SXSW 2010 :: Day 3

Cokemachineglow @ SXSW, Day 3 :: Friday, March 19

On Friday, two days into the already grueling SXSW Festival, consensus began to form on Twitter pages and hot dog-stand line conversations. Most bands playing the fest booked a few shows—if not almost a dozen—and at that point, most acts had played, somewhere, to somebody, and word was getting around. To wit: nervous, Swedish pop act jj played what seemed to be the most reviled show of the week on Thursday night, with singer Elin Kastlander apparently sitting in an office chair and singing to a backing track for most of the set. While the internet’s music discussions may be a 24/7 knife fight, a bad real-life review in the beer-fueled madness of Austin was a rarity last week, so I took that one to heart and avoided the hell out of jj.

Sally Seltmann

One charming singer who wasn’t terrified to be in Texas was Sally Seltmann, now playing under her own name after two albums as New Buffalo. With husband Darren (of the Avalanches) sitting in on drums, the Australian blonde sat behind her Roland RO-700 for a number of new tracks and New Buffalo cut “Emotional Champ” at the Onion A.V. Club, Flowerbooking and Canvas Media’s day party at the Mohawk, the first of two showcases for Arts & Crafts bands on Friday. Seltmann closed with the Motown-esque “Dream About Changing,” as she had at the Central Presbyterian Church the night before.

While that song’s refrain goes, “I’m a little bit shy,” Seltmann’s new, unabashedly pop material is more confident than ever—a trait she told me grew stronger after watching Feist’s “1234,” a song she co-wrote, climb up the charts. As for the name change, she told me after her set that she was just ready to be herself—and stop being asked if she was in a band. Finally, of course, I had to ask about the next Avalanches record. Answer: someday!

Pepper Rabbit

After Seltmann’s set, I headed east to Shangri-La, a dirt-floored, outdoor set-up buffeted by winds and the ferocious yowls of the terrible hardcore punk act blaring across the street. Nevertheless, Pepper Rabbit, a Los Angeles chamber-folk act I had the pleasure of seeing in LA a few weeks prior, managed to stop time with a set that evoked the swirling psychedelia of Mercury Rev and melodic attentiveness of Grizzly Bear. 21-year-old singer Xander Singh’s instrument is a special one, a tenor that relies on lungs of steel, not breathy frailty, for its tenderness.

The Golden Filter

At this point, it was too late to run across town to catch Miles Kurosky again at Home Slice Pizza (a restaurant which out-New Yorks New York on the thin crust tip, I would go on to learn during an ambitious Sunday lunch which also included Torchy’s Tacos). Instead, I headed over to the Gorilla Vs. Bear showcase at Klub Krucial, a shadowy hip-hop club with industrial staircases straight out of Terminator 2. New York dance act the Golden Filter took the stage under LED lights that made singer Penelope Trappes—wearing a Xanadu-era dress and singing material not dissimilar from the accompanying Olivia Newton-John soundtrack—look like a neon princess in my photos. As an electro observer at best, the band’s stuff was extremely approachable: at times, they sounded like a Lost alternate universe take on No Doubt’s “Hella Good” (really!), while at others drawing upon the ominous synths relied on by Thom Yorke in recent years.

Still Life Still


Pearl Harbour

Gorilla Vs. Bear’s Chris Cantalini is one of the internet’s best-known and most idiosyncratic tastemakers (and also, in the parlance of our times, a chill bro), and he put together a serious lineup for his all-day, all-night event. After the Golden Filter, I ran to the Parish (the only small venue in town I saw with moving stage lights; I suddenly ached for the Troubadour or Bowery Ballroom) to catch the post-Broken Social Scene emo of Still Life Still at the Arts & Crafts showcase, but headed back to Klub Krucial for LA act Pearl Harbour—after Dum Dum Girls, the second band of the LA lo-fi retro girl group triumvirate rounded out by Best Coast. On record, Pearl Harbour is the most intriguing of the three, with a shimmering sound more influenced by the Smiths or Cocteau Twins than the ’60s-biting of their sister acts; live, they remained that way, though their woozy sound came off a bit aimless at times.

Phil and the Osophers

With lines out the door at the larger venues, I walked into the nearly empty Galaxy Room for Phil and the Osophers, an uninspired four-piece who want badly to be Joe Jackson but failed to stand out in a week full of sweet-sounding, sharp-dressed indie-pop acts. Credit to ‘em for playing with passion to the smallest audience I saw at SXSW, though.

Tamaryn

Wandering the streets while killing time before Broken Social Scene’s midnight slot back at the Parish, I headed back to the familiar embrace of Klub Krucial for Tamaryn’s melodramatic dream-pop and headed right back out again once I realized they weren’t Beach House.

Jason Collett

Back at the Parish, I waited interminably through a set by Jason Collett—Arts & Crafts’ requisite country troubadour, a musician whose three-chord songwriting and too-affected voice has always paled for me next to, say, his colleagues Hayden or Jim Guthrie. But he’s an energetic frontman, and fellow A&C act Years backed him up with a modicum of textural interest.

Broken Social Scene

Just after midnight, Broken Social Scene took the stage at the at-capacity venue with an introduction from Austin-based rock poet Thax Douglas, who read “Broken Social Scene #4.” The Toronto super-group blasted through “Superconnected” and “7/4 (Shoreline)” before Kevin Drew—stylishly mussed up and dribbling through lazy stage banter that included asking the crowd a good three times if we were doing alright—pleaded with the crowd to turn off our cameras and video phones and appreciate the moment. In a remarkable turn of events at the most Youtubed SXSW of all time, the crowd complied, and the group rewarded us with new songs from the upcoming Forgiveness Rock Record that included single “World Sick” and the borderline-ridiculous “Texico Bitches.” (Guys, can somebody have a talk with Kevin about this stuff? Did his mom not give him enough hugs?) Drew’s vocal delivery on the new material was surprisingly staccato, even ranted at times, as if he’d been mixing Axl Rose and David Lee Roth in with his government-subsidized, gluten-free Wheaties lately. While the fresh material shone, the band’s classics remain so: “Cause = Time”‘s guitar solo still has the power to tear holes in the fourth dimension. By 1:30 a.m., though, the fourth dimension was battering my legs like Tonya Harding, and I caught a shuttle back to the hotel for a few hours’ rest before the festival’s final day.