More unofficial SXSW ramblings

Mike Watt - original member of The Minutemen

 

Went down to Austin Friday night, March 18 and caught some great shows — some were at a free party (even got a free beer), others at an unofficial show that only cost $5 to get into. Made some good discoveries and got to see a punk rock legend. I got excellent tips from local musician Bradford Kinney, who has very good taste and has been milking SXSW for all it’s worth.

I parked in a lot at 11th and Trinity. It was early, but everything close to 6th Street was full. Had a lot of walking ahead of me as both venues were on the east side of town (Protip: if you don’t have a SXSW wristband and you’re desperate to use the bathroom, try a hotel lobby. Usually clean and you probably won’t get hassled).

Started at Domy’s Bookstore on East Cesar Chavez. There was a free party in the back, where they were giving away free Lone Star beer. It was being put on by Los Angeles radio station KXLU. The big draw was Japanther, but the group I really liked was called Tearist. It featured a guy doing electronics and a sexy girl with a great voice, long black hair singing and thrashing around onstage in a tight black dress. Sort of an ’80s goth vibe.

I stuck around for a while and heard Kid Infinity – white rapper with a synth/programmer. Kind of a techno Beasty Boys kind of act. He was OK, but not really my style. Lots of people were there for Japanther, and I stayed to find out what the hub bub was about, but they didn’t really do it for me. Too straight up punk for me. I love the punk ethic and I love the Ramones, Sex Pistols, etc., but I can only hear so much of that at a time. I’m more of a postpunk fan. Plus they let another group do a couple of songs and that group nearly obliterated my ears with feedback. Even young people were holding their ears.

I tried to get into private party a few blocks away  that had a band playing, was rebuffed. Headed north and walked my ass off till I got to Baby Blue Studios at 1522 East 12th. Paid $5 to get in. Went into the building, which was packed full of people and stiflingly hot even though it was nice and cool outside. And heard maybe my favorite act of the night: Tune-Yards, or as I’ve seen it stylized on the web, tUnE-yArDs (I’m only gonna do that once).

I couldn’t see a damn thing. Never saw so many tall people on the front row of anything. But the music was awesome. Very unique style. The singer (Merrill Garbus) played a ukulele and was backed by a drummer and some people playing the saxophone. She may have done some drumming too, but I’m not sure since I couldn’t frickin’ see. The vibe was sort of a mix of African influences, reggae, maybe a bit Ethiopian sounding. Her vocals reminded me a bit of yodeling. Hard to describe, but very good. Very funky.

Next I saw a group from Tokyo, Japan called Mi-Gu. Cute Japanese girl playing a drum kit and reciting poetry, and a very impressive guitarist who really knew how to shred. Kind of jazzy, kind of beatnik. Mike Watt sat in on bass for a couple of songs. Unfortunately his amp started cutting out on him and he was nearly done by the time a replacement amp turned up. It was still a treat to see the man, however. I of course have the classic Minutemen album Double Nickels on the Dime I read all about the band in Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life and got to feel like I knew the man.

And that was it. I’m gonna try to catch a few shows tonight even though my feet hurt.

Got No Strings – free & freaky entertainment during SXSW

Don’t feel too bummed out if you don’t have a badge or a wristband for South By Southwest. There are still a lot of shows in Austin this week — many of them free. Check this out. There are also in-stores and unofficial shows all over town. Look around and see what you can find. The official shows aren’t the only shows (plus you can get into some of those if you show up very early and pay at the door. I’ve been to SXSW several times though, and I would pick lesser-known artists and get there at least an hour early, maybe two. If you’re scared of crowds and don’t want to walk a long way from your parking spot, you might want to look for something to do elsewhere.)

Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, I plan to go to a free event (not affiliated with SXSW) on Sunday, March 20 that promises to be fun and freaky: “The Church of the Friendly Ghost Presents Got No Strings” — a series of shows featuring experimental underground music and puppetry at the Salvage Vanguard Theater (2803 Manor Rd.). Yes, I do mean puppets. I haven’t been to a puppet show since I was 5. I have a feeling this will be a bit different.

Bands include FM Campers, Zorch, Ghost of Electricity and House of Wolves. More information here: No Strings – a puppet theatre and electronic music symposium

Y.East 2 was a feast for ears and eyes – SXSW not the only game in town

The middle part of March is South By Southwest time in Austin. There are tons of visitors in town, checking out films and music.  There’s always something happening down there. One of my favorite times of year. On the downside, getting a badge or even a wristband is pretty expensive, and getting into shows without a SXSW badge — especially the popular ones — is tough.

Fortunately, SXSW is not the only game in town. There are many, many shows and parties going on, a lot of them free. You can still have a hell of a good time and hear some great music without going to any official SXSW show. Last Saturday was a case in point. I went to a little underground music/digital art festival called Y.East 2, held at Cheer Up Charlies, at 1104 E. 6th Street.

It featured numerous electronic music acts and video artists. FM Campers (mentioned before on this blog) invited me to the show via Facebook. It started at 12:30 p.m. and went on till 3 a.m. I didn’t stick it out till the end, but I saw and heard some awesomely weird, cool acts and found a few new favorites. The ones who really stood out for me included:

FM Campers

They have a great electro-psych sound. Along with their singer (Anthony) and synth player/programmer (Shaun), they have a very energetic drummer (Jason) – not just programmed beats. The place was small, but they really packed it. Doing the visuals for their show was Wiley Wiggins, the guy who played the long-haired little freshman kid from Dazed and Confused. Apparently he’s really big in the underground video scene in Austin.

I predict FM Campers are headed for the big time, however hard they might try to stay underground. Their tunes are just too good. Just check out this song:

How I Quit Crack

Along with FM Campers, this is the girl I went to see, based on videos I’ve seen on Youtube. She didn’t disappoint. The singer’s name is Ernestina Forbis (though everyone seemed to call her Tina). It’s hard to describe what she does, but basically… It’s a kind of electronic goth music. Very unique style. Black lights, with makeup and decorations that glow. She usually has some kind of cross on display. Lots of distortion and feedback, plus vocals. She has a great voice, but it’s essentially an instrument. She’s a bit like Cocteau Twins in that respect. Accompanying her on guitar last weekend was  a Chris Cones, a guy from the Bay area who calls himself Skullcaster.

Really, you’d have to be there. Here’s the next best thing (I didn’t record this and it wasn’t from Y.East 2 – my pics didn’t come out either, maybe next time…):

Yatagarasu

A guy who sang and screamed while playing what I would refer to as chiptunes – what sounded like video game music. Maybe a cross between Nine Inch Nails and Devo? Chris Yatagarasu told me he creates his songs using a program called Famitracker. Very cool.

Captain Sievert

Very good chiptunes music, pushing the boundaries of that emerging genre. His songs were complex and funky.

Ntropy

This guy was playing really cool electronic music using a virtual reality glove he converted to a MIDI controller. Really fun to watch. His sounds reminded me a bit of Ronald Jenkees.

I, Cactus

This guy was a real hoot. He had a Mexican Wrestler-style mask, and had a little plastic mask stuffed in his waistband above his crotch. He did some great cut-and-paste type music, much of it hip hop but not all. He had Queen singing, “We are the losers,” and had DMX rapping “Y’all gonna make me suck my dick.” He had everyone cracking up including me.

I got to meet quite a few musicians in between shows, including Tina from How I Met Crack, Bradford Kinney from Ghost of Electricity and Matthew Armistead of Aurora Plastics Company. They were pretty fun to hang out with. Friendly and funny.

Go East Young Man

The BBQ School Bus, one of many, many outdoor food vendors on East 6th

 

I have to admit I haven’t ventured into the east side of Austin very often. Other Austinites who never go there will tell you it’s nothing but a lot of crack neighborhoods, but it isn’t the case. I’m sure those can be found, but East 6th Street was like a blast from the past. Young people strolling around or hanging out at stores and eateries. Little yards full of food trailers with picnic tables between them, selling cheap, but tasty food. The area had that bohemian vibe that I was afraid had disappeared when the rich people came along and started putting up high rises. It was like Austin, 20 years ago. I loved it.

I really liked the vibe at Cheer Up Charlies, by the way. Kind of a seedy-looking dive that somebody got hold of and turned into a cool place. From what I’ve read, they consider themselves a “queer bar,” which is distinct from a gay bar in that both gays and straights, hipsters and squares intermingle. They make some unusual cocktails – I had the habanero pineapple margarita. Damn good I must say. They also sell kombucha tea, a fermented beverage that I never tried before (and probably won’t like). I was willing to try it just to say I had, but they ran out of the stuff.

They have a couple of trailers in back selling vegan food. I got a Southwestern vegan dish from Iggi’s Texatarian called a “Hail Seitan” mainly for the humor value, but it turned out to be damn tasty. I never would’ve known it was vegan if you just handed it to me. One of the guys working there turned out to be a fellow Reddit user. Hell of a nice guy. I never met one of those in person before.

Great indie rock from Iran (you didn’t think Iran had any of that did you?)

Rappers dissing each other and showing off their bling… Lady Gaga wearing a dress made out of meat… Americans have forgotten what musical rebellion is. What if simply getting up on stage and performing at a rock ‘n’ roll concert could get you thrown in jail? There are places in the world where that happens. Yet there are people who love music so much, they will take that risk.

Members of The Plastic Wave went to jail for rock ‘n’ roll, literally, after participating in a concert in Teheran, Iran in 2007. Police arrested 230 members of the crowd and a number of musicians, accusing them of numerous crimes against the state and Islam, and jailing them for 21 days. Saeid Nadjafi (aka Natch) and a gifted female vocalist named Maral Afsharian were among those jailed for daring to perform music the regime didn’t like (having a female vocalist is also a big no no). Not deterred, they and a friend, Shayan Amini, formed The Plastic Wave.

The group was supposed to perform at the 2009 South By Southwest music festival in Austin, but got turned down for a visa for some inexplicable reason. Austin Dacey and his foundation, Impossible Music arranged for an American group, Cruel Black Dove to learn Plastic Wave’s songs, so they could be performed live as intended.

The Plastic Wave is no more, but Natch is carrying the torch with his electronic rock project, The Casualty Process. And in case you’re wondering, the music is very good, influenced by such acts as Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode. Listen for yourself:

The Casualty Process – Code

The Plastic Wave – My Clothes on Other Bodies

Also check out Natch’s laser midi controller. Pretty cool sounds:

American music fans have become rather jaded. We might complain that there’s nothing good on the radio and think what a shame it is that the kids are growing up on bad commercial pop and rap. But the fact is, you can get on the Internet and find almost anything you want without a whole lot of effort. You just have to know where to look.

That doesn’t mean music is no longer important. Far from it. There are people in the world willing to risk jail or worse to make it. I think it would be good for us to remember that.

I read on Austin Dacey’s blog The Ethical Ear that Natch and Shayan have received permission to travel to the U.S. and perform. Hopefully they’ll get that trip to Austin, Texas that they should’ve made in 2009 and I’ll have a chance to see them play.

Natch has a bunch of other good songs up on his Soundcloud page. Give them a listen and let him know what you think. You can also find The Casualty Process on Facebook. Dative, an alternative rock group featuring Shayan and Natch, can also be found on Facebook.

Impossible Music is helping other restricted/persecuted musicians around the world get their songs out to the public. The Wall Street Journal has a pretty good article about it. Seems like a very worthy cause.

Robyn Hitchcock: Thanks for twisting my brain into the correct shape!

I saw Robyn Hitchcock for the first time at South By Southwest 2004. Just him and his guitar. No band. At first I thought the frat boys in front of me were going to ruin it. They talked, clinked their beers together, yelled during the songs — you know, basic meathead behavior. But then in between songs, Robyn compared his guitar to a javelina, talked about how the world didn’t exist if you never went outside, talked about the German doppelganger myth: “If you see someone coming toward you who looks just like you, it means you’re about to die, or you just met an identical twin no one told you about — or both.” Really weird and funny. And the meatheads in front of me chuckled, shut the hell up and listened. He totally won them over. Very impressive.

It took a bit longer for me. I was already a big fan by 2004, but when I first heard Robyn’s music in the mid-’90s, I hated it. Several of his songs were included on the mixtapes that eventually turned me onto postpunk music. Before that I was pretty much a hard rock guy, though I was somewhat open to things like blues and classical and was starting to check out world music. But the radio sucked, and I could tell the music on those tapes had substance, so I kept listening.

Robyn’s were my least favorite at the time. First of all, I didn’t like his voice. Second, the lyrics were just too weird and disturbing. Because some of his songs were mixed in with stuff I did like right away — Chameleons, Shriekback, Peter Murphy, etc. — I heard them occasionally and tolerated them. “Leppo & the Jooves” and “Balloon Man” first started to grab my attention, and I would think okay, let’s give this guy a chance, and would pop in a tape my friend made of his favorite Hitchcock tunes–and I was lucky if I made it five or six songs in before I turned it off. I was like, blech, what’s wrong with this guy?

Then for some reason about two or three years later, something just clicked. I think it was “She Doesn’t Exist” that caught my attention. All of a sudden I realized he was absolutely brilliant. My friend’s Hitchcock mixtape seldom left my stereo. I played it over and over. From that point I couldn’t get enough of him. I had to get every CD of his I could find and thanks to SXSW I got to see him perform a couple of times.

If you’re not familiar with Robyn’s music, it can vary a lot in terms of energy and style, but all of it is influenced by the psychedelia of the ’60s. Syd Barrett is obviously a big influence. His early band The Soft Boys influenced REM (that band’s guitarist Peter Buck later joined up with Robyn in The Venus 3). In addition to being a wonderfully idosyncratic songwriter and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, piano, bass, harmonica), Robyn is also a visual artist. Some of his psych art wound up as album covers. Explore his website a bit if you want to get an inkling of his many talents: The Museum of Robyn Hitchcock.

My favorite Hitchcock songs change depending on when you ask me, but my custom mix goes something like this:

“The Crawling”
“Leppo & the Jooves”
“Man with a Woman’s Shadow”
“Into the Arms of Love”
“Where are the Prawns?” (from Soft Boys – Underwater Moonlight” – Matador Records release, an extra, I think)
“Chinese Water Python”
“Driving Aloud (Radio Storm)”
“Chinese Bones”
“Old Pervert” (an extra from Underwater Moonlight)
“Wang Dang Pig” (ditto)
“Only the Stones Remain”
“Railway Shoes”
“America” (from Gotta Let This Hen Out)
“When I Was Dead” (from Alive Not Dead live EP – I don’t like the one on Respect quite as much)
“Lysander”
“Egyptian Cream” (from Gotta Let this Hen Out)
“Vibrating”
“Balloon Man”

“Ted Woody & Junior”

“Brenda’s Iron Sledge”

“Trash”
“Let There Be More Darkness”

Not sure if that fits on a standard CD-R…

If you want to dive in and buy some albums, I would start with one of these: I Often Dream of Trains, Birds in Perspex, Storefront Hitchcock,  Gotta Get this Hen Out, or Fegmania. I really can’t recommend against any Hitchcock album, but those are my favorites and I can’t imagine anyone who “gets” him not enjoying them.

Requiem for my ability to go to SXSW

When people find out I live in Austin (or close to it), they almost always ask if I’m going to South By Southwest (March 17-21 for the music festival, March 12-21 for the whole thing). Answer: I wish. I have been several times and mostly had a blast. Definitely discovered a lot of great music. However, I don’t know if or when I’m going back. I probably won’t unless I can get in with a press pass, which isn’t likely since my newspaper (The Hill Country News) is very local and we’re also working on a special section right around that time.

First time I went to SXSW, I got in with a wrist band, which is affordable, but now the demand is so high it’s almost impossible to get one. When they announce that wristbands are on sale, you have only a few hours to get to the location. Since I work in the burbs, that means it’s never gonna happen. I can remember when you had at least a week to mosey on down and pick up a wristband before they sold out.

Then assuming you did get one, everyone with a badge gets in ahead of you. So most venues and most shows will fill up before you ever get in. The Fire Marshal’s office is very strict on the issue of overcrowding. When a venue is full, that’s it. No one else gets in. I still got plenty of enjoyment out of SXSW as a wristband attendee, but now it’s so crowded that even badge-holders often wait in line for hours and don’t get into shows they want to see. And the badges are EXPENSIVE. To register now for the Music festival alone would cost $750. If you registered before Sept. 15 it was “only” $595. I like movies too, but I only ever attended the music festival because music comes first for me. A Platinum badge, which gets you into Music, Film and Interactive festivals, started at $920 and is now up to $1,225. Way, way out of my reach.

Two years in a row when I worked at another publication, I applied for and got press badges, which didn’t cost me, but I was expected to cover the festival and report on it. I would do feature stories on any local (Dripping Springs) musicians in the festival and would review the bands I saw each night. The newspaper I work for now can’t really use reports on SXSW so it’s not an option.

A couple of years ago I got the bright idea of taking my vacation during SXSW and buying my own badge, $500 on my credit card. Then my friend who was going to go with me got called away on business unexpectedly. He was supposed to come back and catch a few days of the festival with me but during his trip back he got a horrible case of the flu. So I was left to wander around the festival alone with no one to talk to. Then my radiator on my pickup truck blew up and I had to get it towed, and it cost me $300 to fix the thing. I still had a good time overall, found some great bands, but it made me pretty shy about plunking down that kind of money. It was scary enough planning a vacation to San Francisco last fall knowing the possibly deadly swine flu was going around. Lucked out on that one.

You might expect me to have sour grapes and say SXSW sucks and is too corporate, but the fact is I got a great deal out of it and would love to go back some year. I discovered a lot of great music there – Gogol Bordello, Antibalas, Kinky and Melissa McClelland to name a few. Also got to see one of my musical heroes, Robyn Hitchcock, three different times. Maybe one day…

If you happen to have a few thousand bucks lying around or work for a company that would pay your way and want to sign up, you can do it at http://www.sxsw.com/. And if you get to go, lucky SOB, tell me who you saw so I can live vicariously and discover some bands secondhand.