Woo. Airport. Almost three hours early. No free internet. So much fun! Guess I got nothing better to do than to write Wednesday’s recap. I mean..I’m not gonna read my book. That would just be stupid.
So Wednesday. I was exhausted. I had no idea what to expect. I had no idea where I was going. I did know, however, that I’ve been wanting to see Juliana Barwick for a while now, and she was playing around noon. Thus began my official SXSW journey. I made it to the Austinist party way too early as per usual. At first I thought she was going on early, and that I was the only person in the audience (the room she was playing in, btw was incredibly tiny). BUT. Instead of catching an incredibly intimate show, just for me, I came to the realization that it was just a sound check. Yes. My awkwardness strikes again. So I ended up waiting around, of course running into Barwick at least six more times around the venue, until she actually played. Basically it looked like I was stalking her. Great. Her music was amazing. She layers uses her voice, and essentially just her voice to make all her music. There may be an underlying beat or something, but ultimately, its just layers and layers of Juliana. Good stuff, but kinda dull in terms of stage presence. She has to figure out a way to make things more exciting. Her music is beautiful, so she’s got that covered. But the lack of instruments and vocals for the most part are what’s hindering her. She’ll figure it out. Well she better figure it out cause I want more of her music dammit. Do it Juliana!
After Barwick, I had some lunch with my pal Cameron (of Superhumanoids fame..or soon to be fame) and headed back to the Austinist party, which, by the way, was at the Mohawk bar if anyone is interested. Cameron and I caught a couple songs by Toro Y Moi, but in all honesty, it was pretty boring. The room was too packed, it was too hot, and he was too unimpressive. He didn’t even seem to want to be there, and if he didn’t want to be there, I sure as hell didn’t. So we went to the patio (the other stage) and checked out some random band from New Orleans..iamJOHNMICHAEL..I think is what they were called. Not bad. A ton more energy than Toro Y Moi, which I appreciated, but not my cup of tea in terms of music. When they were done, I hung around, getting attacked by men running with porta potties till Small Black started. Let the chill-wave begin. Ok I’m not the biggest fan of the name that bloggers have given this genre of music, but who cares. The music is good. Call it what you want. Me or you might not like it, but hey, if I hear a band described as “chill-wave”, I’m gonna know what they sound like and I’ll probably check em out. So there. Anyway, Small Black was great. I’d been wanting to see them for a while now and they didn’t disappoint. The crowd kinda did..what with all the bros out there planting themselves firmly in the chill-wave scene, but the music was good. A lota beats on laptops, plenty of synths, and a solid live band to back everything up. And they moved to the music as well, which made things more enjoyable. The wave wasn’t over with Small Black, though. Following them was the ever popular Washed Out. The dude can make music. And make people dance. And sing. And smile…he’s always smiling. It’s kind of comical. He played a few songs by himself with his weird switches and knobs and whatnot, and then brought Small Black out to play a couple more songs along with him. The bass for his set was so ridiculously loud I swear I could feel my bones shaking. Good set though..got people dancing.
I’m on the plane now! And I just had a long conversation with a concert photographer. Jim something? Shit. I forgot his name already..knew I shoulda asked for a business card. Oh well. Moving on.
After the chill-wave had passed us, the Mohawk patio was ready for some rock. One of the acts I was really looking forward to seeing, The Besnard Lakes, were up next. As people moved out from Washed Out, I clearly decided to move to the front to see me some Canadian rockers up close. That was quite the interesting decision. If I thought Washed Out was loud, my god The Lakes were near deafening. Solid musicians though. It was an interesting transition from kinda mellow, beat heavy, indie dance music to space rocky, shoegazy, melodic heavy rock, but it seemed to work out pretty well. I caught some of the key songs on their last two albums, tried to get back in that small room to see Phantogram (try number one), failed, and decided to move on to try my luck with A Sunny Day in Glasgow.
Waiting for Sunny Day (not real estate) to start, I caught the tail end of Real Estate’s set. Pretty solid. I wasn’t able to catch them later on in the week unfortunately, but I got a good taste of what they’re like and I’d recommend checking them out. A Sunny Day in Glasgow, however, not so great. Granted the sound was bad and mics kept messing up and creating feedback, but they still weren’t the same band that you hear on the record. Kudos to whoever mixed and produced that album, cause whoever it was did a phenomenal job, I will give the band the benefit of the doubt though. They were all really young, something I didn’t expect at all. Give them a solid tour or two, and maybe a little more time to mature together and I’m sure they’ll be putting on solid shoegazy, twee pop shows in no time.
It was break time now. A time each day where I had to make a return walk to the hotel, not necessarily to rest, but more to recharge my damn iphone. What a pain. I did get some quality sitting time in though, and afterwards, Kat and I (someone I was staying with) ventured over to South Congress to grab some dinner. We ended up at this delicious little restaurant called South Congress Cafe. Man was the food good, from the bread and garlic butter to the jalapeno-garlic oil that my pasta was tossed in. Nice employees too. After refueling (something I didn’t end up doing too much of over the course of the week), we moseyed over to the IAMSOUND party. We knew (I’ve met) the guy that runs the label, so it was pretty much a no brainer that we’d end up there.
Initially we went to see all the bands. I wanted to catch Fool’s Gold and Sleigh Bells (two bands I didn’t end up getting to see all week unfortunately), but we ended up bailing after one band to see this piano dude in a church. More on that in a minute. The band we did see at the IAMSOUND party was We Are The World. These people are ridiculous. I wanna say there are four of them. All in costume. All in creepy masks. They dance, sing, play instruments, essentially do everything. They sound weird and experimental, but with a friendly dancy vibe. It definitely is a good show to experience, something I’d recommend anyone go see when possible. Now onto the church piano guy.
I had heard from a year ago that there are some interesting venues at SXSW, specifically church rooms. My friends caught Grizzly Bear in a church last year, something I’ll always hate them for. All hatred aside, I wanted to check this place out and Kat wanted to see this dude, Haushkah, there, so we went. Pretty cool. He’s a minimalist composer (think Phillip Glass) who does some cool stuff on the piano. Not the craziest thing I saw all week, but definitely unique and interesting, which is what I was looking to do while in Austin, so I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, we left the show somewhat early to catch The Depreciation Guild play on a rooftop.
This band is a side project for members of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and, while I love the record, they just didn’t do much for me live. They were fun, friendly, and their last few songs really picked up, but for the most part they were pretty damn boring. Three members, two guitarists and a drummer, they seemed to be relying too much on the samples that were playing on the laptop and not as much on the actual live music. Too bad. They’re a new band though, and hopefully will get better with time. I just love this shoegaze/twee revival we’re starting to come across. Hopefully dethroning the shittiness (for the most part) that is lo-fi.
It was getting late and there was probably time for one band. And for me, that band was Miike Snow. I caught the tail end of Fitz and the Tantrums, a kind of funk/soul band that’s definitely up-and-coming, and I was very impressed. Again, live shows should be about energy. Granted one of the best shows I’ve seen was My Bloody Valentine and al they do is stand there looking down at their pedals, but their music provides enough energy to make up for it. Fitz and The Tantrums were loud, vocal, dancing around; it was just a good time. Miike Snow, however, was something else. Sound check took forever, but wow was it worth it. They do things electronically that I will probably never understand. A pretty large band, with I wanna say 6 members, maybe more, they all do their part to make the live experience special. Their album is fairly light and mellow, but they’re anything but that live. By far one of the best performances I saw all week.
At this time it was close to 2AM and I had to decide between catching a secret Fool’s Gold show and going home to sleep after an extremely long day. I chose home, which ended up being a great decision, as Fool’s Gold apparently bailed on the show because of how lame it was. Go me. Went home, hung out, tried to figure on what the hell I wanted to do the next day, and went to sleep. The end of my first day at SXSW music. Pretty exciting stuff. More to come later. Day three!
