SXSW Friday:
First order of the day - Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks in a round table discussion headed by Alan Light. If anyone knows VD Parks - I am one grandfather short, and could use the verbal inspiration, please send him my way. Seriously, I have not witnessed in person such an eloquent storyteller. Question: Why did you have Brian sing on Orange Crate Art? horribly retold Answer: Well, we were in the studio recording the album. I remember it well, Brian ordered a Chinese chicken salad and an orange juice. He laid down two backing vocals, two melodies and two harmonies – six vocal tracks that day – and just as we were about to get rolling, the tape started and, Brian took off his headphones. 'Parks, why...why are you having me sing these songs' 'Well, Brian, I can't stand the sound of my own voice.' 'Ya, I don't blame you.' News alert: Brian Wilson's next project is going to be a Christmas album and some band-o in the audience wanted to arrange Smile for high school choral ensembles. Check your local listings.
Also, Light handled the situational absurdity like a cool parent at a coffee shop, mildly apologetic for his kids' wacky behavior but dignified enough to let you know that he had some pretty cool kids.
Got in to the Spin party just to miss Louis XIV and in time for...Bloc Party. I think that the Bloc Party factory might be working overtime these days, since they're curiously boring mugs have been all around tourland, magland, hypeland even though their live show continues to mire. I should like their album, but live they seem like their wearing songs several sizes too big and it urks me that they produced a spunky, crazed pop-post-punk album they can't pull off.
Saw the ever wonderful American Analog Set, who ushered in the evening before I went off to see BARR, aka B. Fowler, former drummer for Dopo Yume-daphne era, Dogg & Pony mastermind (argh) Sex Sells Magazines impresario, all around fun, funny smart baltimore dude. He does this lo-fi performance art dare I say spoken word kinda post-techno politico beats thing, which I really like and is totally unsurprisingly 5RC.
Yikes, Go! Team next, one of those crazy line bands who people were buzzing all about. Don't believe the hype, my friends. I have yet to listen to the album, but the live thing is like Jane Fonda fronting the Beta Band covering Avalances song, in all the worst ways. Like hip hop shows, it asked too much of my hands, and the tempo wasn't for waving. Yikes! They deserve, at least, that punctuation. Dogs Die In Hot Cars, the post-hype clear out band, did their Please Describe Yourself hits with modest glee, Craig Macintoch not channeling the same vocal bravado of the album but still being even more winsome than his "I Love You Cause I Have To" video, which I saw on Fuse, which seems to rule.
OXES, my other Baltimore bros, totally made my SXSW. Outdoors, one a.m., weird dude crowd amped up for the show. Drummer/ultra-friend Chris gets the whole posse to sing the animal-noise opening to Disturbed song about the sickness. Tight, hilarious, wireless show with excellent heckling "I'm sorry, but you're just not as good as Lightning Bolt," shouted a man who then threw his clothes onto stage. "Oh, he's our friend" Chris said later. Then, then, then, Chris announces "we will not be doing an encore, but a one act play about the existential drama of life, called "oxes do oxes" and, as an audience member had helped move Oxes' famed boxes (they stand on them for more rock visibility) onto the terraced side of this weird hill, and they began 'Also sprach Zarathustra,' which prompted one of the guitarists' to start lumbering around the hill, naked. He had a very convincing neanderthal gait, low-hanging testes and a stick in his hand. Madly accurate? At the pinnacle of the sound, he struck the boxes and they tumbled down onto the patio while everyone cheered. Later, Chris was very concerned to know if the boxes hit anyone. Nice guys, weird concept, fantastic execution.
Saturday started with Matos' ill-advisement to see Savvy, the logical end to one's appreciation for wholesome dance pop. Mickey Mouse Club farm team. It was outside, I had a snow-cone, they all wore headsets and were mostly lip-synching. We made cruel jokes about Berto, who is much more cut in real life and seems to be about ready to be kicked out of neverland.
Checked out the Gigantic showcase...Shelby, I never heard of but were totally awesome three-piece dream pop who seem to have hit their stride on The Luxury of Time, a little Walkmen-y, but who isn't in NYC these days? Speaking of which, I was there to see some old pals in The Cloud Room who are just as serious as their band photos suggest, but sound like a more whimsical early U2, in the best way, with little tinges of one-note Echo and the Bunnymen synths that I just loved.
Off to Making Time (Philllieeee!) to see Pony Up! (snooze) and the Unicorns/Th' Corn Gangg hip hop explosion, which threatened to be pretty rad just as the austin sky opened up. We had to get the hell out, into a cab and over to USE, lest it all come crashing down. Amy P. reported that the show got flooded out and a rock (maybe one loosened from the Oxes show, which was next door) crashed down on the PA. Sorry Dave!
USE. Best. Band. Ever. Sonic Boom put out their older LP last week. Buy it! Love it! Be nice to them, cause they're good people! Packed house, fists waving, rain making wet dog midday drench fest slightly funkadelic, just color-lights-textures-shouts all around good time YA! Matos, Lindsay Thomas, Caleb and I ended up dining with the band, having a lovely chat and then riding off to the 6th street strip with them. And I got to see Motley Crue two weeks ago, how could life get better?
Oh ya, by seeing Buck 65. I loved the Centaur track before, but after seeing him live, I want to just listen to the whole catalog - harsh, strong, absurd poetry packed back, up around beats, metal tracks, dangerous silences, scratching - all the while Richard Tefry, mildly mostly theatrical, in charge of his body, contouring all with one gesture of one muscle, a certain smile punctuating, posture filling out the stanza. genius showman, snakeoil shamen, confessor. Consider me converted.
Already converted to Saul Williams, whose "Black Stacey" has been in my head ever since his following Tefry. Williams' viola player is crazy fierce noise girl, my god. Should have stayed but split for Skeletons, then I Love U But I've Chosen Darkness, and the Waco Brothers. Then, done. Sunday was lovely brunch and sunshine at the statehouse, an airplane full of gig bags and pr girls with all electronics plugged into every available socket in the waiting area. Hilarious!
---
And if that isn't rock critic nerdy enough for you, I came home at 2am, wrote a grant proposal, went to school for eight hours and then went to see Greil Marcus read a paper on Bob Dylan at Columbia, on "Masters of War" and the recent stink about a Boulder, CO high school talent show at which some kids calling themselves 'the coalition of the willing' after scrapping the name 'the tali-band,' pissed off a Clear Channel mom whose kid thought the Dylan lyrics had been changed to advocate the death of the commander in chief. As I type this, I realize that my blog could end up watched by the Secret Service. Bring up my count, fellas! Just kidding, I would prefer the boring anonymity of not being made a criminal for thinking. Anyway, the Dylan-bots had a go about 'is he political' and co-panelist Christopher Ricks tore it up with his uncanny descriptions of Blonde On Blonde album titles and nuanced read of "Masters of War" as part of a self-congratulatory and misguided American mentality in which one side will not grant the other the agency of thought. Marcus was like, 'yes, that's true - but 16 year olds still use it to protest,' and it ground dead. Ricks is a sassy character, a little Parks-like, but lost his temper in the end.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment