SouthXCityPaper 2014: Days 0-1
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
The Hold Steady, Devon Sproule, Dam-Funk, Windhand, Royal Teeth, etc.
Tuesday, March 11, well after midnight.
Like Austin itself (every damn day, as I just heard someone remark), the South By Southwest Music Conference is metastasizing. Again. The yearly festival-cum-industry-blowout, featuring pretty much every band, pop star, singer, rapper, iOS app, corporate brand, etc. that you’ve ever heard of, and about ten times as many more that you haven’t — used to span exactly four days in mid-March; Wednesday through Saturday. Last year brought some unprecedented Tuesday night action, which this year has ballooned to fill over 46 official venues tonight (that’s as compared to nearly 100 official venues, for instance, tomorrow night.) And even Monday, while not (yet) an official Music conference day, had enough to keep me plenty entertained as well. It’s Tuesday. This is gonna be a long week…
I’ve decided to combat the sprawl (and — more crucially — pace myself; conserving my time and yours) by reporting on only five bands per day — the most notable, the newest, the best of what I manage to see. And since yesterday and today were effectively sorta like SXSW practice days, just a chance to get my feet wet, I’ll pick my first five from Monday and Tuesday combined.
The Hold Steady (Monday, 5 p.m. @ Mohawk)
OK, not so new and unknown, but what a great way to kick it all off! A crowd-pleasing, hit-filled happy hour of a set, “Chips Ahoy!” bleeding into “Stuck Between Stations” and “Sequestered in Memphis” of course getting extra fist-pump power for the “subpoena’d in Texas” bit. Craig Finn flailing and gesticulating and jumping and punctuating like a madman, channeling pure rock and roll agitas. Also providing his own simulated vocal echo effect on “Multitude of Casualties.” Didn’t realize how much I’d missed these guys, but I can report that the new material (they’ve got a record out next week) fit right in and sounded great: “On With The Business,” as one of the new jams put it. (There are several dozen songs jockeying for on-repeat space in my brain right about now, but set-closer “Southtown Girls” is definitely one of them.)
Devon Sproule (4 p.m. @ Trophy Club)
Oh my dear Devon. I have adored this pint-sized, Gibson-toting gem of a songwriter since I first chanced to heard her play a tiny set at the Tin Angel sometime around 2005. I’ve written so many nice things about the truly fantastic records she’s put out over the years since then, and I would happily do a lot to help her get just a fraction of the fame and recognition she so blatantly deserves, certainly including making my way to the mostly-empty back room of a Dirty Sixth bar whose staff can barely be bothered to turn down the stereo in the next room enough for a dainty-voiced songstress to be heard over some inexplicably whirring machinery. Where this starts to get a little frustrating is that she’s actually been living in Austin for a couple years now, and for some reason still can’t get it together to even apply to be an official SXSW showcasing artist. (Even I only found out about this show in a pretty haphazard fashion.) Apparently her (British) label head is currently taking a seminar in artist management and marketing, or something like that, so maybe that’ll help matters a bit…
Anyway. Dev played a sweet and short set mostly consisting of songs from her recent collaborative record Colours, plus a nice arrangement of the Beatles’ “The Night Before.” She sang ‘em soft and pretty, but also with a bit of fiery rock’n’roll looseness when you’d least expect it, and her fingers are nimble as ever across those frets. To paraphrase one of the songs from that album; one of the most sincerely sweet sentiments to be sung by anybody last year: She can’t help it. She can’t help that she’s so good.
Royal Teeth (8:30 p.m. @ Cheer Up Charlies)
Super-exuberant (and oh my so young-looking) shoestring popsters from New Orleans, in that dancy-clappy-strummy sweet spot, with balloons and confetti to match and definitely a good dollop of Glee in their DNA. Two lead singers: one female and spandex-clad, the other with a Bieberish ‘do and sprightly leprachaun-like demeanor and actually a higher voice than the lady lead (as became evident in some of their more music-theater-ish duet passages.) Overspilling youthful energy notwithstanding this was a polished, relentlessly engaging performance, with stage antics (like Bieberchaun jumping into the crowd with his floor-tom for an instrumental break before popping right back up to the mic) clearly timed down to the measure. Plus the songs were great — the very hooky set-closing “hit” which was featured on the NPR Austin 100 playlist wasn’t even the catchiest or most interesting of their originals, which seems like a good sign — and they pulled off a totally credible, high energy cover of The Knife’s “Heartbeats” for good measure.
Windhand (9 p.m. @ Mohawk)
Just to regain a bit of emotional equilibrium after that sugar-rush lollipop rainbowfest, I wandered down the street for a dose of opposite extreme, via Pitchfork’s metal-oriented “Show No Mercy” showcase. Actually, I’ve gotta say these Virginian doom metallers were not quite as dark and heavy as Royal Teeth were bright and bubbly. Though that says a lot more about Royal Teeth. Point in their favor — Windhand’s tough-looking, undemonstrative female lead singer didn’t use a typically guttural “metal voice” (unlike, for instance, the frontman for the rather goofy K-pop band I saw immediately afterward), but rather a low, full-throated funeral wail which felt almost soft but still held its own inside the squall of her continuously headbanging bandmates — two guitarists plus bassist laying down a thick, rich, sludgy power-chord sea. The best part was an epic ten-plus (fifteen?) minute song with a tremendously effective drum groove which would slow down as if almost to the point of collapsing, every four bars, before scrambling to catch right back up.
Dam-Funk (11:30 p.m. @ Empire Control Room)
Nice surprise here — I knew this dude for his bad-ass retro slo-mo G-funk production work (the killer instrumental double-disc set Toeachizown, and his recent team-up with Snoop as 7 Days of Funk) but turns out he can more than hold his own on the mic too, as a rhyming, R&B-crooning sort of freestyling soul preacher, holding forth over top of his own wibbly-wonky grooves. Intense and kinda freaky — definitely some Willis Earl Beal-style out-there vibes, accentuated by the whole sunglasses indoors at night thing — but also personable and really funny, and gracious too. He did a long mantra-like synth-funk jam repeating “surveillance…..escape!,” which led into ad-libs about Facebook and Twitter. Also some nice banter about how he gets up there in front of G’s and he gets up for total squares; as for himself, he’s trying to keep it fifty-fifty.
Honorable Mention:
Holiday Mountain (11:30ish @ Volsteady Lounge) A local trio playing fun, loud, punky keyboard reggae pop (?) with coordinated neon yellow “Holiday Mountain” T-shirts and some sassy Aussie banter (well… I actually thought they said they were from Australia, not Austin. The singer — also sometime keytarist — sounded Australian too… I think?)
