Saturday afternoon, sunny and 80º+—it seemed like a good idea to go to Waterloo Park and sample the musical and comedic talents that some enterprising soul had cobbled together. This would ensure that I'd be dead tired by the time the sun set. But that's cool—sometimes one does one's best work while running on fumes. Of course, those SXSW Day 4 Blues hit with a vengeance. But enough about me... Onto the entertainment.

Newly signed to Rick Rubin's Def American label, Howlin Rain play grizzled Southern rock redux, but with so much fire in its belly and soul (and with chops to burn, especially keyboardist Joel Rabinow) that the retro-ness of it all doesn't pall. Along with Ethan Miller's flagrant guitar solos and gritty, testifying vocals, Howlin Rain create ideal hot sunny day outdoors rock that almost makes this vegan want to eat a slab of bbq ribs while riding a Harley 100 mph on some south of the Mason Dixon line highway. Hee-yah, or something.

After this, I ambled to the comedy stage, where Aziz Ansari was yukking it up. He was followed by Reggie Watts, Hard N' Phirm, Paul F. Tompkins, Leon Allen and a woman from the Sarah Silverman Show whose name escapes me. Watts and H&P stood out with their spot-on musical parodies. Tenacious who?

Day 3 of SXSW started with Village Voice Media's bash at La Zona Rosa. We were too busy "networking" with colleagues and freelance writers to pay close attention to the Black Keys and the Soundtrack of Our Lives, but the latter in particular impressed with their chugging, Scandinavian Neu! homage when we were able to focus on them for a good five minutes.

After that heady gathering, I wandered and wondered down E. 6th and Red River, hoping to chance upon something remarkable. As is often the case at SXSW, this sort of sojourn often results in wave after wave of mediocre rock, each venue's jet of sound bleeding into that of the one next to it and across from it. Talk about an audiophile's nightmare...

However, I did catch Carbon/Silicon, Mick Jones (the Clash) and Tony James' (Generation X) new project as they were finishing a set in a tent across from Stubb's on Red River. Their old-codger punk-rock righteousness and instantly memorable choons were a pleasant surprise. These blokes should be sitting in rocking chairs in the Joey Ramone Memorial Retirement Home, not shining in the 92º heat in Austin. Good for them.

The problem with blogging SXSW is that every second spent blogging is a second spent not seeing something that you might want to blog about.

Having arrived late Wednesday night, while the festival was already in partial swing, and trying (unsuccessfully) to catch up on some lost travel sleep Thursday morning, this is literally the first time I have been able to stop to catch my breath and reflect on what I have seen. Some argue that the festival is suffering from its own success: that its immense popularity and overwhelming musical stimulation leads to music fan burnout.

Unlike, say, Coachella, where the lineup has been handpicked for quality, SXSW is pretty much anyone's game. All it really takes is a little moving and shaking and a band can get on a bill, regardless of merit. Failing that, there's always the street, which is dotted with gypsy acoustic groups, people playing through battery powered amps, and just plain freaks. From the sublime to the ridiculous, the festival has it all, and it's easy to get cynical when band after band fails to impress. The flipside, however, is that when you do find a band you unexpectedly like, the pleasure is even greater.

Thursday's (reasonably) local highlight was Long Beach's Crystal Antlers who continue to sharpen their Hawkwind/Comets on Fire inspired sound and seem to be growing increasingly confident in their abilities to move a crowd. After an aborted set downtown (so aborted they didn't even get a chance to load in their equipment), the band picked up and moved to a backyard across town where they were certainly the loudest band on the bill. After their first song, the property owner came out and told them to keep it down a bit, but they soldiered on undeterred, if a little less ear-splitting.

For a taste, see below:

Following Crystal Antlers was Mr. Free and the Satellite Freakout, a Tucson band who had driven to Austin in a full sized school bus equipped with a stage in the back for on the fly performances. Definitely one of the strangest bands I had seen here, within ten seconds, Mr. Free (in Kabuki/Whatever Happened to Baby Jane makeup) living up to his name, stripped down to absolutely nothing but a strategically placed sock. What was most surprising was that the music was actually really good, Alternative Tentacles style punk...but from Arizona, which somehow makes it even more legit. Below: the only picture I took that isn't NSFW.

Day 2 of SXSW

In my last post, I predicted Holy Fuck's set would be very hard to surpass. Well, I think it was at least equaled by a few artists on the bill at Barcelona—all instrumental hip-hop artists, in fact (Nosaj Thing, Free the Robots, Gaslamp Killer and Flying Lotus). Who would've thought such types would be standouts at SXSW? I mean, there wasn't a guitar to be found in the joint all night...

But first some gigs that preceded the Barcelona extravaganza. At Soho Bar, Blues Control—a weird psych band from New York—kind of disappointed with some spectral, relatively mellow blues rock that wasn't as expansive as their self-titled LP on Holy Mountain Records hinted. Their attack was muted somehow. Consisting of a guitarist and keyboardist who manned a drum machine, too, the duo churned out restrained turbulence, saving their best track for last, "Boiled Peanuts," one of the most sublimely lugubrious songs of the decade, a liquid bummer of mood elevation (paradoxes rock).

Over at Vice, Fucked Up puked up a bilious barrage of metallic punk. FU are fronted by an ornery, bald, bearded fat man who strips off his shirt and roams into the crowd to shout in your face his indecipherable lyrics (possibly about the importance of maintaining efficient digestion). At one point, he head-butted the mic. Later he ranted about the copious amounts of piss on the men's room floor. Someone needs to address this rampant problem in rock clubs and I'm glad Fucked Up's on the case.

Thursday afternoon belonged to Holy Fuck. Yeah, yeah, indie-rock royalty were busy kissing Lou Reed's ring over at 4th and Brazos and that's all lovely and stuff, but I'm more interested in championing the second best band in the world right this second. (Best? Boredoms. Thanks for asking.)

Holy Fuck at the Emo Annex tent continued their ever-ascending trajectory with another devastating performance of vicious yet transcendent music. Consisting of one (amazingly piquant) drummer, one bassist and two electronics specialists, the Toronto quartet generate one of the most satisfying mind/body highs you can legally experience. With their intergalactic array of analog-synth onomatopoeia, HF's two knob-twiddlers call to mind Silver Apples upgraded to Platinum status. These globular, spacey sounds augment an increasingly tight rhythm section and a more sophisticated melodic sensibility.

This was a more rock-oriented set than I've previously heard from Holy Fuck, but it also contained a song that reminded me of the tough, post-modern dub output of the On-U Sound label and another new number that hinted at what intelligent rave music could be—like if early Chemical Brothers had been staunch Neu! disciples. The canny Canucks ended that track as if all the plugs were being ripped out at once. Perfect.

"Lovely Allen" closed the performance on a sublimely tuneful note, its sweet, see-saw chords proving that Holy Fuck are about much more than propulsion and brain-scrambling interstellar babble (although those would be enough, believe me).

The rest of tonight's agenda looks great, but it's gonna take a lot to surpass Holy Fuck's display this afternoon.

Austin, Texas - First day of SXSW is always stressful. So are the second, third and fourth days. No matter where you are at this huge musical clusterfuck, you're always haunted by the thought that something better is happening somewhere else. Unless you've mastered the ability to be in five places simultaneously, you have to settle for one performance at a time. Humans are so limited...

I arrived late Wed. evening and didn't get my badge till 9 p.m. My plan to was to make a beeline to the Thirsty Nickel to catch the Smalltown Supersound showcase. SS is a Norwegian label with a heavy electronic/kosmische slant. Sadly, I missed Arp and Sunburned Hand of the Man, but got to the bar just in time to see Bjorn Torske. A skinny blonde Norwegian dude, Torske hunched over a compact unit (probably a sampler) and generated rough, chunky, refreshingly sleazy Euro disco. It's doubtful anything else is sounding like this at SXSW, which is as rockcentric as ever. Torske used a large plastic carrot as a shaker and slapped a banjo for further percussion embellishment. One track used a looped banjo riff to create a mantric, Amon Düül I-esque psychedelia.

After Torske, I headed to Bourbon Rocks to witness San Diego's Earthless. Their swift, savage, technical and heavy instrumental rock exacerbated my headache sevenfold (but I didn't avenge it). Many bearded guys nodded gravely to the hirsute trio's hypnotizing and brutalizing music.

Back at Thirsty Nickel, I swooned to Lindstrøm's sweeping cosmic disco, which seemed ludicrously incongruous in this archetypal Texas bar (anything other than country & western would seem ludicrously incongruous here). Lindstrøm's set made Tangerine Dream seem like earthbound folkies. His music is beautiful and psychedelic in a cold, Nordic, windswept way; call it Oslo-motion dance muzik.

After that, I zipped to Habana Calle 6 for Parts & Labor, a Brooklyn rock quartet whose ebullient ruggedness and anthemic robustness managed to inject some energy into my exhausted self.

Not a bad first night, all in all, and I somehow eluded that infamous, bountiful SXSW vomit on the pavement that afflicts the fest every year. Hurray for small victories.

The annual sonic bacchanal known as South by Southwest goes down March 12-16. Every year, several thousand music-biz types, musicians and ordinary mortals with more money than sense descend upon downtown Austin, Texas, cramming five months of musical activity into five days. I'll be blogging about all the awesome and heinous stuff I see/hear while I'm there, but for now, here's a lil' sneak preview of the festivities.

OC/LBC bands making the trek to the Lone Star state's capital include Free the Robots, Willowz, Dusty Rhodes and the River Band, Channel 3, God's Good Soldiers and Rocco Deluca & the Burden. We wish them godspeed, a carton of Airborne each and a guide to all of Austin's vegetarian-friendly restaurants.

Some of the acts I'm stoked to see include Holy Fuck, Fuck Buttons, Wooden Shjips, Monotonix, Mahjongg, Ghislain Poirier, Howling Hex, Mark Stewart & the Maffia, Citay, Lindstrøm, the Homosexuals, Jason Forrest, Arp, Atlas Sound, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Flying Lotus, Darondo, El Michels Affair, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Cadence Weapon, Earthless and many more. I also look forward to stumbling upon unknown bands who will blow my mind and inspire me to impulsively buy their merch. And I wouldn't mind catching the SXSW interview with Ice Cube and DJ Pooh nor Lou Reed's keynote speech, and the panel discussion on the Vinyl Revival (wait, did it ever go away?) promises to be a glorious geekfest.

You can peep the whole enchilada here.

Finally, here's a clip of Israeli madmen Monotonix's, uh, incendiary performance at last year's SXSW. Jews + fire = a damned hot time.

LA's HEALTH bring their beneficial noise to SXSW.

If you're down in Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest conference/festival, please check out this outstanding bill and mingle with the VVM music editors (you will never encounter so much charisma in one room).

The Black Keys
Health
The Cribs
Soundtrack of Our Lives

Friday, March 14
12:00pm - 5:00pm

La Zona Rosa
612 W. 4th Street
Austin, TX 78701

Just returned from the dios set (see Chris Ziegler's 2004 cover story here) at the Chuggin' Monkey (located a few blocks from Mooseknuckle's and Uncle Flirty's Loft...seriously). Despite undergoing some lineup changes over the past few years, the band continues to amaze me with how ferociously they can perform live. [Full disclosure: I have at times played Guitar Hero and been entertained by the card magic of founding member Jimi Cabeza de Vaca.] The previous bands went a little long, forcing dios to play a shortish set, which ended just as things were really getting going. Passerbys stopped, listened and retrieved sticks as drummer Patrick Butterworth whipped them out the window after he'd abused the hell out of them. Watch the video here and ask yourself when was the last time you've been so entertained by a drummer. The band has a new album coming out soon and will hopefully continue to update their endlessly entertaining web pages.

I ran into bass player J.P. Caballero (pictured at left, preparing to pop his collar in flagrant violation of the house rules) on Friday and talked to him a bit about the direction of the group.

O.C. Weekly: So what do you have planned for the show tonight?

J.P.: Well, Joel's gonna do some backflips. I've been working on this tantric yoga routine. Really good stuff. And then, for the music...uh, yeah, we're just gonna sing and play guitar. Yeah, really different stuff.

O.C. Weekly: When's the album coming out?

J.P.: The record's probably going to come out in the next two to three months. We've just got to find a label to distribute it. It's more or less done. We're going to start touring for pretty much a year. We've got a car that runs on grease.

O.C. Weekly: Are you ready for that? A year long tour?

J.P.: I'm ready for it. We really want to go down to Mexico for a few months and tour Latin America.

O.C. Weekly: How have your new members influenced the sound of your band?

J.P.: There' s more coffee in the cream. There's more of an R&B power-violence feel.

See for yourself below:

Below: Patrick wards off the evil eye.

Below: Patrick dishes out the evil eye.

Also, someone reached through an open window and stole my beer during this show. Here at the end of SXSW, things have gotten desperate.

OC Weekly exclusive video of Girl Talk's performance at last night's Diesel jeans party here. If you put on your headphones, get your face right up next to the screen, and dowse yourself in other people's sweat, it'll be just like you were there.

Below: You know how we do at SXSW. No one parties like music journalists party (i.e. prowl through town searching for free booze, get drunk, complain about how the band they were in in college never made it despite being more talented then 90 percent of the other groups here, then go back to their hotel room, cry a little, and watch documentaries on local PBS until they pass out.)

I had a dream last night that I was on a date with SXSW performer Lily Allen and she was a very lovely, very cordial woman.

At various times throughout this festival, I have heard at least six separate people say, "I never want to listen to music again."

Managed to slip into the Diesel jeans party last night just in time for Girl Talk's set. King of the mashup, Girl Talk (real name Gregg Gillis) sets up his laptop, invites onstage as much of the crowd as can fit and hits the "enter" key. The rest of his performance consists of tweaking his samples, whipping his head around, and enduring the overly friendly fans who just wanna get his white T-shirt off. The audience, plied with free vodka drinks, seemed evenly divided between those who wished to grind up on each other and those who wished to hang back and intellectually appreciate Gillis' talent with the DJ mix. Gillis' work has caught on with the Pitchfork crowd due to his habit of mixing almost every genre of mainstream pop music within one song, though he has also been criticized for making it safe for indie rock kids to shake their asses—always a risky proposition. Those who have grown up listening to the radio though will find much to enjoy playing "name that sample" as Gillis rips through the last thirty years of music in three minute increments. But Gregg, uh...have you cleared those samples? If the Verve can't get away with it, why can you? Check out his page here and listen to "Night Ripper Tracks..." He samples Phantom Planet's "California" (the theme song to The OC, if you didn't already know) to great effect. C'mon, it may not have a whole lot of replay value once you know what's coming up, but it's undeniably remarkable to hear his dextrous sample skills. I caught up with Greg after his set and asked him a few questions.

OC Weekly: You ever going to come to Orange County and DJ?

Gillis: Oh yeah, uh, where? I mean, I love The "fucking" OC, you know. What's the major city there?

OC Weekly: Uh, Orange, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana area.

Gillis: Man, I would like to. It's hard for me to get to places. I have a day job. How far is OC from LA or San Francisco or San Diego?

OC Weekly: It's about 25 minutes from L.A.

Gillis: L.A. would be your best shot. I love playing L.A. shows. I'm not that familiar with the West Coast, so it's a weird place for me to go.

Well, once again, a day job gets in the way of having fun. Looks like Detroit Bar's going to have to wait.

Above: Girl Talk's Gregg Gillis tells everyone to settle down or he's going to turn around right now and drive us all straight home.

Below: While in Austin, Gregg Gillis enjoys Old Crow brand bourbon.

Back at Ms. Bea's again on Friday for another incredible daytime lineup. Old Time Relijun played what has been by far my favorite set of the festival. Lead singer Arrington de Dionysos warmed up the vocal chords with some Tuvan throat singing before launching into one of the most intensely funky, noisy, energetic performances I have seen so far. Drummer Germaine Baca somehow managed to hold the whole thing together with remarkably tight percussion as upright bass player Aaron Hartman thumped away on the strings, eyes closed. Arrington gave the front row a view of his tonsils as he howled out his filthy, filthy lyrics (something about "put my tongue deep inside her, just to taste her apple cider") and ended the set in his underwear, scraggly beard flecked with sweat and frothy saliva. Relative newcomer Benjamin Hartman (Aaron's brother) suffered slightly from the sound mix as his skronking sax and clarinet work was buried deep in the sludge, but when his reedwork peeked through the din, it was a welcome addition to the noise. The band keeps getting better and better. Check out "Vampire Victym" on their MySpace page (here) and try jerking your shoulders around a bit. Feel free to speak in tongues, if the spirit moves you.

Above: Arrington hears the word that his kitten sweater must be removed.

Below: Arrington complies and the rock Gods are appeased once again.

SXSW can have a curious numbing effect on the unprepared. The overstimulation is so pronounced, eventually one's body can't tolerate any more and it begins to withdraw. Even a sweet-tooth can only eat so much candy before the sickness sets in, and SXSW practically shoves it down your throat. It's more interesting sometimes to walk down 6th St. at 11:30 p.m. and watch the faces of the zombified attendees than it is to watch many of the bands that are actually playing.

The official shows don't start until around 8 at night, but the music continues through the day as bands that are in town for the entire festival figure they should spend their time doing SOMETHING as long as they are here. While the more popular night shows are a gamble (I tried to see Menomena last night but was turned away as the crowd was already at capacity, proving that even the mighty name of the OC Weekly can not bend the laws of physics) the day shows have a pleasant air of backyard barbeque to them (indeed many of them ARE backyard barbeques). My most enjoyable experience so far occurred yesterday at Ms. Bea's where I went to see Marnie Stern play a daytime set. The crowd size was reasonable, the weather was good, the beer was affordable, and there was a pool table around which the bar's patrons kept a respective distance so that one could actually play. Rule #1 of playing pool at Ms. Bea's, as posted on the wall--don't bang the sticks on the floor or table. Rule #2--no one under the age of 15 is allowed to play. This struck me as odd, because it was my understanding that Ms. Bea's was actually a bar, and not a place where you would have to worry about 12 year olds playing billiards. But hey, when in Texas, do as the Texans do, as I believe General Santa Anna once said.

I showed up at Ms. Bea's around 5:30 p.m. and caught the tail end of Portland based Danava's set, much to my delight. Though I hadn't heard of them before, I was won over by the monster riffage and hair swinging. There are few joys quite as exquisite as having absolutely no preconceptions about a band and being pleasantly surprised. If you will, take a trip over to their MySpace page here, pretend you have a few beers in you, you're 1300 miles from home and surrounded by people who look exactly like you and your friends which actually doesn't comfort you in the slightest, and you're wearing a ridiculous badge around your neck that practically screams "I think I'm entitled to free entertainment." Now, drink another beer and listen to "LONGDANCE" at top volume. Close your eyes and imagine a group of men in the prime of their youth hammering away at their instruments, whipping their heads around, and rasing the necks of their guitars skyward as they solo. Now, drink another beer before the song finishes. There, doesn't that feel better?

After Danava wrapped up, Tiny Masters of Today came on, a dirty ol' garage trio composed of two preteens and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Russel Simmins on skins. Their MySpace page (located here) states that 12 year old Ivan and 10 year old Ada have "...a refreshingly anti-authoritarian stance which spares nobody, from elementary school cliques to the President of the United States." Sticking it to lunchroom bullies and George W.? Quite an agenda. They played a very serviceable set that I found charming enough, though some of the more jaded heads around me were heard to question how it was that these kids managed to snag Simmins and a slot at SXSW if not for either rich connected parents or a fan base in love more with the novelty of children playing loud guitars than the actual music. Haters, go home! They didn't ask to be born with a rock 'n' roll soul!

Finally, the much anticiapted Marnie Stern came on. The New York based singer/guitarist has generated something of a stir with her debut album, In Advance of the Broken Arm, named for a Duchamp readymade. Like a cross between Eddie Van Halen and Deerhoof, Stern finger-taps the frets "Eruption" style in a display of guitar bombast that had long fallen out of favor amongst the frequently narrow-minded "indie" fan. I was eager to see how she would be able to replicate the multi-tracked guitar and vocals live as she is but one woman, and unfortunately I was a little underwhelmed. Turns out, Stern has to play along with the backing tracks from her album (piped through the PA from her Ipod Nano that she straps to her waist.) As the Beatles discovered around the time of Sgt. Pepper's, some things just can't be reproduced live. Her set was plagued with feedback and a seeming delay between her live solos and the recorded material that accompanied her, perhaps due to a low monitor level that made it difficult for her to hear what her Nano was doing. Her guitar technique remained a thing to behold however, as she frequently abandoned her pick in favor of hammering her fingers down high up the neck of the guitar and then sliding them all over the place. She seemed slightly abashed at the technical difficulties, but her final song of the set (and my favorite song from her album), "Patterns of a Diamond Ceiling" came off quite well. I managed to catch her attention as she walked to her car and conducted a Chris Farleyesqueinterview so poor and brief I will not waste your time with it here. Better instead to visit her Myspace page here and let her music speak for itself. With any luck, cloning technology will advance to the point where soon, she can tour with six other Marnies and her live performance will match the exuberance of her album.

Marnie Stern treks on in the backyard of Ms. Bea's.

Well, it's 8:35 Austin time and I've finally got my room, internet access, and festival badge. Haven't had a chance to see any actual music yet, but I've certainly seen plenty of jaded industry types, giddy young music writers, and desperate publicists. I'm headed out into the evening to actually find some material on which to write, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with a quote from page 209 of Lone Star Swing, Duncan McLean's book on his travels through Texas searching for the original performers of Western Swing. Though not specifically about SXSW, he speaks about Austin in this passage, and I feel that his point is all the more trenchant this week. Given the obscene amount of sensory overload that occurs during this festival, how much of what SXSW is ideally supposed to be about gets lost?

"...the thing that struck me was the strange but certain feeling that nobody was really listening to the music.

For one thing, they were all too drunk. Ninety percent of them had started chucking down the heavy and whiskey ten hours before, when the pubs opened and the sessions started, and kept at it all day...

Mainly, though, folk weren't listening to the music because they didn't want to, they didn't need to. What really mattered was the idea of being at Keith Traditional Music Festival.* They liked the idea of a weekend of carousing and music: they could look forward to it for months before, they could recollect it in sobriety for months after. While they were there, of course they would enjoy it...The actual music could've been dull, clumsy-fingered, tuneless (it was often all three) but that didn't matter: it was the idea of the music that was more important than the actuality. As long as there was a vaguely melodic racket going on in the background, then everybody could keep on knocking back the whiskey, swaying in time to nothing at all, yelling at each other what a great time they were having...they were going to drink, dance and be merry, and nothing was going to stop them. Not even over-priced drinks, tarted up tourist-trap bars, and third-rate, mind-numbing, body-and-soul-less imitation-blues.**"

Kinda beautiful though, in it's own way I guess. Thoughts?

*Read "SXSW"

**Read "imitation-indie-rock", "imitation-alt-country", "imitation hard-rock", etc.