is very nice if you get to know her, I make it over in time for the final evening showcase and a large glass of Kwak. Elana James and her Hot Hot Trio (Austin) are on; Elana is a winsome, lively performer blessed with a catchy smile, a businesslike guitarist, and a sizzling slapback player on the doghouse bass, and the hot hot three of them are doing just the kind of violin-a-billy cowtown swing thing that makes a Texas pint of Belgian beer feel like home. Arctic Monkeys - www.arcticmonkeys.com
Saturday, Day 4: Who knows where the time goes? Every year SXSW is over almost before it begins, leaving no sign of passing apart from the soft edges where my shoes have worn down and the - hey look, my pants have shrunk. Again. I hate when that happens. Spatters of rain leave the streets quiet and empty. On my way to the Press Room I pass a file of six Segway riders, tootling down the deserted pavement in their crash helmets. One of the downsides to wall-to-wall day parties is a loss of center: some of the best business (and all of the best catering) happens off-site, and the draw out into Austin's weather, especially for those of us with winter back home, is hard to resist. Apart from the celebrity worship sessions, attendance this year feels even more attenuated than usual, with critical mass drawn off to day-show venues and events all over the city. This town, as the sages once said, is coming like a ghost town - at least on Saturday morning in the convention center. Also possible: perhaps everyone was out til 5:00 in the morning and they are currently in bed, moaning. It's a solid working theory. When I first came to SXSW, it was the splashy mid-stride of the dotcom ka-boom, and every zealous prospector on the young World Wide Web was sharking up domain names and turning virtual real estate into some kind of new music portal - for only $25.99 a year! And so forth. We had content, and mainstream business wanted to barter for it. Then the Napster days crashed in, and traditional entertainment venues belatedly realized that something had to be done about those pesky Internets. We had property, and mainstream business wanted to control it. Now, with p2p on the wane and the sharecropper music model easing back into place, we've got hopes and dreams, and the starmaker machinery couldn't care less, so long as we're willing to mortgage them. Business is back to usual, and it doesn't seem inclined to too much scrutiny. There is this for comfort, though: at the Blogs Gone Wild panel, which gathers a few feisty and seminal mp3 blogging pioneers together for a fits-and-starts discussion, there's some confusion in the audience about what one of these here blog things might be good for. In some ways at least, the more things change, the longer it stays 1998.
Last night the lines for her Blender Bar showcase were so long and ragged it looked like a riot was brewing outside. I cadge an invite to see her at the Launch day-party from a friend, and we settle in for lunch and tunes. In her recordings, KT has a husky and intimate voice, a peppered mix of Shivaree and Professor and Maryann. The warehouse venue is too boomy to let her vibrant songs connect in a visceral way - it's loud, but not clear - but what comes across with clarity is her utter dedication to all the moments of her show. Austin By Night: Word is that Lovejoys is closing, except for the word that Lovejoys is not closing. It's a conundrum. In the meantime, Lovejoys is still the best bar in Austin if you're a certain kind of person, namely me, and for the half hour or so that Exit Clov (Washington, DC) plays an unofficial showcase there, they're the best band in town. A woven five-piece led by identical twins Susan and Emily Hsu on vox, violins, keys, and guitar, Exit Clov is delightful, packing an omnivore's mash of influences under their shimmering harmonic finish. I hear scraps of Tegan and Sara, of Haircut 100, of the Go-Gos, of Renaissance. There are even snippets that could be out-takes from Jesus Christ Superstar. Next up is The Slip (Boston), and they launch their set with toy instruments played through guitar pickups and a rhythm groove thumbed on a tin can with rubber bands stretched around the ends. This is SXSW as I love it ! best - a little weird, and sounding great. The outdoor stage at Habana Calle 6 is too small for Dressy Bessy (Denver), an outfit known for sweet tunes and ransacking volume, but the inconvenience turns handy - my ears survive the show in good perky fettle, and the hint of sugar helps the medicine go down. Glum fans cluster outside the at-capacity venue, but at least they can hear the music. Further west along 6th Street a grave guy hands over a flyer with such heart and aplomb that I start to feel guilty on line at the Best Wurst sausage place (where nitrates are your friends). I turn back to catch half a set by Humbert (Hialeah, FL) after all. The show is part madcap - and in fact singer Firny sports a mad cap, which looks like it was on a nun not long ago - and part soulful, an endearing and healthy combination. It's a close thing, but French of Magneta Lane (Toronto) turns out to be the Sexiest Bass Player of SXSW 2006. I know you needed to know that. The band's publicity dwells on contrasts - angels and devils, the sublime, the profane, opposites attract, iron fist, velvet glove. At the end of the day, it's just captivating to be inside the perimeter when they detonate. Call their music indie rock, and place it somewhere between the schoolyard and the garage. As the air calms after their set I ease over to French, who is putting away her pedals.
Me: Anyway, I just wanted to say that French: I can't hear a word you're saying. Sorry. Loud up here. The faithful are at Stubbs seeing The Pretenders, so the rest of downtown is a little easier to deal with tonight. I have an ambitious plan to spackle the hour with a last burst of energy - if I time it right I may squeeze in four, five, who knows, maybe 50 bands, so long as I don't bother to listen to them. What can I say. The last day of SXSW can be hard on a sleepy brain; the road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Happily the plan crashes in flames as soon as The Twenty Twos (NYC) dive headlong into their soundcheck - this band is so good that I'm not leaving until they're finished. Even then I may have to stick around to see if they change their minds. The Twenty Twos are Jenny Christmas, Terrah Schroll, Hannah Moorhead, and drummer Jonny Cragg (ex of Spacehog). Trim, trendy, sharp-eyed and sharp-edged, they are pretty much what would walk off the page if you sketched three dimensions of Rockrgrl, applied personality and magic powder, and wished really really hard. Their music is lanky and brimming with urban swagger, and it keeps its own counsel. The lead instruments don't so much trade off as they accommodate one another; the sound isn't so much noised as it is spiked. There's a lot to like here, and uniquely among all the artists I've watched this week the Twenty Twos have this rare quality - by the time their set is done, they've convinced me that they are just the best band I've ever seen. This is not strictly true, if you want to get technical about it. But for tonight, it serves. Tonight, I'm a believer. Tonight, SXSW ends right here, on a high point. Dressy Bessy - www.dressybessy.com
SXSW - http://2006.sxsw.com/music Picture Roundup - http://www.flickr.com/photos/linus/sets/72057594088224173/
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That Dayna Kurtz (Brooklyn) finds her best audience abroad is proof
positive that America just doesn't listen - her dark smoky vocals are warm as
night, and her bruised songs flutter on the verges of hope, never quite trusting the
lay of the land. She's the kind of singer who changes the shape of a room in
subtle ways, and the short one-two-three format of the Swollen Circus is far too
brief a haven.
It's not
SXSW until I see Cruiserweight, a local pop-punk whirlwind quartet that
bounded onto my must-dance card a few years back. Singer Stella Maxwell is a
blaze of energy on stage as always, tuneful and mocking and self-mocking and
earnest and irrepressible all at once. With her brothers Urny and Yogi making
order out of chaos on guitar and drums - and their friend Dave on bass - they're
anthemic, sweet, and faintly risky, like Teletubbies for the young 20-something
set.
Austin By Night: Midway through the day I slip out for a breath of fresh
music at the Wildflower Records day party at Maggie Mae's. I'm there long
enough for a few numbers by Amy Speace (New York), one of the recent
flagship Wildflower signings. Amy's luxurious voice is a honeyed match for her honest
writing - I imagine her setting a nice room to put future songs at ease, a
la Neil Young. It's not hard to picture. Backed by her star band The
Tearjerks, Amy is smack in the Americana zone, at the junction of pop and rock,
alt.country and folk, torch and tinderbox. It's a music for all seasons.
Judy Collins is properly paired with Pete Fornatale, a longtime radio DJ
in New York City and currently host of the Mixed Bag Radio show. Their
conversation is like a directed catching-up session between friends who've been on
different paths in recent years. Judy is forthcoming about her prima ballerina
role in the formative years of the Greenwich Village folk scene - she discovered
Leonard Cohen when he'd completed just two songs, and was an early adopter of
Joni Mitchell's music; she's famously the Judy of the Stephen Stills classic
"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." She reflects lightly on 24 label-years with Elektra,
which is a mighty track record, and looks ahead with her own new label,
Wildflower Records. In the course of their talk Collins sings a few lines here
and there, which is a rarity, oddly enough, at music conferences. By the time
she leads the auditorium in a verse of "Amazing Grace" the room is rapt,
inspired, and warmed by the gentle radiance of a!
life lived in music.
About face: Pretenders bandleader Chrissie Hynde is all spikes and bony
edges, which is no real surprise. She's barely on stage a heartbeat when she
declines to sit in the regulation SXSW suede chair, on animal-products grounds,
and from there on out she's got her guns blazing all the way down. Rock
journalist Bill Flanagan tries to moderate, but moderating Chrissie Hynde is a
little like asking the fire nicely to stay away from all that dry crackly
tinder. She's a woman who does not brook compromise, and frankly it's more fun that
way.
KT Tunstall (London/Scotland) is everyone's dream girl archetype - at
last year's SXSW she was invisible, an unknown lone performer in a sea of lone
performers. Now, a cool million UK album unit sales later, she's proof positive
that there's still some mojo left in this crazy world. She isn't wacky, or
topless, or an heiress, or a scandal. She's 30, not 21. She's just - get this -
talented. It's a crazy idea, but it just might work.
Me: You
know, it's the ballet slippers that really make your outfit.
French nods and smiles kindly, gracefully accepting praise.
