SXSW 2010 Recap

I'm caught up on sleep one week after South by Southwest ended and I finally have the energy to put together a list of the links from my dispatches for Flagpole. Mom and Dad, here you go:

1) My first blog post from SXSW includes impressions of the bands: Ivan & Alyosha, Yukon Blonde, FM Campers, Mariachi El Bronx, and Dillinger Escape Plan

2) My second blog post is a continuation of the first night. The final three bands I saw the first day were Nas and Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, Everybody Was In The French Resistance, then Morning Bender.

3) The third update from SXSW begins when my second day began. Bands I judged here included Grey Market, Romantica, and MyNameIsJohnMichael.

4) The fourth post begins with Califone then goes into my review of a lackluster GZA show from a few hours later.

5) On the fifth post I start to lose track of time and post reviews of shows in the order that I feel like writing them. Bands include These United States, Peter Wolf Crier, San Saba, The Whigs, and Deer Tick.

6) And lastly, click this sentence to read the piece that ran in the actual printed publication. I tried to put the weekend experience into 300 words.

7) But wait! There's more! One blog post I never got around to finishing includes the other bands I saw over the weekend. Well, not all, but most. It's too late to put it on Flagpole.com now, but here it is below. Bands include Timbre Timber, Band of Horses, Jakob Dylan with Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, Dr. Dog, and a mini all star event including Billy Brag and Tom Morello. I'm leaving it unedited for your reading pleasure.


Church in Austin is Awesome
With noise blasting out of every nook and cranny, two nearby churches offered a respite from the chaos with reverential settings where music could be heard clearly and from the comfort of a pew.

Timbre Timber
Hypnotic magnetism through delicate plucking, a crying violin, and a pedal steal guitar almost put me to sleep. It wasn’t boring, it just begged the listener to close their eyes and visit the world they were creating on stage.

Recommendations
Buy the album? There’s just too much out there now for me to recommend a delicate atmospheric album.
See them live? Yes

Band of Horses
A great laid back rock and roll band playing cut selections from two previous albums and previewing more rollicking joints from the new one.

Buy the album? If you don’t have the first two, get them now. If your ambivalent about Band of Horses making a more straightforward rock follow up to the hypnotic first two, rest assured that the new direction is a good thing.
See them live? Yes. I’m not sure if the church setting actually added anything to their set. For me, I enjoyed them more when I saw these songs performed in a more typical music venue. They rock out in a relaxed way, but it’s still music for rocking out.

Jakob Dylan with Neko Case and Kelly Hogan
After some deliberation, this music critic is ready to endorse the ex-Wallflowers front man. The acoustics of the church helped his set of Americana ballads go down like a good wine. Dylan (‘s son) raspy voice has an worn down appeal that at times can be thin, but was given a full body by harmonizing with the powerful voice of Neko Case and her touring back up singer, Kelly Hogan.

Buy the album? It’s not cutting edge but it’s professionals giving a genre their best effort creating music that goes down like a fine wine.
See them live? Forget about your cred for an evening and have a go at this once chart topping son of an icon.

Speaking of Established Bands with Albums Coming Out This Spring

Dr. Dog

I Caught A Moment

Part of the fun of SXSW is the chance that you might see more well established musicians, even rock legends perform in smaller settings than otherwise possible. I finally caught one of these moments, with one music celebrity sighting after another. First, Billy Bragg took the stage for a solo set, then Wayne Kramer (from MC5) did a set followed by Chris Shiflett, guitarist from the Foo Fighters. Then they all did some songs together. It was all very low key, a nice touch for a past midnight show on the second to last night of the conference/festival. Then Mike Mills of REM took the stage for a rocking rendition of Neil Young’s “Ohio,” including a very exciting “four dead in Ohio!” moment towards the end of the song. Then things turned into a stirring rock and roll show with electric guitar solos with aggressive tude. A new band call Street Sweepers Social Club with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Boots Riley from The Coup. I mostly know Boots from the tour he did with Galactic way back when, so I wasn’t too surprised to hear him emceeing to non-hip-hop beats. This was exciting stadium ready rock. After going to the myspace pager after the show, it strikes me as the big aggressive rock music that is contagious live, but I just don’t have enough of the “big aggressive rocker” in my personality to get much out of the album.


Read more about the first part of the set here: http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2010/03/billy_bragg_pla.html

Hear Street Sweepers Social Club here: http://www.myspace.com/streetsweepersocialclub