MUSIC COLUMN: SXSW 2009 - DAY 2

Parking, Walking, Drinking For Free...Oh, and Some Great Music Too

By: Ramus Dahl

March 26, 2009

The second day of SXSW commenced around 11:38 a.m. Thursday, when my phone suddenly began to explode from all of the tips of free day-shows that were getting started across the metroplex.  I had been holed up already for three hours or so, sifting through my notes from the night before, drowning four hours of sleep in caffeine, and I lost track of all space and time.

Deadlines be damned, I thought.  This whole thing is about music being alive, and there was nothing alive about the despondent, scattered paper scraps, empty coffee mugs, and bottle caps crowded around my desk. So I threw on a T-shirt and yesterday’s jeans, and headed out the door.  I picked up a friend on the way (as my photographer was employed with other matters for the afternoon), and we sped across town to find a place to park.

Parking has been headlining SXSW for nearly a decade now.  It draws the most crowds and makes the most money. The show starts at noon and could end at 4:00 a.m., for all you know.  It even features some incredible wreckage if you’re in the wrong spot at the wrong time (or the right place, depending on your perspective). We were forced by the cavalry of band vans, rolling amplifiers, stage equipment, foreign license plates, unloading beer trucks, and indignant local outsiders to go to the other side of I-35 to find a place to park.

The east side of I-35 has become a gentrified wasteland, where men look like bearded women and the women all look beautiful because half their faces are covered by their huge sunglasses.  The dilapidated houses, sketchy taco joints, and smoky dive bars with Spanish names I used to know and love are gradually being remodeled, repainted, and dolled up for the wallets who expect nothing less, while the natives are pushed east and southward looking for cheaper rent.

Too much, Ramus…stay on task.

We bypassed the massive line waiting outside the Fader party on 5th, and ducked under the bridge where more massive lines snaked their way across downtown. The early bird catches the worm, they say, and SXSW is no exception.  If you wanna tie one on for free in this city, you gotta pull that head off the pillow sooner than later or you’re gonna miss the train. The two of us managed to slide into the Parish without too much hassle, where BLK JKS were just wrapping up their set for the NPR day show.  The band outta Johannesburg had been gaining substantial word-of-mouth around town prior to the festival and, needless to say, I was sad to have missed them.

C’est la vie in Austin, Texas in the middle of March.  If it’s not one band, it’s gonna be another. SXSW is a spontaneous system of sacrifices and disappointments –- a simple machine of sacrificing potentially amazing shows and taking chances on shows that end up disappointments at best.But that’s the way the cards fall, I suppose…

Up next on the NPR lineup was K’ Naan, a rapper from Somalia, whose set carried forth the energy already stirred by the BLK JKS by swirling hip hop beats with electric guitars and the lawless musical progressions that lie beyond the short reach of the western world.

I can’t say that K’Naan’s sound is something that routinely finds play in my daily rotation, but the depth of conviction and sincerity of his performance balanced out by his light-hearted, good-time interaction with the folks there at the Parish demanded a further look into his work, on my part. He closed his set by leading into “Wavin’ Flag” off his latest full-length Troubadour on A&M Records with a childlike a cappella free-style about growing up under the violence and suffering of East Africa, invoking the entire venue to sing-along:

“When I get older,
I will be stronger,
They’ll call me ‘Freedom’
Just like a waving flag…”

And for a moment, for a few minutes in the chaos and cacophony of the weekend, a glimpse (however faint) could be caught (if you had eyes to see and ears to hear) of that elusive, transcendent bond that binds humanity together, despite all its conflicting parts — a unified voice in song.  This is a beautiful thing, and I consider it an ode to the power of K’Naan’s musical testimony to be writing such words about his performance.

The Dirty Projectors were the next band on the bill.  We stayed for two songs, and neither of us had the tolerance for the high-treble scratch of the guitars nor the jarring tone of the vocals, so we stepped downstairs for another cold one and a little sunshine.

I guess there’s a need to mention something about the relationship between beer and SXSW.  One thing I’ve learned in my years is that beer and the drinking of it is the one grandstanding monument of a socialist ethic in this capitalist madhouse of a society we live in. Due to a series of unfortunate run-ins with my insurance company and an automotive mechanic, I had a sum total of $40 in cash to preserve my aging carcass from Wednesday to Sunday — a very precarious predicament for a thirsty fella, let alone a hungry one.

Yet, a man with money in his pocket for two beers will buy one for himself and one for whoever sits beside him at the bar. “Spread the wealth a little,” whether you have the means to or not.  It’s etiquette, I guess…a gesture, a nod, a fundamental human confession from one soul to another that we’re all in this together, and while we’re here, let’s have a drink.  It’s a communion, a Cheers! to the good and the bad and everything in between that we stumble across on this crooked road we’re traveling.

SXSW brings a whole other dynamic into this basic human relation by injecting the socialism of beer with an incredible dose of loud music, which amps up the “what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is min,e” arm-in-arm, frothy gallantry to a new echelon. So I’ll leave this discussion at that, knowing good and well that perhaps 95% of the out-of-towners leave this city every year more consumed by the amount of hops and barley than the near 2,000 bands in the city limits.

We stomped back upstairs to catch the Blitzen Trapper show.  The up-and-coming band from Portland, Oregon brought a more laid-back twang to an afternoon that had, up to that point, been running a fairly consistent shift of more progressive, edgier outfits.  Still, Blitzen Trapper handed over a due helping of the road-worn, Haight-Ashbury-inspired rock and roll, topped off and completed with the soar of Drew Laughery’s organ. Their songs get caught in your subconscious and, although we still had a solid ten or so hours left of music to go see, we had good reason to doubt that we’d be able to shake songs such as “Sleepytime in the Western World,” “God and Suicide,” and “Black River Killer” from playing continuously in our heads the rest of the evening.

TEN OR SO HOURS?!  Yes, it was just after 4:45 p.m., and the reality hit that, if I was gonna make it for the long haul, I’d have to put something in my stomach to soak up the excess of sound that was and would continue to flood my ears. I also had to find my photographer before the undertow pulled us back into the seven o’ clock tidal wave, when band after band after band after band start to hit the stage at every street corner and in between from South Congress to near 51st Street (and beyond, for all we know).  The crest peaks sometime between midnight and 2:00 a.m. and smashes you into the morning, when you get up and do this all over again.

A sandwich, cold beer, and a few minutes of the Texas Longhorn’s first round game versus Minnesota in the NCAA Tournament helped to ease the conflict of my interests.  My only saving grace in this musical marathon was that, as much as Austin, Texas loves music, it also loves its sports.  The madness of SXSW runs right alongside the madness of March, as most of the bars and venues in town tune into the basketball glories from glowing boxes adjacent the stages.  If the show you’re at (at any particular moment) happens to suck, you can at least take the time to check the scores.

I finally commandeered my photographer and we set out once again…this time with no particular direction or place to go.  We ambled into a few bars with acts in progress nay worthy of even mentioning.  I kept a close eye on the Texas game at every place we ducked into. It wasn’t until around 8:30 p.m. or so that we walked into the Smokin’ Music venue (normally the Coppertank), endorsed by American Spirits.  On stage stood three very unassuming, young-looking fellows who resembled Mitch, Herschfelder, and Carl from Dazed and Confused more than any of the Teen People poster boys that seem to dominate your twenty-something rock bands nowadays.

But the sound these guys were making…MY GOD!!!

No pretense, no flash, no fashion.  Just a guitar, a bass, and a drum kit — that’s all Parker Briggs, Zach Anderson, and Cory Berry of Iowa’s Radio Moscow require to reach into your cerebrum and expand it into another atmosphere with the magnetic push and pull of their ‘70s-infused, epic psychedelia.  For all I know, this kid found a tube somewhere that pumped the blood straight from Jimmy Page’s arm, injected it into his, picked up a guitar, and the rest is history.

Radio Moscow will go down as my biggest surprise of SXSW 2009.  I wasn’t prepared to stumble into something like this at all, and I had no recollection of their name from my research.  Frontman and guitarist Parker Briggs summons every demon that has haunted the very best in the Rock and Roll canon and then sends the winged beasts out over the crowd on a burning chariot of distorted effects and flame-licked riffs ignited by solos of jet fuel and kerosene.

“Can you believe these guys?!” a guy standing beside me yells over the pounding PA system.

“NO!!!  Who is this?!” I turn in reply — only to discover Valient Himself and two other Thorrs of Valient Thorr banging their heads to the jam session emitting from the stage.

“RADIO MOSCOW, man!!!” he yelled back. “These guys kick ass!!!”

Couldn’t’ve put it better myself, I thought.  And thus began a near two-and-a-half hours of a psychedelic explosion from the Smokin’ Music stage on Thursday night.

The Entrance Band took the stage, picking up right where Radio Moscow left off and added a few more minor chords to lead us down into the dark recesses of Guy Blakeslee’s tortured soul.  (I’m assuming the guy is “tortured,” as I myself dabbled a bit in eyeliner once upon a time for reasons I’ll not disclose.  And, judging by the slightly awkward interchange with the sound guy, Mr. Blakeslee has a few heckling demons of his own to deal with.)

It showed.  The Entrance Band are a tight outfit, much tighter than the free form of their music would lead you to believe.  Yet, it was the enchanting performance of Paz Lenchantin on the bass that lifted their live show as high as their sound.  Looking around, the crowd was held captive, bewitched, as they watched this petite, raven-haired woman in a white dress move without touching the ground, floating, completely possessed by the siren rhythms of her instrument. The Entrance Band ended the set with the harrowing séance of “Grim Reaper Blues,” the opening track off their 2006 Prayer of Death on Tee Pee Records.  The wall of feedback and reverb they left on stage and in everyone’s ears slowly gave way to a group of older, greyer gentlemen who started straight into a blues groove that rolled out to the lunatic fringe and back for nearly a half-hour before stopping.

They are hailed as “the best-kept secret in New York’s rock scene,” according to Papermag.com, and they are called what they are — Endless Boogie.  They played two songs over a span of 50 minutes time (give or take), and the end result was what you might come up with if you concocted a hoagie from the meat of Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Billy Gibbons, and maybe John Lee Hooker for some kick.  There was no structure — just boogie blues rock, over which lead guitarist Jesper Eklow (who resembles an old Ramone reject who Johnny booted on account of his musical chops) bellows stream-of-conscious tales of pain, love, lyin’, cheatin’, killin’, and anything else of that nature that I was able to cipher.

After 30 minutes of playing, the band stopped and Eklow looked up at the sound guy:

“We outta time?”

“No.”

“How much time we got?”

“About 20 minutes.”

“Time enough to smoke some figs?” (Pause) “Nah, we already smoked figs earlier.  Let’s play another.”

And then another 20 minutes of rock and roll and acid blues.

My photographer and I left Smokin’ Music in a purple haze, seeking a change of pace.  Balmorhea, a local Austin “post rock” instrumental band, was playing five blocks down the street, but on our way past 6th, we were pulled into a crowd that was moving into Esther’s Follies as if being sucked into the hull of a UFO.

Inside stood three women with British accents from Venus dressed in skin-tight silver spacesuits and donning sparkling blue bouffants.  Armed with rayguns, guitars, and keyboards, The She Creatures, Nancy Raygun, Princess Slayer, and Haley Comet (along with an interim drummer to replace the missing Elektra Statik) abducted the entire venue with an other-worldly combination of B-movie purism, ‘60s surf rock rhythms, and songs of extra-terrestrial carnality.My photographer turned around: “I LOVE THIS!!”

Of course you do, Dave.  One of the most intriguing and curious oddities of us earthlings is the relationship between our sexuality and outer space.  No one knows why or how or when humanity developed these obsessions with alien beings or alien abductions, but the phenomenon as a whole seems to spring directly with the basic chemical processes of our sexual fantasies.  I’m sure what I’m saying now is all complete nonsense, but it certainly helps to explain the shit-eating grins on every man’s face in Esther’s Follies on Thursday night. Obviously, The She Creatures have a real good understanding of all this, and by mixing it all up in a set of good poppy rock and roll, they implanted an alien fetish in the brain of everyone in that joint before the show was over, and then sent them back to Earth begging for more.

This is SXSW, and I have to keep moving…

To The Dirty Dog we went for the last showcase of the night.  We’d made it thus far and reached our highly anticipated, final destination: The Bar Kays.

The Memphis soul that breathed through the voice and person of Otis Redding is the same soul that breathes through the remaining members of his backing band, The Bar Kays — only two of which were not on the plane on the fateful December in 1967 that took Otis Redding and four of the original Bar Kays members to the Great Beyond. But the music lives on, and James Alexander and company worked overtime at The Dirty Dog Friday night to remind us that the music does live on in all of us.

The band took the stage in white suits, white fedoras and rhinestones, and delivered a full-tilt explosion of funk.  Although a slight complication with the microphone threatened to dampen the pace of the show, with frontman Larry Dodson noticeably frustrated, the band showed absolutely no signs of letting up and throwing the towel.  Amidst the mishap, Dodson would still urge the crowd:

“You ready to go home? I wanna hear a ‘hell, nah! You ready to party!?! Let me hear ya say, ‘HELL YEAH!!’”

The packed house at The Dirty Dog had no choice.  The eight-piece incarnation of the Stax Records house band ran a furious set that pushed every body in the building to make room to dance.  The energy of The Bar Kays was unmatched by anything I had seen up to that point, and the persistent bow to the great Otis Redding through heart-wringing hits, such as “Try a Little Tenderness,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” and the Redding rendition of The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” crooned to perfection by the unflappable Larry Dodson, took us all to another place, another space and time.

The band had the pedal to the floor from the moment they took the stage to the very last man to leave it.   At one point, Dodson reached down and handpicked three lovely ladies to join the band on stage, and the show took on a house party vibe that prompted my photographer (who’d been dancing himself the whole time) to turn and ask me, “Is this really happening right now?”

Good question.  Was I really jammed into this small venue seeing this show at this time?  These legends of our time, right there, within reach?  Was this real?  I turned to take in the moment and noticed Guy Blakeslee and Paz Lenchantin of The Entrance Band dancing furiously to the music just behind me.  I looked around again and saw more familiar faces of bands who we had seen before, enraptured in the funk, the soul, and the rhythm and blues.   Was this really happening?

At once, I let loose in the sheer joy that here we all were listening, feeding our souls with such great music.   There are reasons that bands like The Bar Kays survive the test of time.  “Soul Finger” is certainly one of them (as they proved that night), but The Bar Kays tap into something much deeper, much more basic in the human soul that vibrates at the sound of their music.  Otis knew exactly what that something was.  I most definitely don’t.  And if I did, I think I’d still not want to know for fear that I might forget it.

Ah…what am I talking about? 

What The Bar Kays did on Thursday night at SXSW 2009 was much more valuable than anything else in the world – they showed us all a good time.