SxSW - Day Three

BANDS COVERED IN THIS POST: CLOUD CULT | IGGY POP (more of a sighting, really) | SALLY CREWE AND THE SUDDEN MOVES | LITTLE MAN | MARTIN DEVANEY | ANDREW BIRD | BROTHER ALI | AESOP ROCK | BORIS | TULLYCRAFT

Dear Austin: Who are you? Where are you hiding? I keep trying to imagine what this city looks like and what goes on when SxSW isn't going on. I'm beginning to feel a little dirty about this whole thing. It's like going out on that first date with someone who wears too much makeup-- you know it's all artifice, but you can't see past it because you don't know the person well enough. I want to see Austin wake up in the morning.

Unfortunately, that would probably require me getting up before 11 a.m., which is all I've mustered this week after staying out until 3 a.m. every night. Net result? I'm beat, and getting beater. So I'm going to try and maneuver this blog away from the stream of consciousness and more towards the stream of photos.

Good? Let's start:

CLOUD CULT





I don't want to spend too much time talking about Cloud Cult, because I'm going to be writing an article on them in the pretty near future, and I still want to have things to say. Suffice it to say, they're a bit different than most of the bands that have been playing at the Fader party so far. First of all: their pants are comparatively baggy and their music isn't a fashion statement. It's ragged and beautiful, but in a distinctly organic way. The bulk of their set comes from their upcoming release, The Meaning of 8, but they close with two tracks from Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus, "Wash Your Car" and the title track. That title track is just a killer jam. All right, that's all I'm saying about that.

While fielding a phone call near the fence that looks out from the Fader party to 4th St., Iggy Pop rolls by in an Escalade. That's right, Iggy Pop.

I'm still jonesing for a full Menomena set, and they're playing at Emo's and the Pitchfork Showcase, but guess what? There are one million people waiting in line, so instead of Menomena, I spend some quality time with an Italian sausage from The Best Wurst, who have stands set up along 6th St. It's more than just a hot dog from a street vendor, kids: It's got grilled onions and mustard and it kicks ass. Highly recommended for fans of meat tubes.

Another note for your edification: Emo's IV (which is a little indoor venue wedged into the corner of Red River Ave. and 6th St. Emo's and Emo's Jr. sort of wrap around it) has the best bathrooms of any venue I've seen so far. Big mirrors.

DAN IBARRA (L) and MIKE BYZEWSKI from AESTHETIC APPARATUS



Still smarting from the disappointment of missing Menomena, I retreat to the Convention Center to check out Flatstock, SxSW's poster show, and run straight into Dan and Mike from Aesthetic Apparatus. They've got a sweet location right up at the front, and, as you can see, are wearing sweet matching shirts. They're great, and they make great posters, so go buy one from their site.

Flatstock is just staggering-- tons and tons of great screenprinted posters and I'm getting sensory overload looking at everything. It's art, and I love it. One guy in particular stands out, though: Jason Munn and his company The Small Stakes. I wish I could buy every poster he has, but settle for a Broken Social Scene poster that's flatout (pun!) gorgeous. The web image doesn't do it justice. Commission this guy to do your stuff, bands.

I've got nothing to say about this pic. Just beautiful as hell. Legos in the Convention Center.



SALLY CREWE AND THE SUDDEN MOVES



A couple of years ago, Sally Crewe (who, according to the SxSW guide is from Austin, but sounds British) put out a record that Britt Daniel of Spoon produced, which is why I bought it in the first place. She's playing at the Soho Cafe upstairs, so I spin by to check it out before returning to the Eclectone Showcase a couple blocks down. Oh, also? P.F. Chang's has surprisingly good General Tsao's Chicken. I think they call it Chang's Spicy Chicken or some such nonsense, but it's about as close to real New York-style Chinese food as I've found outside of the Northeast.

Anywho. Ms. Krewe and co. put on a repsectable rock show, and you can see why Britt might have been interested in her stuff. It has the leaness of Spoon, although it lacks the melodic brilliance. Some of the stuff, though, is good. And we're out to check out Little Man.

LITTLE MAN



Never has there been a more aptly named band than Little Man. Chris Perricelli might be five feet tall, and he makes a guitar look like a bass. And a bass look like some kind of Norse battle axe, probably. He's got enough swagger and rock for a dude twice his height though. That dude would still be shorter than Yao Ming, but I digress, and Chris? I hereby swear that I'm done discussing your height. I catch "Light Years" from his new album, plus the title track, "Soulful Automatic." Without being flashy about it, he's got some serious guitar chops, and man, guitar heroism is a lost art. Perricelli and his band pull it off admirably.

MARTIN DEVANEY



My friend and yours, Martin Devaney, delivers a sweet and winsome set that leans heavily on his more country side, despite the fact that I know he's cooking up a fantastic pop-rock side project. He's got an attractive guitar, for sure.

JEREMY YLVISAKER playing with ANDREW BIRD



ANDREW BIRD



Andrew Bird's playing over at Stubb's, which is an outdoor venue tucked away behind Red River Ave., and it's a nice one. It's the place that Bloc Party played last night and The Good, The Bad & The Queen are playing tonight. Bird's got Martin Dosh and Jeremy Ylvisaker with him for this show, and it's nice to see him with a full(ish) band, despite the fact that he's almost a one-man band himself. Plus, really digging the shirt/tie/hoodie/blazer combo. I'd try and rock it if it wouldn't make me look like a stuffed turkey. Bird's slim enough to pull it off, though. His stuff is gorgeous and complex, noisy and a little exploratory while still being very melodic. Kind of baroque and fuzzily beautiful, like old furniture. Highlights from the set include "Plasticity" (ed. --That's Plasticities")and "Sisyphean Empire" (I think that was the title (ed. --That's "Scythian Empires")), plus the crowd favorite, "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left." His new disc, Armchair Apocrypha, comes out on Tuesday. Put me down for one.

I make an attempt to get inside Beauty Bar to check out Bonde do Role, who are what you would call an "It" band at the moment, but they're at capacity. I'm three people away from getting in on the badge line when I decide it's not worth it. See my note about Greg Kot's policy below. On my way over to Emo's, I bump into Danny Seim and Justin Harris from Menomena. I learn that they're friends with Mark Baumgarten, who's currently the editor at Metro, but who lived in Portland, Ore., for a while before coming back here. That'd be Menomena's hometown. They're not coming to the Twin Cities anytime soon, but they will be playing the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago this summer. And they don't even play "Air Aid" live yet because they haven't figured out how to do it with just the three of them. My disappointment at their shortened set the night before is ameliorated some by this news-- I wouldn't have gotten to hear it even if they'd played the full show, I guess.

SLUG onstage with BROTHER ALI



I snake inside Emo's just in time to catch Slug jumping up onstage with Brother Ali, and I manage to get the above photo, which I know is less than stellar. Sorry. Of interest is the fact that Dennis Miller is standing behind me watching the show. I'm almost on the point of asking him if he's a big hip-hop fan when he leans in and talks to a young man (high school age, looks like) in front of him, who's clearly his son. Kind of sweet, really. I remember when my dad would take me to shows. He even enjoyed many of them, although sometime remind me to tell you about the time when he fell asleep during ministry. Brother Ali delivers a solid set, capped off with an audience call and response number where he exhorts the crowd to chant, "More! More! More!" I'm pretty pumped for his new one, The Undisputed Truth.

Aesop Rock hits the stage in a Yankees hat, which boo. Boo Yankees. His set seems to go well, although I end up spending most of it talking to J-Bird from Rhymesayers and Sarah Sandusky, who's come down from Frisco. She's the bestest. She and Chris Perricelli should start a band together and call it Little People. (Sorry, Chris)

ATSUO of BORIS



Boris is one of the few bands (Menomena and Loney, Dear being the other) that I double highlighted and underlined as a band I needed to see at SxSW. The Japanese group released one of my favorite records of last year, Pink, a brutal sonic assault that went from drone metal to grinding and propulsive hardcore in a heartbeat. So imagine my surprise when I find out that their guitarist, Wata, looks like this:



Wha?! Call me prejudiced, call me sexist. I just didn't expect this. Their set stays away from anything on Pink, instead unspooling as a 40-minute piece that moves from droney to epic and back again. The drummer, Atsuo, starts offstage, letting Wata and bassist/guitarist (he's got two necks on that bad boy) Takeshi gradually layer in feedback and distortion into a solid sheet of sound. It's placid and serene, actually, despite it's edgy sound. Quite beautiful, really. This is really closer to experimental music than rock and roll, but once Atsuo comes out and starts going at the gong (yup, gong), it builds into a woozy structure that's pinned down by Atsuo's drum pattern. The intensity is built so slowly it's hard to notice-- this is really music that requires patience and attention to fully appreciate. They move through different sections of music before returning to the initial guitar/bass motif. I'm completely blown away. As of right now, Loney, Dear is still tops, but Boris put on the second best show I've seen here.

Afterwards, I head over to meet Jesse and Jerry for Tullycraft. For some reason, my photos of Tullycraft didn't download when I did the transfer, so I'll have to come back and add them, but I'll just say that exuberant isn't an exuberant enough word for this band. As a stage band, they have something in common with the Barenaked Ladies. Not musically, really, but in the way that it's obvious they're just having a great time out there and want everyone else to have a great time, too. Unfortunately, they don't tour and have no plans to, so you better just go pick up their records. If they come to the Twin Cities, I'll be sure and let you know.