reading maverick

Built by Snow setting up at Jovita's on 1st Street

Today was my first (and-quite-possibly only) attendance of South by South-West (SXSW) 2009 and this second year has confirmed to me that this a very special event. Only Sonar in Barcelona comes close to this mixture of music business types, liggers, fans, and best-of-all: music-makers.  Why so special? You may ask.  Well, it starts with the hundreds of venues, spread out all over Austin.  And thousands of bands.  This much diversity is a wonderful evocation of the gene-pool we share.  Far more so than the average rock festival – which seems to only offer the worst kind of performances by the bands we know and love.  Sure, there are always exceptions to that rule… I fell in love with the Cardigans at a festival once… but for the most part you miss out on the real magic of people making music and loving it.

We parked my Chevrolet monster truck on 12th, by the side of the Capitol building and it was a grueling nine blocks marching to the music. As we approached the rock-action, the cheap perfume of fast-food trailers and weed filled our lungs. So-far-so-festival right? Well, we started on Red River, home to Stubbs bbq which is a restaurant with an 1800-capacity outdoor ampitheatre in the back yard. After lining up to get into catch a glimpse of the Thermals at Club de Ville, we found ourselves seeking out Casiokids on 6th Street in the back garden of another restaurant called Habana. These venues hint at one thing I do like about Austinites… they like a good bit of tucker when the music plays…. So far so good: We danced through the crowds on Red River and 6th Street taking it in turns to queue for different venues no-doubt, and found ourselves in a lovely little courtyard listening to a very energetic performance by Ungdomskulen. They definitely rocked their socks off, and the sight of these bouncy Norwegians riffing it up over some frantic beats brought a smile to many faces.

Casiokids giving it some moog

Raquel had been urging me to check out Casiokids after she caught an earlier set by them on Wednesday night. They did not disappoint. They are fantastic. Their super-tight musicianship was overshadowed by an exuberance that choked me up a few times. There is something about people hitting cowbells with glee!!! Especially when the entire band took it in turns to trade instruments mid-song, and all enjoyed a good visit with the cowbell stand. Here is one band whose recorded output does no justice to their music. As a live performance it is a terrific marriage of rhythmic invention and soaring melodies, with a fellow playing an imaginary theramin part with his hands gesticulating in a way that would have worked just as well at my favourite trance night in Norwich, England circa 1995. I always find it reassuring to hear other men sing with high voices because it certainly captures a moment of androgynous beauty when it just becomes a musical instrument and not a weapon of sexual persuasion.

Floating out of Habana, we found ourselves surrounded by sweaty beasts and tattoos that people already regret. Yes, we were there to see Future of the Left but they had finished already, so we hung around to catch a bit of the freshly invigorated Trail of Dead. Another morning stoner (video) is a spectacular epitaph to grunge which I will always treasure dearly, but alas, its creators sucked the royal ass when it came to performing some rock and roll today. They certainly had a notion of rocking out… if rock-distilled is really just Beavis and Butthead with instruments, but someone really needs to school them about the better moments in rock. Yes, Fugazi have two drummers, but they have this thing called interplay, rather than ham-fisted thrashing on the crash cymbals and playing power-chords in the way people might drill holes in their walls – or better yet – in their heads. Of course, we had a great school band called neolithic, and even if that name was dreamt up a parent living vicariously through their precociously competent kids, it is fitting for this kind of mandom. It is a curiously male trait, bashing out some shit on guitars with massive amplifier stacks behind you to compensate for sexual ineptitude.

Nevertheless we stayed until the Trail had perspired off stage, and bumped into a lady we met last year watching Kaki King. She had some raves about various bands doing the rounds. No doubt you’ll hear some of them getting plugged-to-death on a cheese-radio soon, but I can’t be bothered to list-off random names here.
So we headed back to the car and drove down south, over the river and found ourselves at a splendid place called Jovita’s. We enjoyed some onion-rich guac, a spicy spinach salad and some enchiladas, but the main draw was a local band called Built by Snow. They were not terrible and we definitely enjoyed our synchronized mastications while they did their best weezer-by-numbers-with-keyboards. They certainly inspired my mind to wander into a random thoughts about the nature of metrosexuality and geekdom. Here were these guys geeking out with their wall of synthesizers and yelps, but there was something missing that the Casiokids had… maybe it was the Norwegian kids’ penchant for exposing their nylon y-fronts and hitting that cowbell and this hilarious little splash cymbal with camp abandon. I suspect that we are in the realms of a profound aspect of the American condition here: people who are bred like factory chickens find it hard to think for themselves… ideas tend to be begged, borrowed, or blagged with a six pack of factory-made lagerlagerlager. But I wonder if that is true… many of my favourite musicians are Americans who have flourished in the periphery: Could Black Francis have come from anywhere else? A question we don’t care to answer.

Built by snow had a tragic flaw: a terrible bass player. I have never given much thought to bass playing before… but let me attempt to break it down for you here. Firstly I am unconvinced by the need for Fender to make a Jaguar Bass and this was the second offender today. Casiokids also had one, although their fellow clearly appreciates the first rule of bass club: You are the basis for the music, the instrument that combines rhythm with melody. Even the best melodic bass players like Mike Mills in REM also keep the beat as much as the drummer. I read some bollocks a few years ago in a London fanzine written by an erstwhile humourer of tovarich about how real rock and roll did not need bass. What a crock… the white stripes are just moving bass playing to guitars… not exactly an innovation, and certainly not the essence of great rock music. Bass moves us. Ask anyone who liked house… 4-to-the-floor beats and big fat basslines. Or anyone who cared about the Smiths… Andy Rourke was just as good as the ones who took all the money. Anyway, I digress… the bass on Built by Snow songs was fuzzy… often literally by a nasty sounding distortion pedal… and by fumbled plucking of notes. I am increasingly convinced that bass has to be played with confidence… and it is probably more like making love to a beautiful woman than other stringed instruments. Confidence and purity of mind… because there is nothing worse than a bass player who really wants to play wanky guitar parts. Clearly some distorted bass works… especially big fat distortion like this.

At this point we had still not paid a cent to hear a performance today. Please don’t misunderstand me: Musicians should be paid for their contribution to the world. Last year Raquel and I bought wristbands for about $130 a wrist. We were frustrated to discover that they were practically useless when it came to avoiding queues for venues, and worse: the official concerts were often impossible to get into if you did not buy the badge at a cost of over $500… too much for a casual admirer of music. This year we found a brilliant website that provides a breakdown of all the shows in Austin during SXSW (and there are a lot). Here is my schedule. It is a wonderful experience to saunter around Austin on a sunny day taking in some of the hundreds of simultaneous concerts at a bewildering range of venues from full-blown arenas and festival stages to tiny backrooms in bars. To those of you who may have wondered if this was all about hyperbole and the worst aspects of the music industry – payola and the demonic pursuit of unit-shifting, it can be; this year I was reminded that music is a vital life-force for me, it brings me comfort in the face of adversity and angst, and euphoria on a sunny day without the need for other stimulus.