just wrote this for an alt weekly -- had an obscenely good time in austin, yay.
sxsw top ten
THE GOOD
1 Mingering Mike. I met my total hero and he's a complete sweetheart! Soul music fanatic and self-taught artist, the DC-based Mike seemed bemused that his work_joyful fake album cover art created between forty and thirty years ago_has made so many people happy since he was discovered some five years ago by a law firm investigator who found his stuff at a flea market.
2 Fuck Buttons. Using toy instruments, feedback and laptops, this young and stylish British duo folds noise and pop together beautifully, loudly, and freshly. They're like a poppy Yellow Swans, or Skinny Puppy and Black Dice crossed with Animal Collective. But better than that.
3 Half Japanese. The classic early '80s big band lineup reunited (with Ira Kaplan on second horn) and blared through "Rosemary's Baby," "I Know How It Feels" and a dozen others that are bigger than Springsteen in some other, more astute dimension.
4 Jandek. Now that some of the thrill of actually seeing this outsider recluse perform live is over, it's up to the black-clad folk-doom dude to deliver musically. And he really is, with a TX-based band that features brilliant pedal steel and a strong female vocalist. Nick Cave never sounded this good.
5 Blues Control. B.C. sounds kind of like an easy listening version of Royal Trux, and I mean that in the best way. The Brooklyn duo ruled an in-store at American Apparel, drooling their noodly noise all over the confused, starving sluts in the corner.
THE BAD
1 All the damn bands. There are too many bands. You really are aware of this while walking down Sixth Street at 10PM during SXSW; bands blare their music at you, and it's so loud and usually just so (so!) terribly bad, it makes the baby Jesus cry.
2 Corporate street teams. Scantily clad young women invade even the most underground venue passing out flashlights, cozies and energy sodas. I understand the need to "monetize" and put banners up and all that, but this is creepy and almost-evil.
3 Stupid beards. Every other twentysomething has a huge, oval beard. Why? College dudes look like escapees from Amish back country. It looks even worse than all those stupid C.H.I.P.S. glasses (which I thought were over four years ago, anyway).
4 Missing cool stuff. I missed the Lexie Mountain Boys, Roky Erickson, Paper Rad, Ponytails, High Places, Wooden Ships, David Banner, a gamelan orchestra from Houston and Todd Barry. Fuuuuuuck.
5 People from LA. I finally figured out why_aside from their dyed, feathered, sideways hairdos and brand-new tats_you can tell an LA person in Austin instantly: they don't know how to walk! During SXSW, you have to walk a lot. They have no idea how to do this, unless it's inside a mall. L.A. folks just collide with you on the sidewalk, even when they're not, at that moment, texting.
sxsw top ten
THE GOOD
1 Mingering Mike. I met my total hero and he's a complete sweetheart! Soul music fanatic and self-taught artist, the DC-based Mike seemed bemused that his work_joyful fake album cover art created between forty and thirty years ago_has made so many people happy since he was discovered some five years ago by a law firm investigator who found his stuff at a flea market.
2 Fuck Buttons. Using toy instruments, feedback and laptops, this young and stylish British duo folds noise and pop together beautifully, loudly, and freshly. They're like a poppy Yellow Swans, or Skinny Puppy and Black Dice crossed with Animal Collective. But better than that.
3 Half Japanese. The classic early '80s big band lineup reunited (with Ira Kaplan on second horn) and blared through "Rosemary's Baby," "I Know How It Feels" and a dozen others that are bigger than Springsteen in some other, more astute dimension.
4 Jandek. Now that some of the thrill of actually seeing this outsider recluse perform live is over, it's up to the black-clad folk-doom dude to deliver musically. And he really is, with a TX-based band that features brilliant pedal steel and a strong female vocalist. Nick Cave never sounded this good.
5 Blues Control. B.C. sounds kind of like an easy listening version of Royal Trux, and I mean that in the best way. The Brooklyn duo ruled an in-store at American Apparel, drooling their noodly noise all over the confused, starving sluts in the corner.
THE BAD
1 All the damn bands. There are too many bands. You really are aware of this while walking down Sixth Street at 10PM during SXSW; bands blare their music at you, and it's so loud and usually just so (so!) terribly bad, it makes the baby Jesus cry.
2 Corporate street teams. Scantily clad young women invade even the most underground venue passing out flashlights, cozies and energy sodas. I understand the need to "monetize" and put banners up and all that, but this is creepy and almost-evil.
3 Stupid beards. Every other twentysomething has a huge, oval beard. Why? College dudes look like escapees from Amish back country. It looks even worse than all those stupid C.H.I.P.S. glasses (which I thought were over four years ago, anyway).
4 Missing cool stuff. I missed the Lexie Mountain Boys, Roky Erickson, Paper Rad, Ponytails, High Places, Wooden Ships, David Banner, a gamelan orchestra from Houston and Todd Barry. Fuuuuuuck.
5 People from LA. I finally figured out why_aside from their dyed, feathered, sideways hairdos and brand-new tats_you can tell an LA person in Austin instantly: they don't know how to walk! During SXSW, you have to walk a lot. They have no idea how to do this, unless it's inside a mall. L.A. folks just collide with you on the sidewalk, even when they're not, at that moment, texting.
digdug:
la people suck.
mistersatan:
Dude... I just read about Yeti in fucking Rolling Stone. 