Sweet Apple

Story and photos by Jim Testa

AUSTIN, TX - Forget about plummeting CD sales, lost market share, illegal downloading, and all the other ills that plague the music industry; at SXSW, live music is their business, and business is good.

Billboard reported that this year's South By Southwest Music Festival had 13,200 registrants, and that's not counting the thousands of people who flock to Austin without official badges or wristbands and just enjoy the endless free parties. SXSW also says that 2000 bands played this year's festival, but that's just the performers that SXSW know about. I spent Wednesday at a DIY backyard festival that was way below the official radar (so much so that the cops came and closed it down,) and I spent Saturday afternoon in student housing on the UT campus watching another half a dozen punk bands that SXSW knew nothing about. Events like that happen all over Austin during the festival, so at a minimum, those 2000 acts you read about probably numbered more like three or four thousand.

The shrinking U.S. dollar has helped SXSW immeasurably, of course. For every A&R dude and corporate VP that the U.S. major labels don't send anymore, three or four new registrants turn up from Europe, Asia, or Australia. It seemed like if you touched the two people on either side of you anywhere in Austin, one of them would have some kind of foreign accent.

Avi Buffalo

It's disappointing, to say the least, that SXSW hosts an Interactive Festival right before the music festival, where dot coms and start-ups introduce the newest technology (Twitter debuted at SXSW Interactive a few years ago), but SXSW Music seems rooted firmly in the past. The panel discussions focused on ways to wring every dime out of music using new media like ringtones, video games, and licensing; one panel even discussed how we would be listening to music in the future. But when it came to music itself, the convention offered a keynote speech from Smokey Robinson, and live interviews with Cheap Trick and Motorhead's Lemmy. And while it was no doubt heartening to hear how these old-timers have managed to sustain careers long after their heydays (I wouldn't know, I bagged all of them,) it would have been nice to hear from some musicians whose hits might still be in front of them.

Turbo Fruits

If anyone actually wanted to spend time in the Convention Center, there was certainly plenty to do, from the panels and the usual SXSW trade show to a guitar show to a record fair to the Flatstock poster exhibition. But why would anyone want to spend the day inside a huge concrete bunker when there was fresh air and live music to be enjoyed all day long? I started each day with breakfast followed by my first band of the day around noon, and kept going until 1 am every night. Okay, I took a few breaks for meals and naps. But I probably saw more live music this year than in any of the 19 SXSW's I've enjoyed before.

The free parties have been a staple of SXSW for years now but a relatively new phenomenon is the multiple-show schedules for bands. It used to be that you came to Austin and played your one SXSW showcase, and spent the rest of the time networking and shmoozing and drinking beer and eating barbecue. But it seems as if everybody plays at least four or five times during the four days of the music festival now, with same bands wracking up double-digits (Florida's Surfer Blood had a dozen announced shows, topped by Nashville's Turbo Fruits, who played 17 times, from a mid-day performance in a parking lot to a 4 am gig at an afterhours club.)

Wednesday

Glass Trees

I started my SXSW at a backyard on Rainey Street, a neighborhood that's a bit south and east of Austin's main drag. In previous years, no one ever went near this part of town; this year, there was not only a new club on the corner, but several private homes putting on shows in their backyards (and a taco truck offering delicious homemade Mexican food permanently parked on a driveway.) Glass Trees from Jersey City had a gig here, but I arrived early enough to see a local rapper named JLD and Poriphera, a young metal trio. I was pumping myself a beer out of the keg when I looked up and saw four of Austin's finest staring at me and asking if I was in charge. Uh, no, not me, officers, talk to the guys at the sound booth over there. Yes, these people had erected an outdoor stage, installed a state of the art sound system, had a keg, porta-potty, even a sponsor's tent - and neglected to get a permit. So the cops shut them down and we waited until the residents could move all of their furniture out of the living room, which is where Glass Trees eventually played. A discordant, experimental band with with pulsing, dancey beats, the group features longtime Jersey City scenesters Shawn Towey and Andy Nelson. It's equal parts shifting soundscapes and rock 'n' roll, Sonic Youth meets Arto Lindsay at John Lydon's house party or something

I learned later that the people at the house struck a deal with someone who owned a garage behind the house and the rest of the weekend went off without a hitch (and with free barbecue,) and Glass Trees got to play several more times. I wish I could have gotten there but my schedule kept me running around other parts of Austin. I will however be checking out Glass Trees back home sometime soon.

Only Living Boy


Future Future

Other Wednesday bands included Only Living Boy from Hackettstown, a hard rock combo who had the crowd grooving on the patio of a west side restaurant, TV pop star Drake Bell, looking natty in a suit vest and tie (but pretty forgettable musically) at St. David's Church, and Jersey duo Future Future (turning in the most uninspired set I saw at SXSW, shambling and disaffected and whining about monitors) at a bar on Sixth Street.

Thursday

Any Day Parade

Roadside Graves

Status Green

Cymbals Eat Guitars

A short walk back to downtown brought me to a "club" called the Beauty Bar Palm Door, which turned out to be a big warehouse perched in an industrial area east of the Convention Center parking deck. If I didn't have a map, I never would have guessed it was there, which may be why Titus Andronicus played to such a small crowd. In the last slot on the final night of SXSW 2009, the Jersey band played to a huge outdoor crowd that numbered at least 600, but at this showcase - hot on the release of their second album and with great press in the New York and L.A. Times - they barely drew 150 people. Blame it on the venue or the fact that this year, Titus played at least five or six times. Playing mostly older (and shorter) songs than the 8 to 14-minute opuses on The Monitor, Titus Andronicus rocked the crowd for a good hour (well over the usual alloted SXSW time slot) before the soundman pulled the plug on them, with about 45 seconds left of the band's anthemic "Titus Andronicus Forever."

Titus Andronicus

A quick jaunt to Red 7 a few blocks away and I was able to just catch Epitaph's newest signing Off With Their Heads (Hi, Zac!), who blasted out a raucous set of their pop-punk to an appreciative, badgeless crowd of local kids who moshed, finger-pointed, and sang along throughout the band's high-energy set.

Off With Their Heads


Sweet Apple

But wait, Thursday wasn't over yet. I hustled over a block to Habana Calle on Sixth Street, where a stoner rock showcase was (predictably) running late, and so I got to hang out and chat for a few minutes with my old buddy John Petkovic of Cleveland's Death Of Samantha and Cobra Verde, who was debuting his new superground, Sweet Apple. With the bouncing, boyish, garage-y presence of Petkovic on vocals, Sweet Apple features the incomparably J Mascis on lead guitar, and a room full of metal heads watched in sweet ecstasy as Mascis ripped out effortless leads to Sweet Apple's big, meaty Cheap-Trick-Meets-Big-Star rock tunes.

Friday

The Safes


Shannon & The Clams

My buddy (and former Jersey Beat contributor) Lew Houston is a mainstay of Austin's underground punk scene, and I always try to leave the SXSW beaten track and check out something Lew's doing every year. This time around, Lew found a student collective (basically a cross between a dorm, a frat, and a punkhouse) that was hosting bands while most of the residents were away on Spring break. I saw great sets by Shannon & The Clams (groovy Sixties-flavored bubblegum punk) and the catchy Chicago pop-punk trio The Safes, whom I had seen not that long ago at Asbury Lanes. It wasn't a huge turnout (at least by New Brunswick basement show standards) but everybody who turned up had a fun time and was very friendly. People talk about networking all the time at SXSW but there's nothing like a house show for actually making new friends (hi, Jean-Eric!)

I really wanted to see Superchunk at the Village Voice Party at La Zona Rosa but the line looked endless when I walked by, so I wound up having dinner with some friends and then catching the British trio Standard Fare. With a new album on Hoboken's Bar None, the young trio sounds like a calmer Los Campesinos! (or maybe Los C's without the exclamation point;) catchy, upbeat, with hints of the Jam and Buzzcocks.

After wandering around Sixth Street and sticking my head into a few clubs (sometimes you win and sometimes you don't, but the opportunity to just drop by and check out dozens of bands on a single mile-long stretch of road is always exhilarating,) I heard a familar song blasting out of the fenced-in, outdoor stage that they call Emo's Annex (with Emo's, one of Austin's best clubs, just across the street.) It turned out to be another set by Cymbals Eat Guitars, who had a big collection of youthful locals (it's pretty easy to tell the locals from conventioneers; more enthusiasm, no badges) singing along. And my final stop of the night was to catch Asbury-turned-Brooklyn chanteuse April Smith, who beguiled a packed Ale House (the line stretched a block long outside, and I barely got in myself) with her old-timey torch songs and Broadway-belting vocals.

April Smith & The Great Picture Show


Cymbals Eat Guitars

Saturday

The weather took an unexpected turn overnight; it had been in the mid-70's, but the temperature plunged thirty degrees and everyone was bundled up and shivering on a windy 40-degree morning. The emo kids all won this one; at least they had hoodies.

My press credentials (and a bit of begging) got me a VIP pass, which simply meant that I waited on line with hundreds of other people to get inside Rachael Ray's annual SXSW party in the huge backyard of Stubb's BBQ. Two stages, several bars, and a handful of food kiosks filled the backyard, along with several thousand hungry people. The lines for the free food were endless and not moving; I watched J. Roddy Walston & The Business rock out on one of the outdoor stages (I was amazed they could feel their fingers, let alone play so well) and then decided it wasn't worth wasting three hours to taste one of Rachael's pork sliders. Fortunately there are plenty of cool places to eat on Sixth Street.

J Roddy Walston & The Business


Lunch!


Dillinger Escape Plan

Everything's getting to be a bit of blur by now. I now that at some point I heard California buzz kid Avi Buffalo (catchy songs, great guitar, but the vocals have to grow on me,) and somewhere along the line, I forgot to mention the insane set by Jersey's Dillinger Escape Plan at Emo's, with players who threw themselves around the stage like rag dolls and a moshpit that seemed ready to detonate at any second. (I guess that was Friday night... I remember getting a text right before DEP's set telling me that Alex Chilton had died.)

I spent a while on Saturday at a Sixth Street club called The Galaxy Room, which had an indoor and outdoor stage. It was friggin' cold (and windy) outside but I vaguely remember a short solo piano set by Andrew WK, in which he played none of his hits but just played around with some classical riffs and then improvised nonsense songs. Surfer Blood and Local Natives (a wimpier Vampire Weekend?) and a few other bands (Voivod? WTF??) played too; don't remember much, sorry. And why? Because my mind was totally blown by the headliner of this show, none other than Austin's favorite son, Roky Erickson. Last year, Jim DeRogatis and I waited for hours at the Austin Music Awards to see Roky play one song (backed by the Austin psychedelic band Black Angels) and it was a disaster; Roky looked like one of the zombies he sings about. This year, Roky was focused and alert and sounded like his old self; performing with the alt-Americana band Okkervil River, Roky mixed in songs from his upcoming Anti- album True Love Cast Out All Evil with my favorite "hits" - "I Walked With A Zombie," "Bermuda," "Two Headed Dog," and of course a totally raging "You're Gonna Miss Me." Normally I would have fought my way up front to get a few photos but I was standing in the back next to Jaan Uhelszki (yeah, that Jaan Uhelszki, the one from Creem Magazine, he said name-dropping proudly) with Maxwell's Todd Abramson and Rolling Stone's David Fricke right next to us, all of us head-bobbing like middle-aged parents at a family wedding.

That was pretty hard to top, but Nashville's Turbo Fruits came pretty close. I mentioned that these post-teen garage-rockers were ubiquitous at SXSW 2010, playing a ridiculous 17 times. I saw them three times myself, but the finale proved a golden moment, as frontman Jonas Stein decided to jump on top of a six foot riser at the outdoor stage of the Mohawk Club. That wasn't enough for Jonas, though; he jumped out risking life and limb and grabbed one of the pipes holding up the lighting right, then pulled his knees up so he was dangling upside down, a good six feet above the concrete stage. "Oh my," I thought, "I'm going to see someone die tonight." But no, Jonas held on - nay, he even managed to hoist up his guitar and bang out a few chords upside down - before eventually righting himself and dropping safely to the stage.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is rock and roll. And the insanity that is SXSW.