SouthXCityPaper part 5
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.
Wrapping up our SXSW recaps with five picks from Saturday.
Wrapping up our SXSW recaps: Five Picks from Saturday
Sohn (1:25 p.m. @ Holy Mountain Patio)
I spent the majority of my afternoon (also known in SXSW parlance as “morning”) watching a string of ineffably pretty bands with orchestral instruments — more acts with violins than without — including Norwegian glacier-pop epicists Highasakite (whose set involved some looping of Fluegelhorn), the youthful Massachusetts chamber outfit Mutual Benefit (so soft and dreamy — won me over live more than the record ever had), the playfully inventive, super-talented Kishi Bashi, and folk-pop-classical ensemble San Fermin (surprisingly lively, with an absolute knockout of a lady vocalist who somehow instantly ignited an Austin-wide trend of white-on-black daisy/floral print clothing — is that a thing or was I just primed? Male singer pretty dull however.)
All were truly lovely, but perhaps the highlight, in a slightly different vein, was this new, hotly-tipped British electro-R&B guy, who for some reason wore a monk-like black hood for most of his set. Sohn reminded me loosely of a male Jessy Lanza, perhaps mostly because she was already very much on my brain. I guess an easier comparison would be to the legions of indie-R&B acts (inc., Rhye, Autre Ne Veut) who were everywhere here last year, only with much more emphasis on tech-y, vaguely post-dubstep production, which was intricate and nuanced but still achingly smooth, and surprisingly dancy for being so mellow. (The set closer was particularly funky despite being in three-four time.) Not sure I’m doing it justice, but anyway this is definitely someone to watch out for.
Melt Yourself Down (5:30 p.m. @ Latitude 30)
Ok, I’m calling it — this was the most epic set I saw all week. Melt Yourself Down is a (brilliantly named) Afro-British jazz/funk group, with strong Nubian and Ethiopian overtones, that plays with the unbridled intensity of a punk band. Seriously. Lead singer Kushal Gaya, wild-eyed and shaggy, in a sort of mariachi-style shirt that was half-unbuttoned by the set’s end, wasted no time in climbing on top of the speakers, leaping off and crowd-surfing (virtually unheard of at SXSW, and particularly impressive at the normally subdued Latitude 30, which has high-top tables strewn throughout the crowd), then prostrating himself on the floor in the middle of the crowd, crawling back toward the stage, and trying desperately to incite a mosh pit. All this while barking and growling and leading crowd chant-alongs, and while the rest of the band, remaining stagebound but only barely — two hulking tenor sax players, bad-ass female bassist, drummer and percussionist — unleashed a relentless stream of furious dance grooves and fire-breathing solos. Holy cow. Fingers crossed they make it back stateside super soon; if so I highly, highly recommend you make it a point to be there.
Jones Family Singers (7:50 p.m. @ St. David’s Bethel Hall)
Calamity! My friend lost his wallet, including ID, jeopardizing not only his ability to get into any shows tonight but also to board his flight the next morning. Meanwhile I was unable to get into Julian Casablancas’ show at the Fader Fort, where the entrance had been completely shut down due to the massive crowd trying to get in for headliner Rick Ross (plus some presumably largely non-overlapping number of Strokes fans...) It seemed like as good a time as any to find some refuge in religion. The Jones Family affair consisted of galvanizing preacherman papa Jones (who invited us to “twitterize” him) in a smart royal blue suit, six testifyin’ woman singers in spangly blue getup, and a six or seven piece gospel-funk band, all of the above surnamed Jones and evidently blood relatives. The bassist also got up front at one point to spit some Christian rap. Not surprisingly, this was as tight, funky, and exhilarating a set as any I saw all week. They pulled me (and a few others) up onstage to dance along; one of the sisters also just handed me her microphone to do with as I pleased. “Who you gonna pray to? Jesus, Jesus!” Now, I’m not trying to say anything here, but within a matter of hours, my buddy had recovered his wallet, and we were front and center to watch a member of the Strokes.
Pizza Underground (9 p.m. @ Buffalo Billiards)
First though, the Saturday night pickings being unusually slim, I went to see these knuckleheads. For the uninitiated, this is the pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band instigated by a sunglasses-sporting Macaulay Culkin, whose involvement is pretty much, and baldly, the only reason this horrible pool-hall venue was packed to capacity. Utter silliness, needless to say. The actual Lou Reed/Velvets parody portions were pretty funny — in large part because they were smart enough to move right along once a joke had been established, limiting the likes of, say, “All the Pizza Parties” to a fully-sufficient two lines. Highlights included “White Pie/White Slice” (why are you so dry?), “Femme Fatale” as the pie-hoarding “Pizza Gal” and “Satellite of Love” rendered as “Take A Bite of Crust” (“most of it’s gone into my mouth...”) Naturally, the chorus of “Cool It Down” was left unaltered. Skipping briskly through these selections (played acoustically and with unabashed ineptitude, a pizza box serving as drum set, Macaulay on kazoo solos) meant there was lots of time left over for other silliness, which succeeded to varying degrees: an interlude featuring the “band astronomer” fell flat (as...a pizza?), an impromptu guest spot by rapper Kosha Dillz was admirably zany if probably best kept a one-off, while a mini-set of past-tense Nirvana covers by “Kurt Cobained,” of “Nevermound” was some fittingly inspired lunacy. One actually-funny joke, as delivered by the group’s appalingly-accented Nico stand-in — Q: Why did the hipster burn his mouth on the pizza?*
Albert Hammond, Jr. (11 p.m. @ The Gatsby)
The de facto summit/climax of my Southby week, if only due to the circumstances: full moon, free drinks, friends reunited, wallet recovered, high fives all around (and the fact that it followed the thrill of seeing my high school buddy, in leather pants and Karen O bangs, presiding over the same stage with her on-the-rise synth-pop band Little Daylight — who are terrific, though don’t take it from me — and looking like a total rock star, on her birthday no less.) I haven’t always paid much attention Hammond’s solo stuff — though I recognized a tune or two from his first record — but this was a fully satisfying set of blazing, no-nonsense rock and roll from this critical Stroke (I keep wanting to say “former,” but the Strokes are technically still a band...) They weren’t Strokes songs, but they certainly could have been, all interlocking guitar parts and pummeling swagger, and it’s hard to imagine even Julian’s set hitting that particular sweet spot so precisely. It was only marred by Hammond’s unvarnished and rather befuddling anger at the lighting techs (inexcusably unprofessional, and it wasn’t even clear what the problem was), but he almost made up for it with his snazzy suspenders and orange check pants, a bold fashion move in an otherwise entirely black-clad band.
From there on out the night dissipated a little bit: took the gang for a second shot of Sophie magic, but the set was weird and short (still no “Bipp”), the party stopped as soon as it started, and instead of the billed female vocalist (A G Clark) there was a sad, alien-looking woman in sweater and skinsuit, standing in an inflated swimming pool full of transparent beach balls. Spent the final hour flitting from A Tribe Called Red (a Native DJ trio splicing throwback hip-hop with powwow chanting, fun but not quite the dance party we were seeking) to Rich Aucoin again (who led us out into the street chanting mantras beneath a full-size, grade-school-style parachute, swirling surreally amid the unfiltered human soup of Dirty Sixth), and then, unwittingly, the A$AP Mob — we thoughtFlosstradamus was playing at the 1100 Warehouse but were greeted instead with the cathartic, pogoing final minute of “Shabba Ranks.” Good enough!
*A: Because he ate it before it was cool.
Honorable Mention:
Stuart Murdoch (2 p.m. @ Austin Convention Center, Room 416)
The Belle & Sebastian ringleader was technically in town as part of the film conference, promoting his movie musical God Help The Girl, but of course that didn’t stop folks from asking him about his band and music career, and he was more than happy to oblige. Murdoch was a marvel to behold — witty, articulate, generous, reflective, and fully comfortable with himself in a way that I’m positive was not the case ten or fifteen years ago. He fielded questions about his influences and creative process, and without getting too deep into personal specifics, had some particularly illuminating things to say about spirituality: “If you believe in music, you believe in God.” That was wasn’t a declaration, it was just a hypothesis (“I’ll just put that out there, we can discuss later...”) but to me it felt spot-on. South by Southwest is, for me and many of the thousands who descend on Austin each March, truly a spiritual pilgrimage, and a holy communion. I am blessed to be a part of it.
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