SXSW 2010 :: Day 2

Cokemachineglow @ SXSW, Day 2 :: Thursday, March 18

I wish I could’ve done this in college. Sleep deprivation, miles of walking, unrequited hipster wife hunting? Breezier than Chris Brown. After one day of SXSW, this creaky-limbed first timer was ready to sleep away the afternoon and throw my hour-by-hour schedule out the window. But then I would’ve passed up the chance to catch Miles Kurosky’s triumphant return to touring (and yacht-ready white jeans) at Paste’s showcase at the Galaxy Room backyard. The former Beulah frontman played a short, sweet set that included a pair of his old band’s songs—“Popular Mechanics for Lovers” and “Emma Blowgun’s Last Stand,” both of which found Kurosky joined by audience members pulled to the stage to sing along. For a guy who just returned to performance last week in Los Angeles after six years away from the scene, his banter and general rock chops showed no signs of rust. Nor did his approachability—I’d arranged a quick interview for after the show, but we ended up broing down for almost an hour.

Miles Kurosky

SXSW is a festival filled with such unpredictable moments. If I learned anything after Wednesday’s shows, it’s never count on anything in Austin—after plodding, sun-seared, to the Mexican American Cultural Center for an open-air Cymbals Eat Guitars show at 2 p.m., a combination of American Apparel flea market shoppers and a hitherto unknown RSVP list conspired to keep me out. I’d joke about them being elitist jerks deserving fans in purple pants and oversize transparent glasses, but the act is one of indie rock’s most compelling newcomers, a title that—even from a distance—they sounded worthy of on Thursday with a set of ferocious, Pavement-fueled guitar jams.

Blair

The finest event of the day was Autumn Tone Records’ showcase at Lambert’s, a bar and restaurant on the west side of town away from the Red River St. action and across from electro/dance club Malverde. I arrived at 3:30 p.m. for Blair, a curly haired singer whose work has turned increasingly from gritty anti-folk to dreamier, electric pursuits. Her set was a fine beginning for a well-curated session of Los Angeles acts that included the hungry power-pop of the Henry Clay People, the unclassifiable bombast of Warpaint and the frenzied punk spectacle of the Happy Hollows, whose Sarah Negahdari is the West Coast’s best answer to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O. While the Happy Hollows give the afternoon’s most athletic performance, Warpaint—whose music I’d previously tossed off as Cat Power Jr. based on some early singles—offered the most viscerally impressive one, striking dead center on the line between pop and noise.

The Happy Hollows

At this point, I needed a nap. On the shuttle back to the hotel, our driver launched the rumor—one in a million this week about “surprise” performances from the alien world of mainstream pop music—that Lady Gaga would headline a Saturday gig; moments later, I saw someone wearing an “I Am Carles” shirt. Perhaps Hipster Runoff’s Carles himself? Or one of his Eminem-style clones? With these mysteries ruminating in my headspace just below this week’s episode of Lost, I drew the curtains and shut my eyes.

At 9:30 p.m., still early in SXSW time, I awoke furious: I’d missed Kurosky’s second set of the day and was already late to Sally Seltmann’s Central Presbyterian Church gig. Seltmann, previously known as New Buffalo and still hopefully known as a CMG darling, played to a more populous crowd than Wednesday night’s piano men from her seat at the keyboard. Moments later, She & Him took the stage at the Cedar Street Courtyard, where the fussy duo banned photography but played to a packed house in the too-small venue nevertheless. As Zooey Deschanel’s lilting voice wafted over the fence, a friend and I ran into her “Gigantic” co-star Paul Dano, who explained that he fronts a band, Mook, playing the fest. Surprised he didn’t go with Pauly D and the Milkshake Drinkers, but what can you do?

Local Natives

With the SXSW nightlife (and its thousands upon thousands of concert-goers/UT sorority girls) in full effect, I spent the next hour dividing my efforts. At Emo’s was L.A. act Local Natives, the rare band these days to launch into blogosphere insta-success with some actual live performances under their belt; their sweaty club set showed off the lessons learned during dozens of east L.A. gigs over the last year. Unfortunately, the band’s songwriting talent hasn’t quite caught up with their on-stage charisma. They play an exploratory brand of folk-rock somewhere between Fleet Foxes, the Acorn and Dodos—I’d rank them in the middle of those acts. Not a bad place to be by any means, but, guys, can we do a moratorium on click-clacking on drum set rims? Your cymbals miss you!

Centro-matic

Centro-matic needs no introduction, and the veteran Texas act’s impassioned heartland rock was as familiar and welcome as ever at Emo’s Annex. The audience, expectedly, was on the boozier side at this point, so I headed for less inebriated waters.

Dum Dum Girls

Playing to a decent, but not dense, crowd at Sub Pop’s showcase at the Galaxy Room’s backyard, the Dum Dum Girls showcased both Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery outfits and reverb-drenched ’60s-style songs to match. The Sub Pop act was masterful at their chosen mission: to pay homage to the Wall of Sound-era girl-groups in both sound and image. That the quartet is uniformly long-haired and pretty doesn’t hurt, either, but I suppose that goes with the territory—“indie” as they may be, the Dum Dums are as packaged as any of their predecessors—and as good as they are, ex-Pipette Rose Elinor Dougall put on an even better show in the same venue less than 24 hours prior.

Midlake

Miraculously, I wound up front-row at Bella Union’s stage at Buffalo Billiards for Midlake—the band I’d been most excited to see this week and, with a single, 1 a.m. performance, one of the most difficult to catch. After a lengthy soundcheck, the seven-piece band (four guitars! two flutes!) tore through a mind-melting psych-rock set taken mainly from new album The Courage of Others and 2006’s modern classic Trials of Van Occupanther. The new stuff, almost uncomfortably dour on record, came across better live as the clockwork throb of the rhythm section pushed the guitar arpeggios like the Re-Up Gang hitting a street corner. The band’s been (lazily) compared to U.K. ’60s psych-folk acts such as Pentagle and the Fairport Convention lately, but by the time they closed with “Head Home,” their varying levels of facial hair dewy with sweat, it seemed clear they’d still really like to be Fleetwood Mac. With the group’s ornate sound, one wonders why they didn’t land a spot at Central Presbyterian this week—but, for better or worse, that’s the way of SXSW. You can’t win ‘em all here, but Thursday was a day of valuable victories.