Photos by Amy Phillips; Above: Major Lazer

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri

In case you didn't hear, it was really fucking cold in Austin last night. Highs in the 50s during the day, lows in the 30s at night. With so many outdoor venues, the temperature drop significantly impacted festivalgoers' enjoyment of the music. The worth of a band's set could be determined by how much they made you forget about the cold. It's a testament to the power of rock'n'roll that we all were willing to stand around freezing our asses off. Either that or we're all really stupid. Or drunk.

Duchess Says [Cheer Up Charlie's; 7:15 p.m.]

Fang Island were supposed to play an East Side venue called Club Primos at 7 p.m., but upon my arrival, I discovered that their set had been bumped back to 9:30 p.m. So I wandered down 6th Street in search of something cool to see instead. Walking past Cheer Up Charlie's, the dirt parking lot where I had spent oh so many hours at the True Panther party on Thursday night, I discovered a crowd standing in a circle, with some kind of commotion going on in the middle.

That commotion turned out to be singer Annie-C Deschênes of Duchess Says, a one-woman mosh pit of sorts. She raced around like the Tasmanian Devil, alternately hugging and punching, and wrestling people while shrieking along to her band's aggressive no wave. At the end of the set, Annie-C organized a race among audience members, who gleefully ran around the periphery of the lot. The music wasn't memorable, but the spectacle sure was.

Cloud Nothings [Cheer Up Charlie's; 8:30 p.m.]

As the sun went down, the staff at Cheer Up Charlie's put out trash can-sized fire pits to generate warmth. We all huddled and pogoed to Cloud Nothings, a group of lovable scamps from Cleveland playing lo-fi pop punk. Cloud Nothings main man Dylan Baldi is like Wavves with a good attitude, or Blink-182 if they grew up on the Slumberland back catalogue-- a bedroom auteur of catchy tunes buried in a thick blanket of fuzz. I'd love to hear what these songs would sound like stripped of all those layers. Baldi seems to have such a strong grasp of melody and hookiness, I bet they'd stand up.

Memory Tapes [Cedar Street Courtyard; 10:15 p.m.]

What a disappointment. Listening to Memory Tapes' recorded music, it's easy to remain blissfully unaware that soundscape manipulator Dayve Hawk used to lead the unmemorable Philadelphia post-punk band Hail Social. But in moving Memory Tapes from the studio to the live setting, Hawk's background came to the forefront, and once again, he was manning an unmemorable band. Playing guitar and singing and backed by a drummer and prerecorded loops, Hawk drained all of the ethereal magic out of his tracks, turning them into straight-up rock songs. And not very interesting rock songs, either. Without all of the bells and whistles and chillwave sheen, Seek Magic tracks like "Stop Talking", "Plain Material", "Graphics", and "Bicycle" never achieved liftoff.

YACHT [Cedar Street Courtyard; 11:30 p.m.]

The Cedar Street Courtyard was already pretty crowded with enthusiastic bros during Memory Tapes' set, but in the buildup before YACHT, it became super packed. And these guys loved YACHT. A heated argument debating the merits of Ghostland Observatory versus YACHT broke out next to me; as soon as word got out about the debate, YACHT won handily, even in Ghostland's hometown. By the time YACHT took the stage, people were amped. The show turned into the biggest dance party I experienced at SXSW; several times, I feared for my safety (and the safety of my camera) in the crush and sway of the crowd.

YACHT's Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans fed off of their faithful's energy, preening about like big time pop stars with synchronized dance moves and dramatic gestures. They were total naturals, elevating See Mystery Lights numbers like "It's Boring/You Can Live Anywhere You Want", "The Afterlife", and "Summer Song" into pop spectacles. The duo's stage banter was peppered with their trademark new agey musings; at one point, they asked how we were all holding up during SXSW, making the distinction between our "physical bodies" and our "spiritual selves." The ecstatic crowd ate it all up. By the time "Psychic City" closed the set, the outdoor space felt at least 20 degrees warmer.

Major Lazer [Cedar Street Courtyard, 12:30 a.m.]

Diplo and Switch's debut album as Major Lazer, Guns Don't Kill People-- Lazers Do, triumphs as a combination of studio wizardry and all-star guest spots. Not exactly the easiest thing to pull off in the live setting, especially with Switch absent and no all-star guests to be found. So what we got was Diplo mixing up his insanely fun dancehall music while a hype man, Skerrit Bwoy, and a dancer, Mimi, pleased the crowd. It succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.

Mimi was an absolute marvel of athleticism, part stripper and part gymnast. She stood on her head, she did splits, she got lower than low, she vibrated like a Nokia, she wrapped her legs around Skerrit Bwoy and a lucky dude who got pulled from the audience. Skerrit Bwoy, a ball of energy topped with a yellow mohawk, climbed on just about anything and everything, much to the chagrin of the Cedar Street Courtyard's security. He brought a bunch of female audience members on stage and danced lasciviously with them, he swung a gold chain violently around his neck. He and Mimi made a superlative comedic and acrobatic team, so much so, that I almost forgot that Diplo was even on stage-- until he dropped Ace of Base's "All That She Wants" and the crowd went apeshit.

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Photos by Erez Avissar; Above: The Pitchfork SXSW Showcase at the Scoot Inn

The Very Best

Sleigh Bells

Titus Andronicus

VIEW MORE FULL-SIZE PHOTOS IN OUR PHOTO BOOK

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Photos by Ryan Dombal. Above, from top left: Evan Dando, Mike Mills, M. Ward, Ken Stringfellow, Jody Stephens, Jon Auer, John Doe, the Watson Twins, Sondre Lerche, Chuck Prophet, Chris Stamey, and Curt Kirkwood.

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

A Tribute to Alex Chilton and Big Star [Antone's; 12:30 a.m.]

Big Star leader Alex Chilton's passing on Wednesday got this year's SXSW off to an unsettling start. Considering the countless bands inspired by Chilton both directly and indirectly over the years, the singer-songwriter's death loomed large over Austin all week. But even more heartbreaking was the fact that Chilton and the current incarnation of Big Star-- featuring original drummer Jody Stephens, and power-pop lifers Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of the Posies (above)-- was set to close out Saturday night with a set at Antone's. Instead of canceling the gig altogether (which would've been entirely understandable), Stephens, Stringfellow, and Auer decided to pay tribute to their friend with a night of Big Star songs played by the trio along with a revolving door of special guests including 1970s Big Star member Andy Hummel, R.E.M.'s Mike Mills, M. Ward, Evan Dando, Sondre Lerche, John Doe, the Watson Twins, Chuck Prophet, the dB's Chris Stamey and Meat Puppets leader Curt Kirkwood.

Despite the dour circumstances, everyone involved did their best to add life to Chilton's deep legacy. That said, there were several moments when Stephens, Stringfellow, and Auer verged on tears. And while the stream of guests kept the highlights coming throughout the 18-song set, the night's conflicting emotions were best expressed through Stephens' face. The wildly youthful 57-year-old drummer's mix of distant stares and warm gratitude toward all involved seemed to suggest he's still coming to terms with the idea that he'll never get to back his singer in real time again. So while the guests made the show more exciting, Stephens' face told the story.

Sometimes, such hasty tribute shows can't match their good intentions with good performances, but that wasn't a problem here. The night's core trio has been playing Big Star songs together live for 17 years and they've got it all down. The connection made Auer's lead vocal on "Thirteen" that much more wrenching. And on the few songs without impromptu vocalists, the center microphone was left alone.

The night's best moments happened on some of the more stripped-down tunes. John Doe's strident, infinitely hopeful take on "I'm In Love With a Girl" nailed Chilton's teenage naivety. And Dando's solo acoustic take on the Third/Sister Lovers ballad "Nighttime" offered a convincing reminder of the 90s grunge heartthrob's appeal as he effortlessly conveyed the song's vulnerability. (He also gave a one-word introduction while taking the stage: "Fuck.") Elsewhere, Mike Mills had a good deal of fun singing the exuberant "Jesus Christ" and Sondre Lerche's take on "Ballad of El Goodo" was a relatively theatrical crowd pleaser. It's a testament to Chilton's versatility and durability that so many headlining talents showed up for this tribute on short notice. And while it's hard to totally fuck up songs as enduring as Chilton's, I'm happy to report nobody did.

Sleigh Bells [Fader Fort; 8:15 p.m.]

When I first saw M.I.A.'s favorite new band in October, they were playing in front of maybe 100 kids, but you could tell their pumped-up, distorted, big beat anthems could probably work in front of a much bigger crowd. And, five months later, here they are at Fader's sprawling SXSW compound playing to a much bigger crowd. No matter how many times this quick-hit success happens to a burgeoning band, it's still exciting-- especially when the band is fronted by Alexis Krauss, who is one of the more obvious and startling onstage talents in recent memory. I have no idea what a song like "A/B Machines" is about, but Krauss sings it like a nuclear death threat. It's hard to ignore.

She was absurdly good in October-- swinging her hair at precisely the right moments while perfecting a half-headbang, half-dance style-- and she's even better now, mixing punk rebelliousness with a picture-perfect sheen of professionalism. Krauss will bare her teeth at you, but those teeth are ready to be featured in a toothpaste commercial; she yelled into the crowd but she didn't jump in. (Another winning technique: Dressing in super-cool layers, which provides all the visual refreshment of a costume change without the pesky delay.) Sleigh Bells are about to head out on tour with Major Lazer and Yeasayer, who are in serious jeopardy of getting blown off the stage on a nightly basis.

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Things you don't want to hear when you're waiting for DJ Quik to come on: "Next up, we got Murs coming to the stage!" So I gave up on the L.A. rap hero and headed down to see the last of the million shows Fucked Up played in Austin this week. They had a busy SXSW. When they weren't playing, frontman Damian Abraham was hitting other bands' shows and hanging out with well-wishers. And he and his band capped off the weekend by headlining their own showcase and putting everything they had left on the stage. As it turned out, they had a whole lot left.

Few spectacles in music can make your heart sing like seeing the hulking Abraham stripping down to his boxers (in below-40 weather, no less), bellowing into front-row faces, and picking up crowd surfers and throwing them back into the throng. Even with all those shows under their collective belt, Fucked Up's revved-up roar was as energized as ever, and fiery anthems like "Crusades" and "Son the Father" somehow crush even harder when you're worn out from four straight nights of SXSW. Off to the side of the stage, peers from various hardcore bands (Trash Talk, Iron Age) staged an absurd little stage-dive contest: one guy stage-dove while talking on his cell phone, another while drinking a beer. Near the end of their set, Fucked Up covered the Sex Pistols' "Bodies" "because Fucked Up are nothing if not obscuritans," said Abraham. Then they promised two more songs and played three. A pretty amazing high note to end the marathon.

Best Coast [Barbarella; 11 p.m.]

Best Coast frontwoman Bethany Cosentino is pretty short, and the stage at the cramped, packed Barbarella is pretty low, so she was impossible to see from most vantage points in the club. And even without the sightline problem, Barbarella was far from the ideal venue for Cosetino; loud drunken chatter, after all, is no friend to heartbroken fuzz-pop. But her songs are strong enough to survive just about any circumstance. All the reverb in those tracks doesn't hide the simple, direct longing of "When I'm With You" or "Boyfriend". On a newer song she played, she stripped that same sentiment down to its essential nature. For half the song, the lyrics were as follows: "I want you so much, oooh," repeated over and over. Halfway through, she switched it up to "I miss you so much." Plenty of classic pop jams were written on feelings like that, and Cosentino's songs, which sound something like Ramones 45s played at 33, are classic pop jams.

Abe Vigoda [Barbarella; 12 a.m.]

Forty minutes later, these No Age bros took to the same stage to battle equipment problems and preview a bunch of tracks from a forthcoming album. Abe Vigoda's take on punk rock is not exactly ferocious, based as it is on complex rubbery grooves and bizarrely interlocking instrumentation. And as much as I liked some of the blippy dance bits on the new songs, Abe Vigoda have a fundamental problem: They don't write hooks that you can remember five minutes after hearing them. If you left the PPM showcase after they got done playing, as I did, you would've probably left with a Best Coast song stuck in your head, not an Abe Vigoda one.

Yelawolf [Levis/FADER Fort; 7:30 p.m.]

Rural Alabama rapper Yelawolf cuts a severe image onstage: ripped-up skate-rat clothes, stringy Reznorian black mullet, tons of homemade tats. And as a rapper, he's almost comically nimble, peeling off triple-time verses and enunciating every word without ever losing his breath. But he's also a shameless ham: bringing up girls to dance with him onstage and tossing out Bud cans and t-shirts and free-for-backstage-VIPs Levis and sneakers. That willingness to get ridiculous, along with a serious livewire energy, make Yelawolf's live show a delirious spectacle, even in its whirlwind 15-minute form. And performing tracks from his exceptional new Trunk Muzik mixtape, he's got the songs to back up that energy. Plus, he had a good reason for keeping things abridged: He had another show, in another venue, 15 minutes later, and then another one after that. This guy is tirelessly working to make sure everyone in his vicinity knows who he is. And with his combination of work ethic, showmanship, energy, songwriting skill, and dazzling quick-tongue rap skill, there's a decent chance he'll be huge.

Fergus & Geronimo [Red 7; 9:00 p.m.]

These fresh-faced Denton, Texas, garage-rockers play with none of the snot-punk attitude that animates so many of their peers. Sadly, the group barely moves onstage; their bash could use a little more abandon. But the songs are there. Fergus & Geronimo have a better grasp on classic song-form than most of their fellow garage new jacks, and they also have some great little musical touches that none of their peers would attempt: maracas, for instance, or a weeping 60s-soul organ. If they can loosen up a bit onstage, they'll be on their way.

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Photos by Amy Phillips; Above: Frankie Rose and the Outs

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

Club 1808 is a dive bar located in a kinda sketchy neighborhood far off the beaten path, a good mile and a half or so away from the epicenter of SXSW. After Frankie Rose and the Outs' set last night, I found myself stuck there without a cab and not a whole lot of time before Signals' set at Beauty Bar, back on the main drag. So I started hoofing it through the semi-deserted streets, hoping that a cab would randomly appear. One did, but it zoomed right past me and picked up a bunch of dudes standing on the corner. I continued walking, but the next thing I knew, that cab pulled up and the dudes offered me a ride. Hooray! So, shout out to the fine gentlemen in the band Tempo No Tempo (and Eddie the cab driver). You guys rule.

Frankie Rose and the Outs [Club 1808; 8:00 p.m.]

There's reverb, and then there's reverb. The effects used during Frankie Rose's set turned the aforementioned sketchy dive bar Club 1808 into a cavernous womb of sound, seeming to physically stretch the walls to accommodate all that noise. But somehow, the songs didn't suffer all that much. The reverb made the music spookier, more goth.

Rose can usually be found behind the drum kit, formerly with Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts and currently with Dum Dum Girls, but for her own band she straps on a guitar and sings. I personally prefer the Outs to Rose's other projects; I think she's a gifted melodicist and a charismatic tough cookie as a frontwoman. Backed by a group of ladies in vintage fashions, Rose exhibited the exact right combination of sexy and kickass throughout her 20-minute set. One comic moment: at the end, as she thanked the crowd for coming, Rose stomped on her reverb pedal mid-sentence, and all of a sudden, her words were clear for the first time all evening.

Signals [Beauty Bar; 8:50 p.m.]

Following an ugly split with their underrated former band the Mae Shi, Jon Gray, Bill Gray, and Jacob Cooper have re-emerged as Signals. And they pretty much picked up where they left off, with spastic, day-glo digi-punk performed with enough energy to charge a small village's power supply. (Though they lacked the Mae Shi's wacky performance tricks, like the sheet the band would pull over the audience.) Vocalist Jon Gray looked and sounded like he snorted a pack of Pixy Stix in the bathroom right before the set, shrieking and pogo-ing around the stage and, at one point, leaping into the crowd to writhe on the floor. Covers of the Germs' "Richie Dagger's Crime" and Sparks' "Angst in My Pants" brought wide grins to the band members' faces.

Julianna Barwick [Beauty Bar Backyard; 9:50]

"I'm Julianna and I'm gonna sing some sweet, soothing songs for you tonight," Julianna Barwick announced to open her set. And there are few worse places to experience those sweet, soothing songs than in a tent in a parking lot full of drunk industry networkers with a metal band playing next door. (The middle of a construction site? An airport runway?) Going into this performance, I guessed that Barwick's gorgeous vocal manipulations are best heard in solitude, on headphones or in a quiet room where you can be alone with your thoughts. And this confirmed it. The music may be beautiful, but in addition to not being able to hear it very well, there isn't much to look at. Barwick stands stock still, singing and fiddling with knobs. The metal band playing next door sounded pretty good, though.

Telephoned [Malverde; 11:20]

It really shouldn't work. A nerdy DJ and super hot singer doing blog-house versions of popular R&B hits? That seems like an awful idea. But oh man, does it work, especially at this performance at the Fool's Gold showcase, which was the most fun thing I've seen at SXSW so far. Producer/DJ Sammy Bananas, a wimpy dude in a suit and tie and bushy mustache, looked like the president of the Math Club who lucked into taking the most popular girl at school to the prom. Singer Maggie Horn, a vision in a skintight dress and chunky plastic jewelry (with big plastic telephones on her necklace!), seductively rocked stripper moves with confidence and ease... until, at one point, she fell flat on her face. And then, later on, dropped her mic mid-lyric.

But Horn can really sing, too. She brought unexpected heft to takes on songs like Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On", The-Dream's "Rockin' That Thang", and T-Pain's "Can't Believe It", and held her own against vocal powerhouses like Alicia Keys ("Empire State of Mind") and Whitney Houston ("Million Dollar Bill"). During a brief alt-rock section, Horn sang the shit out of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Runaway" (which Sammy Bananas mashed up with the T.I./Justin Timberlake track "Dead and Gone") and Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody". During Kyla's "Do You Mind", Fool's Gold label head A-Trak wandered through the crowd blowing a whistle.

"We're like a cover band, but better!" Sammy Bananas shouted at one point. Yes indeed.

The xx [Central Presbyterian Church; 12:30]

The xx's debut was one of my favorite albums of 2009, but when the British band played the Bottom Lounge in Chicago in December, I hated it. Their spare, intimate music is not meant to be heard in a crowded club. It demands silence, reverence, complete concentration. In other words, the xx should play only in churches.

The xx's set at the Central Presbyterian Church was nothing short of magical. The bass rumbled through the cavernous space, the minimal guitar pings echoed off of the rafters. With a quiet, seated audience taking it all in with awe, the voices of guitarist Romy Madley Croft (wearing a Lady Gaga t-shirt) and bassist Oliver Sim were free to be hushed and close, recreating the under-the-sheets immediacy of the album. The placement of the band's double-x logo on producer Jamie Smith's speaker cabinets fell directly in line with the big wooden cross on the church's back wall, creating a juxtaposition of the spiritual and the carnal.

At the close of a set that was all tension and no release, the xx ended with "Infinity", punctuated by live cymbal crashes. The trio locked into an extended groove for a powerful coda that found Sim pounding away at the cymbal. You could feel the reverberations in the pews, stirring the body to impure thoughts.

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Photos by Erez Avissar and Sanchez and Kitahara; Above: Surfer Blood by Erez Avissar

Now something of a SXSW tradition, we've once again teamed up with our friends at the Windish Agency to present the fifth annual Pitchfork/Windish Austin Party.

The party went down yesterday afternoon at Emo's (603 Red River St.), and featured 12 bands on both the outdoor stage and the Emo's Jr. indoor stage: Neon Indian, Japandroids, Real Estate, Memory Tapes, Surfer Blood, Local Natives, Best Coast, Dâm-Funk, Washed Out, Free Energy, Javelin, Local Natives, Warpaint. Oh yeah, and GWAR showed up.

Below the jump, check out a selection of our many photos from the bash, and follow the link to check out all the full-size shots in our photo book.

Japandroids by Sanchez and Kitahara

Dâm-Funk by Erez Avissar

Free Energy by Sanchez and Kitahara

Surfer Blood by Erez Avissar

The Crowd by Erez Avissar

GWAR by Erez Avissar

Austin, TX Panorama by Sanchez and Kitahara

Emo's

VIEW MORE FULL-SIZE PHOTOS IN OUR PHOTO BOOK

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Photos by Tom Breihan; Above: Band of Horses

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
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Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

Band of Horses [Central Presbyterian Church; 8:55 p.m.]

Taking the stage (or really, the alter), Band of Horses frontman Ben Bridwell said, "Feel free to yell stuff at us. Just don't cuss." This was, after all, a church, which is a pretty weird place for a Band of Horses show, even when the building in question has the rich SXSW history that this one does. Unlike, say, Grizzly Bear, who sounded gorgeous at the same venue last year, Band of Horses don't make luminous music. It's pretty, certainly, but also earthy and plainspoken and way more suited to gigantic muddy fields than houses of worship. An odd fit, then, but there's no complaining about a great venue being matched up with a great band.

At this show, Band of Horses previewed songs from Infinite Arms, their forthcoming album. Based on those, we shouldn't expect any grand stylistic left-turns. A few tracks inch a little further toward old-school country and Southern rock without ever committing to either. On one, Ryan Monroe sings lead, which gives us a chance to hear Bridwell's voice singing backing harmonies, a nice little bonus. It's hard to say on first listen, but few of the new songs seemed to carry the same grandeur as something like "The Funeral", but then, this band always benefits from road-trip repeat listens, so immediate judgment is probably a bad idea. And they still played "The Funeral", so everybody won. And it was just a treat to see a band this big, and this destined to get bigger, playing in a small room with an audience so rapturous that they applauded even when Bridwell thanked his management. People are on this band's side, and with good reason.

No Age [Red 7 Patio; 12:30 a.m.]

The No Age we've come to expect from countless DIY tours isn't the one who showed up to Red 7. For one thing, they've got a third guy onstage, twiddling knobs and tweaking samplers in ways that rarely had any identifiable effect on the band's sound. For another, they seemed a lot less animated; guitarist Randy Randall, once a livewire, now rocks a beard and prowls a tiny sector of the stage. And the new songs we heard didn't carry much of the melodic sweetness that the band's always been able to weave into its fuzzed-out firestorm. Instead, they'd build quickly from ambient hum to basement-show pummel, and the drama was all in the transitions. I had to leave their set early, but the new songs I heard all sounded pretty great. If they keep playing relatively low-key and simmering shows like that, though, some people will miss the old abandon.

Washed Out [Klub Krucial; 1:00 a.m.]

When I interviewed him last year, Washed Out mastermind Ernest Greene said he had no plans to turn his bedroom recording project into a live concern, but he looked pretty content onstage at the cavernous Klub Krucial. For one thing, he had a seriously crammed-in mass of crowd completely behind him. Down front, it was so hot and packed that I could barely move, but people were still dancing hard. (Somebody crowdsurfed. To chillwave.) For another, Greene didn't have any tape hiss or synth-smear obscuring his hooks or his beats, so the songs actually sounded like dance jams, and they worked just fine as such. Onstage, Greene doesn't do anything much performative beyond dancing around while he pushes sequencer buttons, but those tracks, and that crowd reaction, proved that he belonged up there.

Greene started out the show himself, manning his electronics and sighing into his mic. Particularly on Klub Krucial's comically loud sound system, these tracks kicked pretty hard. Things changed a bit when tourmates Small Black joined Greene as his backing band halfway through. The band's instrumentation fleshed out the songs in important ways. But members of Small Black also sang along with Greene and did it exceptionally badly, turning his wistful bedroom jams into off-key bro-down singalongs.

Freddie Gibbs [Mohawk Patio; 10:50 p.m.

Not too many new rappers have the confidence to attack stages without hypemen, and even fewer do it with the force and panache of Gary, Ind., gangsta revivalist Freddie Gibbs. In every fundamental way, Gibbs is a hell of a rapper: lyrics, hooks, timing, delivery, enunciation, volume. He has no weaknesses. You can understand every word he says from across the room at an industry party where nobody will shut up and listen to the music. He never stands still onstage and punches every line hard. And a few songs, like "What It B Like" and "Cradle 2 the Grave", sounded like huge bangers, though not necessarily actual hits. His beats carried a visceral punch, and he kept his brisk 20-minute set moving without lag time. Someone give him some more time next year. He's earned it.

Active Child [Latitude 30; 10:00 p.m.]

Active Child is Pat Grossi, a former choir singer who now makes hushed and otherworldly falsetto synthpop. His music and this venue were not, shall we say, an ideal match. It's hard to emit ethereal wails when the crowd won't stop talking. But Grossi, who looks a bit green onstage, makes it work anyway, just by playing music so overwhelmingly pretty that it absorbs whatever's around it. Grossi switches among keyboard, harp, and guitar while a bassist plays spacey new wave bass riffs. Grossi is definitely a bedroom guy, but the basic elements of a possible greatness are all there.

The Golden Filter [Emo's Jr.; 8:00 p.m.]

The Golden Filter frontwoman Penelope comes bearing at least a few pounds of ornamentation: bracelets, necklaces, scarves, kohl. But there's nothing particularly gussied-up about the band's glassy Italo-disco style. People have been pairing metronomic synth-burbles with breathy vocals for a long time. But the Golden Filter also have a live drummer and a keyboard player who bashes floor toms whenever he's not playing keyboards, giving a little muscle to the band's relatively bloodless arrangements. I'll always carry at least a tiny soft spot for anyone working that genre confluence in this day and age, but the group's hooks evaporate too quickly, and it's not like they're doing anything to dress that old Italo thump up in anything more memorable.

Talk Normal [Red 7; 12:00 a.m.]

I'd been hoping to catch guttural goth queen Zola Jesus, but it turned out Nika Danilova's band was playing way the hell out by the airport. So instead I saw this Brooklyn duo, who played incredibly loudly in near-complete darkness at Red 7. Their combination of sculpted, bottom-heavy noise and tribal drumming sounded ritualistic, almost elemental. But where Zola Jesus or even their NY noise contemporaries Magik Markers let in some melodic throb and try a few theatrical flourishes, these two were nothing but creeping dread all the time. They did that dread awfully well, but it's good that they only played for about a half-hour; I don't know if I could've withstood much more.

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Photos by Ryan Dombal; Above: Liars

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

Friday night at SXSW is when the music utopia can start to sour. After two days of guitars and drums coming out of every parking lot, sidewalk, and club in Austin, the idea of all-music-everywhere reveals its limitations. The dudes butchering a country tune on the corner of 6th and Red River are no longer pathetic-yet-persistent, they're just pathetic. And can't those guys playing a jazzbo mutation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the middle of the street do something more with their lives? This is when your legs start to tire and you start to notice your back muscles. Which means band have to really come through even more to get you refreshed for a strong finish.

Liars [Antone's; 1 a.m.]

On record, these L.A.-based rock experimenters pummel, drone, and creep. But at the showcase for booking agency Billions last night, Liars mainly just pummeled. And that's OK. Because these guys twist the punk rock you grew up with into gnarly new shapes with ease. Even when they momentarily broke from the blitz, leader Angus Andrews joked, "Let's do a slow one in their face!" The singer's tangling, flapping, and cavorting made him come off like an over-sized (and shirted) Iggy Pop. And Liars were keen to push like a modern-day Stooges, churning with raw attitude and a sense of frenzied danger.

It's tough to overstate Andrews' abilities as a frontman at this point. He manhandled the crowd (figuratively) from the second he strode onto the stage, his voice ranging from soft whisper to ghoulish below. As if his cartoonish faces and growls weren't enough, Andrews uses every bit of his big frame to convey a constant evil insanity. But there's still a strong sense of control to what he and his band do onstage; Even when the singer was spraying the audience with sweat from his wild head, he'd stop the stream just in time to deliver a key yelp. If I ever manage to lose my mind entirely, I hope the voices in my head sound something like this band.

Neon Indian [Club de Ville; 11 p.m.]

There's currently a billboard in Austin with Neon Indian mastermind Alan Palomo's head as its centerpiece. It's a little surreal. But also fitting. Of all the indie music auteurs peddling nostalgic bursts of 80s pop and lo-fi lackadaisical vocals, Neon Indian stands out because Palomo isn't scared of the spotlight. Perhaps it's just in his genes-- Palomo's dad was a Mexican pop star-- but the singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist performs like there's a camera trained on him at all times, batting his eyes suggestively and running his hand through his hair. And that actually wasn't too far off at the Green Label Sound showcase; thanks to lenses both professional and impromptu, the show was constantly covered in multiple angles.

So, given the extra exposure and the fact that brand new Neon Indian song "Sleep Paralysist" is noticeably more hi-fi than last year's LP Psychic Chasms, it was weird that Palomo continued to cloak his voice underneath so many layers of reverb. He stands out, and his voice should as well. That said, the sunburned "Deadbeat Summer" still sounds like a worthwhile life plan a year later as it makes doing nothing at all sound remarkably productive. Of course, Palomo is no slacker-- in a recent interview, he already talked about plans for a second Neon Indian album, along with a long-player from his other band, VEGA. Maybe his face will grace a few more billboards in the meantime.

Metric [Stubb's; 8:30 p.m.]

On one hand, it feels like Metric should be bigger than they are-- lead singer Emily Haines is a front-person with the rare ability to come across smart, sexy, and sympathetic all within one set. Then again, I usually want to like Metric albums more than I actually listen to them. The band often pairs up arena-ready rock arrangements with lyrics and hooks that aren't as easy to compute. This gulf can be tough to cross, and while Metric (and especially Haines) brought plenty of energy to their SXSW set last night opening for British purveyors of pomp Muse, I still left the show feeling a bit unfulfilled. I did not stick around for Muse (apologies to fans of fake Thom Yorkes and laser beams).

Moon Duo [Encore Patio; 10 p.m.]

First, a confession: I did not drop acid before attending psych-rock twosome Moon Duo's gig. If I had, I probably would've been able to appreciate their drugged-out guitar and synth grooves more. Sanae Yamada and Wooden Shjips' Erik Johnson make music for a summer of love hangover. But the summer of love was a long time ago, and these two add exactly zero to the "free your mind" zonk-rock story so far. They stood virtually motionless. I could not understand one word (were those even words?!). And I left after only a few songs. It was Friday night, and there was too much to get done to be stymied by dead-end drones.

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Photos by Amy Phillips; Above: Rainbow Bridge

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

The temperature in Austin dropped into the 40s Thursday night. The True Panther party was held at Cheer Up Charlie's, a dirt parking lot with no indoor space. You know what that meant? A whole lot of hipsters walking around trying to pretend they weren't freezing their asses off. Hey, ladies in cute little sundresses and dudes in cutoff jean shorts! You look hot! I mean... really, really cold.

Rainbow Bridge [Cheer Up Charlie's; 8:00 p.m.]

Many bands exert a lot of effort trying to look like they don't care. Rainbow Bridge, a duo from Olympia, Washington, seem to pull it off. And they sound like they don't care, too. A guy and a girl wearing baggy, tie-dyed clothes banging out sloppy, chunky garage punk: everything about these guys is loose. Best New Track "Big Wave Rider" was a highlight, but mostly their set made me want to go and listen to, like, super technical math-rock or something.

Tamaryn [Cheer Up Charlie's; 8:45 p.m.]

Unlike Rainbow Bridge, New York/San Francisco shoegazers Tamaryn get an "A" for effort. It's pretty much impossible to be slinky, seductive, and mysterious in a parking lot with a shitty sound system, taking the makeshift stage after an announcer asks the crowd if the owner of the Mitsubishi parked out back could please move their car. But they sure tried! Singer Tamaryn shimmied and swayed, moaning Nico-esque lamentations over her band's slow, churning music. Much better suited to a dark, intimate club.

Hunx and His Punkettes [Cheer Up Charlie's; 9:30 pm]

Now here's a band born to play in a parking lot. Or maybe an alleyway, back behind some dumpsters. Hunx (aka former Gravy Train!!!! member Seth Bogart) is a master of deliciously trashy homoerotic pop-punk; you would think that after Pansy Division's long career, the well of Ramones-inspired tunes about getting in dudes' pants would have run dry, but Hunx's new Gay Singles collection is super catchy, refreshing fun. Backed by a sassy all-girl band (dressed in thrift store formalwear) dubbed the Punkettes, Hunx flirted with the crowd through rave-ups like "Cruising", "Hey Rocky", and the near-genius "You Don't Like Rock'n'Roll". He wore a sailor's cap, a cape, lipstick, and tight black vinyl pants, he blew kisses to cute boys, and ran his fingers through the hair of boys in the front row. When the band stopped to tune in between song, he asked audience members how old they were when they lost their virginity. What more do you want in a rock star?

Teengirl Fantasy [Cheer Up Charlie's; 10:15 p.m.]

Like Tamaryn, Teengirl Fantasy were out of their element at Cheer Up Charlie's. The duo's music is dense and layered, but what came through here was mostly booming beats-- not necessarily a bad thing, just not very interesting. Tracks like "Portofino" and "Floor to Floor" lost their shimmer, becoming standard issue club tracks. There was a smoke machine and a small laser light box, but with the two guys standing behind banks of synths not doing a whole lot, it wasn't enough.

The Morning Benders [Cheer Up Charlie's; 11:00 p.m.]

I just don't get the Morning Benders. I've tried. They strike me as pleasant, harmless pop-rock that seems meant to live in the background, not the forefront. I've listened to their new album, Big Echo, several times, and it never registers. Live, though they seemed like nice, genial fellows, was no different. An interminably long version of their best song, the oldies radio-inflected "Excuses", closed the set, dragging along into an audience singalong that seemed to last hours.

Magic Kids [Cheer Up Charlie's; 11:45 a.m.]

My mood lifted considerably with the arrival of Magic Kids, a ramshackle indie pop army from Memphis. Their infectious, upbeat music is instant sunshine, all wide-eyed innocence and true, unadulterated enthusiasm. With their boy/girl vocals, violin parts, and let's-put-on-a-show! attitude, at times they reminded me of an American Los Campesinos! (minus the heavier stuff Los Camps have delved into recently.) I can see how Magic Kids could very easily annoy the shit out of somebody, but for now, I'm digging it.

Tanlines [Cheer Up Charlie's; 12:30 a.m.]

Though they may have been dancing to keep warm, the crowd's energy level seemed to take off during Tanlines' set. The duo nailed the ecstatic release of their beach party synth-pop, and, crucially, seemed to be having as much fun performing it as the crowd did dancing to it. Two guys and a bunch of electronics don't usually make for a very compelling live experience (see: Teengirl Fantasy), but Tanlines made it work with drumsticks, guitars, and overall good attitude.

Lemonade [Cheer Up Charlie's; 1:15 a.m.]

The energy level sparked by Tanlines' set continued through the acts that followed. When Lemonade's drummer took off his pants at the start of their set, revealing yellow boxer briefs, you knew it was ON. I haven't really enjoyed Lemonade's music on record; mostly, it's frontman Callan Clendenin's lyrics that throw me off. But with the vocals buried in the mix and the whole band and crowd amped, it was impossible to hate on their fun electro-pop.

Delorean [Cheer Up Charlie's; 2 a.m.]

It takes balls to open your set with your best -known song, but that's exactly what Spanish chillwave dons Delorean did, bursting out with a gorgeous, extended take on "Seasun". There was more dancing than the party had experienced all night, spilling out into the mud pit at the center of the parking lot. Sure, this music is probably best experienced on the white sands of the Mediterranean, but with their sparkling grooves, Delorean brought us a little bit closer to that experience.

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Photos by Tom Breihan; Above: Free Energy

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

G-Side [The Parish; 2:45 p.m.]

Plenty of groups shuttle to as many as five sets a day during SXSW, but Alabama rap duo G-Side had a grand total of one show booked for the whole week: an NPR Music day party, of all things. They made that one show count. Taking the stage to a crowd that knew nothing about them and was mostly just waiting for Surfer Blood, Clova and ST 2 Lettaz started off a bit shaky and tentative. But half an hour in, they had the crowd on their side, and they did it just by rapping good songs really well. G-Side are fierce, animated performers. Like Clipse, they punctuate their punchlines by actually acting them out. And they fill the space between songs with heartfelt talk about working hard-- the same thing they base their songs on.

It helped that the thick, spacey beats, from producers like Block Beataz and Burn One, sound incredible on a big sound system, the bass vibrating the venue's hardwood floor. Somehow the two backing singers onstage fleshed out the sound rather than cluttering it. Guest Kristmas turned in an energetic guest verse on the recent mixtape highlight "Rising Sun". But the real story was the two guys at the front of the stage, doing everything in their power to reach an indifferent crowd, and succeeding. Inspirational stuff.

Lissie [The Parish; 8:00 p.m.]
Fat Possum country-folk singer Lissie has my eternal gratitude for one big reason: Her bruised rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" is the only song that can get my daughter to stop crying in her carseat. She didn't bust that one out during her brief five-song set, but her own songs have a similar assured vulnerability. Lissie has the perfect voice for her form of low-risk alt-country: a soft, intimate quaver that can become an intense howl when she needs it to. But she only rarely dials up the drama in her songs, which gives her big moments that much more impact. The two bearded dudes in her backing band kept the instrumentation spare and tasteful, though it would've been better if she didn't allow the one with the dreads to play an inexplicable butt-rock guitar solo on one track. And she also cuts a disarmingly pleasant figure onstage, bringing a humble sincerity you don't often see at industry shows like this one. Lissie's not tearing down any walls right now, but it's impossible not to like her.

Mountain Man [Buffalo Billiards; 9:00 p.m.]


The Bennington, Vermont, trio Mountain Man push the willowy, rustic Fleet Foxes aesthetic to its natural endpoint. The three women in the group sing a cappella most of the time, only occasionally letting in a spare acoustic guitar. Their simple songs could be ancient folk traditionals even though they're not. And most of the time, they don't even use microphones; one member mentioned a couple of times that their set in this cheesed-out pool hall, a place where they invariably pump in Red Hot Chili Peppers between bands, was the first time they'd ever sung into microphones.

The three women in the group began their set with a stage-center group hugs. When one of them wasn't playing guitar, they'd often all hold hands, and they'd usually close their eyes while singing. The way they had those microphones set up, two of the three would always be facing each other, not the audience, and at least one of them remained blushing for virtually her entire time onstage. Their harmonies were always luminous and gorgeous, and I'd feel weirdly protective whenever the inevitable conversational hum threatened to drown them out. But it also feels almost intrusive to watch these three play a show. They might be on a stage, but they're singing for each other, not you. That might mean they don't look anywhere near comfortable in front of a crowd, but it also means nobody's going to forget them.

Explode Into Colors [Wave Rooftop; 10:00 p.m.]

The jitter-punk trio Explode Into Colors may be the most straight-up Portland band I've ever seen; if they didn't exist, Kill Rock Stars would've had to invent them. The band's three members include two drummers, both of whom keep cowbells displayed prominently. The one non-drummer plays maracas sometimes. On one track, a guy sat in to tootle on a tiny saxophone. The band combines elements familiar to anyone with at least one post-punk compilation on the shelf: flat deadpan vocals, simple and insistent basslines, bursts of cheap keyboard or melodica, tumbling drums. But they play this stuff like they just discovered it, hammering on their drums rims as often as their skins and doing everything to fight their monstrous grooves even as they bashed them out. All the while, they kept a casual, unserious house-party vibe going, which made their attack a whole lot more fun. The tiny Wave Rooftop didn't turn into a dance party during their set, but that wasn't the band's fault.

Titus Andronicus [Beauty Bar/Palm Door; 11:00 p.m.]

"My guitar's being sassy," complained Titus frontman Patrick Stickles early on. "It sounds like a limp dick." Didn't matter. Neither did the sparse crowd at the Palm Door, or the sound problems that dogged the band throughout their set. Titus was already a forceful live band before releasing The Monitor, their thrilling new album, and now they're something to behold, easily the best band I've heard at SXSW. These songs exist to be played live.

If The Monitor is ambitious overreach done perfectly, so is Titus' stage show. The grueling schedule of SXSW seems to have actually added even more gravity to Stickles' scratched howl, and he and the rest of his band throw themselves around with commendable abandon. The band tore through a big chunk of the new album during their set, and every big moment had me involuntarily punching air. And the band had the audacity to close their set with "The Battle of Hampton Roads", the gargantuan 14-minute song that ends the album. Before they could wrap up, a stagehand told them they were done. Stickles' response: "We would've loved to finish that song. There was only 45 seconds left."

Free Energy [Beauty Bar/Palm Door; 12:00 a.m.]

I was a bit worried that retro Philly power-poppers would be lost without the production gleam that James Murphy gave Stuck on Nothing, their likable debut album. But the band's expertly constructed songs hold up just fine on their own. Free Energy keep the hooks coming relentlessly, and it's a whole lot of fun to sing along to their gleeful nonsense choruses. They ended their set covering 70s FM-radio dominators Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and it says something about the quality of Free Energy's songs that their own hooks sunk deeper-- especially "Bang Pop", which is a motherfucking hit waiting for a world to notice.

They're nothing like a punk band, but you can tell by the way they fling themselves around the stage that they all spent formative years playing in punk bands, and that makes a difference. It also makes a difference that there's a vaguely funky push-pull in the backbeat of all their songs. You can actually dance to this stuff, and people did. Hard. Including the Titus Andronicus dudes, who stayed front and center throughout, singing along loudly. All-out spontaneous dance parties are rare things at SXSW, and this one was a nice surprise. The dudes in the band thought so, too, telling the crowd over and over how happy they were that people were actually dancing. It wasn't hard, dudes.

8Ball & MJG [Barbarella; 1:00 a.m.]

Last year, these Memphis street-rap legends never made it to their SXSW show, so nobody seemed quite sure that this thing would actually happen. But there they were, crammed onto a tiny stage and digging deep into their back catalog of visceral bangers. The small, jammed in crowd gave them a hero's welcome, and the duo responded in kind, digging out obscure jams like "Armed Robbery" and "Comin' Up". Ball and G come off tough and businesslike onstage, planting their feet and rapping dead ahead; it's not like the stage afforded them much room to move anyway. And I'd get an instant rush whenever something like the wriggling synth from "You Don't Want Drama" would first kick in.

For most of the time they were onstage, Ball and G put on an expert bare-bones rap show, and the tracks from their forthcoming Grand Hustle debut sounded impressive. But with 20 minutes left to go, things took a turn for the weird. A live rock band, including a guitarist and washboard player in a Mexican luchador mask, jumped onstage to wheedle cheese-metal all over the duo's songs. That meant we got a tender, bluesy run through the great old Cee-Lo collab "Paid Dues", but it also meant we got a biker guy playing a harmonica solo on the bloodthirsty banger "White Meat". You're not going to believe this, but it turns out "White Meat" didn't need a harmonica solo after all.

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Photos by Ryan Dombal; Above: Broken Social Scene

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

Broken Social Scene [Stubb's; 1 a.m.]

"Tell everyone we're back-- and we're ready to fight this time." Those were Kevin Drew's parting words last night at one of the first Broken Social Scene gigs this year celebrating their forthcoming album, Forgiveness Rock Record. And though the new record isn't out until May (and hasn't even leaked), that didn't stop the rejuvenated Canadian troop from basing most of their SXSW gig around it. They did untouchables like "Ibi Dreams of Pavement" and "Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl"-- with requisite guest appearance from a jumpy, beaming Emily Haines-- but were clearly most excited about the new tunes, including smoky ballad "Sweetest Kill", a synth-pop track called "All to All" showcasing relative newcomer Lisa Lobsinger (whose curling hive of hair was an architectural feat), and the bopping pop-rock number "Texico Bitches", which had Drew squealing with glee. The band's message was forthright: These are the new hits, trust us.

And the crowd remained respectful and patient through the unfamiliar newbies. But one Forgiveness track stood out. The instrumental mega-jam "Meet Me in the Basement" needed no gestation period as it annihilated any and all onlookers with the escalating bigness these guys know so well. The track will probably find a place in almost every BSS setlist this year (and beyond) for good reason-- it's totally unafraid to reach for the back row and then some. And it also highlights this group's shameless ambition, a trait sometimes looked down upon in the insular the realm of indie. Even Drew's call-and-response requests can be a tad overzealous; "Scream 'I know what I'm gonna do!'" he requested at one point, only to be met by a muddle of vowel sounds. "Not so good," he admitted with a laugh. But BSS know what they're gonna do this year: come back and fight. Based on this preview, they're in pretty good shape.

jj [Mohawk Patio; 10:00 p.m.]

Up until recently, jj were a Swedish enigma wrapped up in cooing vocals and balearic beats. Then they signed with Secretly Canadian, put out promo photos, and now young blond pair Joakim Benon and Elin Kastlander are making their live U.S. debut at SXSW. If nothing else, their gig last night showed the power of anonymity, and the pitfalls of plain old reality. The shocking letdown of a performance began with singer Kastlander strumming a guitar and reverbing her voice out into the crowd while multi-instrumentalist Benon stood off to the side of the stage fiddling with a laptop. Then, about five minutes in, Benon pressed play on his computer and promptly exited the stage, leaving Kastlander to sing karaoke with her own tunes. Benon did not resurface for the remainder of the set.

When there's no live instrumentation to interact against, a singer has to be that much more magnetic to pull off a decent show. Unfortunately, Kastlander was too bored or too nervous throughout-- either way, she looked like she'd rather be anywhere else. The collective feeling of "That's it?!" was palpable. Granted, jj haven't played many shows and Kastlander's glazed-over vocals weren't disastrous, but these onetime mysteries have a lot of work ahead of them if they want to translate their web-based intrigue into something equally beguiling onstage.

Let's Wrestle [Cedar Street Courtyard; 8:30 p.m.]

Based on their MySpace layout filled with crudely drawn clowns and their songs about laziness and buying girls gin and tonics, it seemed safe to put this punky London trio squarely into the "goofball" column. But that's not necessarily the case based on their set at Merge's showcase yesterday. Lead singer and guitarist Wesley Patrick Gonzalez is a nerd, for sure. He wore geeked-out frames, a button-up green sweater, jean shorts, and black dress shoes, and he barely smiled the entire set. While there's lots of wryness involved in Let's Wrestle, Gonzalez's intense demeanor suggested their outsider tunes are bubbling with a little anger and resentment to go along with the humor. That, and the juxtaposition between the shamelessly awkward Gonzalez and the band's handsome, non-horrendously-dressed, polite bassist, Mike Lightning, gave their live chemistry an instant jolt. At times, Gonzalez's deadpan smarts reminded me of a young Rivers Cuomo. And the way he pushed his specs back up his nose by pressing them against his microphone was impressive, too.

Marina and the Diamonds [Lambert's; 12:15 a.m.]

After landing in the UK's top five with her debut album, The Family Jewels, quirked-out pop singer Marina Lambrini Diamandis is trying to do what every self-respecting British chart star must try at least once in their career-- conquer America. Thanks to the increasing success of acts like Florence and the Machine and La Roux, Marina's road is relatively well-paved, and her set at the Neon Gold showcase at Lambert's made it clear this would-be U.S. breakthrough will do her best not to go crawling back to England defeated by a bunch of disinterested Yanks (or Texans).

It doesn't hurt that her debut single is called "Hollywood" and she managed to make a loose-fitting pair of Planet Hollywood overalls look sexy during the show; it might hurt that "Hollywood" is a cheeky ode to La La Land that rests on the hook, "I'm obsessed with the mess that's America." After singing the song she joked, "I hope people don't kill me for that one." Nobody at Lambert's was in a murderous mood, though, and her bubbly mix of Regina Spektor tics and bulging synth-pop went over because she's the life of the party, hammy enough to emerge in a yellow snuggie /cardigan hybrid and cool enough to poke fun at it. And, with the piano-pushing, remix-ready standout "Oh No!", Marina's got a potential Stateside hit waiting to happen. The track is something like Ke$ha's "Tik Tok " with a conscience and a brain. Whether America is ready for a conscience and a brain wearing ironic, gift-store threads and fuzzy ears is another matter entirely.

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On March 17, Alex Chilton, the Memphis-raised singer, songwriter, performer, and producer, died in New Orleans. He was 59. It's impossible to express how much Chilton's work has meant to music in the last 40 or so years, particularly underground and independent rock. Though it represented just a few years from a long and varied career that included work with the Box Tops and many solo albums, Big Star, the group Chilton started in the early 1970s with Chris Bell, Andy Hummel, and Jody Stephens, is for so many young bands the template for how to make personal, joyous, and heartfelt music.

Below are thoughts from some of the artists touched by Chilton's music, in addition to words from other friends and admirers. We'll continue to add to this as more come in.

Ardent Studios owner John Fry: "It's obvious to anybody that listens to his live performances or his body of recorded work, his tremendous talent as a vocalist and songwriter and instrumentalist."

Big Star's Andy Hummel: "I hope people really understand and appreciate what a brilliant musician the guy was.... He should be remembered in that way. He was really a creative genius, always testing the limits."

R.E.M.'s Mike Mills: "Alex Chilton's music was a big part of my life and a huge influence on R.E.M. He will live on for us through all the great music he made."

The Replacements' Paul Westerberg: "In my opinion, Alex was the most talented triple threat musician out of Memphis — and that’s saying a ton. His versatility at soulful singing, pop rock songwriting, master of the folk idiom, and his delving into the avant garde, goes without equal. He was also a hell of a guitar player and a great guy."

AC Newman: "RIP, Alex Chilton. This is my favorite song by him, beautiful and messed up."

The Hold Steady's Craig Finn: "As many people will and won't admit, the Replacements turned me on to Alex Chilton. It wasn't the song, though. 'Nowhere is My Home' is a song he produced for the Replacements on the Tim sessions, and I saw that as a kid and went and bought one of his solo records, and then worked backwards and found Big Star. I'm a huge fan. He's one of my favorite guys."

Islands' Nick Thorburn: "My first time with Alex Chilton was when my then roommate, @seripop_chloe, played me his "Bangkok". I dug. RIP."

Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood: "[Big Star] should have been next to the Beatles and the Stones in popularity as well as influence. A lot of it sounded like it came from Britain or something, although you couldn't deny the southern soulfulness of it, too. That's what made it so great. It combined that pop sensibility that came over with the British invasion with that southern soul and grittiness. That's the key. It's like the Beatles with booty."

Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor: "RIP Alex Chilton, just heard. Everyone here very sad. Here he is covering "Alligator Man"."

Kristin Hersh: "baby wyatt used to dance to big star in the french quarter...r.i.p. alex chilton"

The Flaming Lips' Steve Drozd: "I'll always have "Blue Moon" by Big Star to warm my heart and make me cry. RIP Alex Chilton"

Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie: "He just made so many great records, and they were crazy rock 'n' roll records. But they were also art records and beautiful records, mournful records, sad records, joyous records. What I'm trying to say is that Alex Chilton was one of the greats."

Sleater-Kinney/NPR's Carrie Brownstein: "Musicians and fans have always passed around Big Star songs and albums like a secret handshake. When you found out someone hadn't heard #1 Record or Radio City, you were so excited to provide that missing link, to pass on all the glimmer, the jangly guitar, the big chords, the melodies, the American anthems that let you keep your teenage self -- for some of us long since faded -- close, etched upon your skin. And suddenly, you realized that every great band or musician you love also loved Alex Chilton and Big Star."

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) on the House floor: "He wanted to play music, and he did it. And he did it his own way: independent. Iconoclastic. Innovative."

SXSW creative director Brent Gulke: "Alex Chilton always messed with your head, charming and amazing you while doing so. His gift for melody was second to none, yet he frequently seemed in disdain of that gift."

Former owner of Antenna club Steve McGehee: "He changed music. There's no other way to say it. It's just true."

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New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh, Erykah Badu's follow-up to 2008's fine New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War, is out in 12 days, but we're just getting to see the Emek-designed cover art (above). She's got some new music streaming, too. You can head over to her official site to hear a clip of the equally psychedelic, Madlib-produced "Strawberry Incense", which opens with a bed of harps and vinyl static before Badu's soaring vocals take it into the astral plane. The new song follows on Badu's recent Lil Wayne collab, the non-LP track "Jump Up in the Air and Stay There", which got a pretty sweet video.

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It's Lykke Li's birthday today and her label celebrated by sending along this all-new video from the Swedish chanteuse. It's for the piano ballad "Possibility", her contribution to last year's Twilight: New Moon soundtrack. The video is about as somber as the tune itself, shot in dramatic black and white with some close-ups of her band performing the track in a darkened studio.

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Photos by Althea Legaspi; Above: Frightened Rabbit

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
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Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

With the news of Alex Chilton's death, SXSW was off to a depressing start. But you wouldn't know it from the throngs of drunken revelers stumbling through the streets of downtown Austin. The combination of St. Patrick's Day, University of Texas spring break, and the festival kickoff ensured an Orange Alert threat level of chaos.

Here We Go Magic [Club de Ville; 9:00 p.m.]

Club de Ville is an outdoor venue located at the heart of the madness. The intricacies of Here We Go Magic's music would have been buried even if there wasn't a metal showcase happening simultaneously at the Mohawk next door. But what was lost in the details was made up for in the bigger picture. We didn't get the pretty synth washes and touches of thumb piano or xylophone, but we did get a band focusing on a newfound sense of rhythm. Songs like "Only Pieces" and today's Best New Track "Collector" rode a driving motorik beat, rising and falling in tense, satisfying waves. Slower, quieter songs mostly drowned under the circumstance; the exception was "Fangela", which no longer sounded like it was recorded in a fish tank two blocks away, but rather on an idyllic beach.

Das Racist [Buffalo Billiards; 10:00 p.m.]

SXSW usually runs on a pretty punctual schedule. Unfortunately, the Time Out New York showcase at Buffalo Billiards was not. When I showed up for Javelin's scheduled 10 p.m. set, I was forced to suffer through 20 minutes of Das Racist, a band I have loathed ever since the divisive "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" infected my hard drive last summer. It's not that I hate party rap or dumb fun or whatever-- I tend to like that kind of thing more than most folks. It's that these guys come across like the kind of people who get off on making fun of you, and then get mad when you call them out on it, saying that you don't have a sense of humor.

Anyway, Das Racist definitely didn't win me over this time by jumping around in Ray-Bans and terrible facial hair with their shirts off, getting the mostly white crowd to shout "white people!" (Ooh, you guys are so funny!) But I do have to admit: changing the "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell" lyrics to reference Baskin-Robbins/Dunkin' Donuts, FedEx/Kinko's, and "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"... OK, that was pretty clever.

Javelin [Buffalo Billiards; 10:30 p.m.]

As Javelin set up, the Buffalo Billiards sound system blasted a Red Hot Chili Peppers two-fer: "Californication" and "Under the Bridge". In a way, it was a harbinger of the corniness that was to come. On record, the duo's everything-and-the-kitchen-sink gumbo of found sounds, hip-hop beats, and dance party energy is goofy and charming. But Tom van Buskirk's vocals, chopped and distorted on wax, were in full, unfiltered glory here. He can't really sing very well, and he definitely can't rap, and the new agey garbage he spouted drowned everything in cheese. Plus, Javelin's usual stage setup of a homemade tower of altered boom boxes was also missing. Without the sheen of computerized manipulation, tracks like "Vibrationz" and "Oh! Centra" came across like bad hippie pep rally chants. It's a shame, because these guys' music is usually a lot of fun.

We Were Promised Jetpacks [The Parish; 11:00 p.m.]

Introducing We Were Promised Jetpacks' set at the Scottish Arts Council showcase, BBC Scotland DJ Vic Galloway enthusiastically trumpeted the diversity of the night's lineup, saying, "all their music is completely different from band to band!" While that might be the case about beat experimentalist Hudson Mohawke and singer-songwriter Tommy Reilly, when it comes to We Were Promised Jetpacks and Frightened Rabbit, who played directly after them, it is, um, most definitely not true. They share a home country, a label (FatCat), an adorably disheveled look, and a soaring, searing emo sound. They're friends, and Frightened Rabbit introduced Jetpacks to FatCat. Jetpacks have a song called "Keeping Warm"; Frightened Rabbit have a song called "Keep Yourself Warm". But hey, if you're a fan of this stuff (and I most certainly am), this bounty of Scottish sad-sack goodness is quite welcome.

As a friend of mine puts it, with We Were Promised Jetpacks, "every song is an anthem." They're all about tension and release, riding instrumental builds to explosive choruses that often found frontman Adam Thompson stepping away from the mic to shout into the abyss. Baby-faced and stocky, Thompson bears a resemblance to Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, if he played for his local prep school's junior varsity football team. From just looking at him, you wouldn't expect such intensity to come pouring out. But Jetpacks played like they were running a long distance marathon, eyes focused straight ahead, songs like "Quiet Little Voices" and "It's Thunder and It's Lightning" rushing forth in steady torrents of emotion. They barely stopped for a breather throughout their 40-minute set, bulldozing everything in their path... including Frightened Rabbit.

Frightened Rabbit [The Parish; 12:00 a.m.]


Ah, the fickle hype cycle. No longer the flavor of the minute, Frightened Rabbit watched a good portion of the crowd leave after We Were Promised Jetpacks. But they were proud, not mad; frontman Scott Hutchison remarked that he was surprised to find his band on a bill after Jetpacks, a position he never imagined being in again. Frightened Rabbit's latest album, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, isn't as deliciously devastating as their 2008 breakthrough, The Midnight Organ Fight, but it still packs a hefty punch. These guys can do uplift and redemption almost as well as they do sinking in the muck and the mire. "Nothing Like You", probably the closest potential radio single these guys are ever going to get, is a most excellent crowd shout-along, while the loveliness of "Swim Until You Can't See Land" and "Skip the Youth" wasn't diminished by the rowdiness of the live setting. But still, coming after We Were Promised Jetpacks, Frightened Rabbit seemed less hungry, less driven, less ferocious, and a little too comfortable.

Maluca [Mi Casa Cantina; 1:00 a.m.]

Up-and-coming NYC rapper/singer/dancer/fashion plate Maluca has the looks (Neneh Cherry at an 80s Danceteria tribute night), the swagger, and the connections (she's signed to Diplo's Mad Decent label, Diplo produced her first single, "El Tigareso", and Mad Decent's Paul Devro served as her backup DJ for this performance). She's got the moves, sipping an audience member's beer and bringing up a guy to serve as a human mic stand while she played cowbell, in between gyrations. She's even got future-militaristic backup dancers and choreography. Not to mention an enticing hip-hop/disco/merengue/salsa/reggaeton sound.

But does Maluca have real talent? It didn't seem so last night. Her voice is thin and anonymous, and her songs all kind of blend together. Sure, it's early in her career, and plenty of people have gone awfully far on less than what she's got. She's trying for something cool; it will be interesting to watch how she develops.

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Photos by Tom Breihan; Above: The Walkmen

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

Nas and Damian Marley [Levis/FADER Fort; 7:30 p.m.]

It's always nice when your special surprise guests are actually a surprise, and actually special. Nas and Damian Marley headlined last year's Rock the Bells tour together, and they know how to work crowds, both separately and in tandem. When they rushed onstage to a delirious ovation, you could see actual chemistry at work. Marley somehow finds a way to balance forbidding stentorian stature with giddy energy, and Nas looked way more lively next to him than he did the time I saw him onstage with Jay-Z a few years back. The two were ostensibly in town to flog Distant Relatives, their forthcoming collaborative album, and their new stuff sounded solid if not spectacular. But they also found room for plenty of classic material in their brief headlining set: "One Mic"! "Welcome to Jamrock"! "Made You Look"! Marley growling flame over DJ Premier's eternally badass "N.Y. State of Mind" beat! And, in a shameless and effective moment, Nas's "One Love" transitioning into Marley's dad's "One Love", the latter of which caused probably the biggest singalong I'll hear all week.

's; 8:45 p.m.]

The Walkmen are so good at what they do, in fact, that I was mystified by the completely dead crowd at Stubb's. No big singalong for "In the New Year". No whoop of excitement for the guitar blood-rush that opens "The Rat". No impressed hum whenever Leithauser would peel off another majestic moan. No one seemed to be paying attention. And this crowd was there for Spoon, a band that you'd think would be a perfect fit for this one.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings [Stubb's; 9:45 p.m.]


The Sharon Jones live experience has been drawing critical hosannas for about as long as it's been happening, but this was my first exposure, and I have to say: yeah, pretty awesome. I resisted the whole retro package for a while, but it's hard to argue when you actually see Jones strut her way onstage, wearing the hell out of a sparkly green mini-dress (St. Patrick's Day, see) and pulling off some truly slick footwork in alarmingly skinny heels. The band is tight enough to make its 1960s affectations sound less like affectations, but it's really up to Jones to sell the whole show, and does she ever sell it.

Parts of the show (the "This Land Is Your Land" cover, the ritual of dirty-dancing with an audience member) came off a bit forced. But others, like Jones' guided tour through every dance craze you could name, were pure giddy joy. And watching her live, it's impossible to ignore how much physical effort she puts into her show, a great thing to see when you've gotten too used to dudes with guitars standing stock-still.

Trash Talk [Red 7; 11:00 p.m.]

A few minutes before this terrifying Sacramento hardcore band took the stage, Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham told me that Trash Talk has "the most violent pits I've ever seen." That's a more powerful endorsement than anything I could offer, but this band definitely won my night through sheer brutalizing menace. This was SXSW, so it's not like people in the crowd were ripping each other's heads off, but I did see more stagediving, spinkicking, and fighting over a broken mic during their set than I saw during the entirety of SXSW 2009. More to the point, the band themselves just drip contempt in all directions, even when they're not playing a note.

The music, which lurches without warning from basement-ready crustpunk blur to agonizingly slow doom-metal riffage, just slayed. But it was almost secondary to the physical experience of being in the same room as these guys. Even between songs, frontman Lee Spielman staggers around and glowers right through the audience. He's a scary dude. During one song, he climbed a rickety speaker stack and then somersaulted off, and bassist Spencer Pollard soon followed. And while he was announcing the last song of the band's too-brief set, Spielman demanded that someone in the audience "jump off that fucking speaker." Nobody did. Trash Talk are playing a bunch more shows this week, and I've got half a mind to catch all of their sets, just to see if somebody takes Spielman up on any of his challenges.

Trae [La Zona Rosa; 12:20 a.m.]


The walk between the Mohawk, where I caught the tail end of a set from stringy-haired Montreal stoner-rockers Priestess, and La Zona Rosa is a good mile and a half. For plenty of people, SXSW is mostly just a great excuse to get drunk in public. And when St. Patrick's Day falls during SXSW, you're pretty much guaranteed to see some serious shit if you spend a while walking downtown. For instance: On "The Office" last week? When the Nard Dog wore his sister's old field hockey skirt as a kilt? Apparently, at least a few dudes thought that was a good idea.

At the sticky-hot La Zona Rosa, a cloud of weed-smoke obscured the stage as Houston street-rap veteran Trae proved how great Texas rap crowds really are. On record, Trae is a beast of a rapper, switching between a gravelly hangdog singsong and a vicious double-time cadence without hesitation. Onstage, though, he stands stock still, rapping over his own prerecorded vocals and surrounded by a huge crowd of dudes. Not exactly a dazzling display of showmanship, but it didn't much matter because the crowd warbled the choruses of songs like "No Help" and "Swang" right along with him. And in the set's greatest moments, Trae gave up the mic entirely, letting the crowd do his rapping for him. Texan fans are dedicated like that.

Paul Wall and Chamillionaire [La Zona Rosa; 1:00 a.m.]


Way before they made their respective dents in the pop charts, Paul and Chamillionaire released Get Ya Mind Correct, a 2002 collaborative album that I hold very dear. In a region better known for ruminative tough guys, this duo wore SpongeBob t-shirts, refused to cuss, and used synthetic beats to kick gleefully ridiculous punchlines. But as the duo splintered and started spitting subliminal disses at each other, their solo music lost the sneaky, playful humor that once defined them, even as both found success. So I was good and amped to see these two sharing a stage together.

And yeah, it was great seeing them up there, apologizing to each other semi-sincerely for past transgressions and looking delighted to have axes buried. But the reunion hasn't magically reminded these two of the cleverness that made them great in the first place, so we had to sit through a good hour of every goofy-ass minor hit that either one ever rapped on. Like remember "King Kong" by Jibbs? No? Well, Chamillionaire rapped on it, and he's happy to remind you. And Paul rapped on Nelly's "Grillz"; same deal. They spent a depressingly tiny portion of their shared set unearthing Get Ya Mind Correct tracks, and even less offering any indication that they might return to that album's glories. A real disappointment.

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Last week when we tipped you off to yet another entry in Beck's Record Club series, we had some idea of the guests that would be involved (St. Vincent's Annie Clark, Liars, Os Mutantes) but no clue about which album they had picked to cover. Well, now we know: INXS' huge-selling 1987 album, Kick. Check out their jam session on album opener "Guns in the Sky" below the jump, or over at Vimeo. (via TwentyFourBit)

UPDATE: Looks like the video has been removed.

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Photos by Ryan Dombal. Above: Flying Lotus

Tom Breihan's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Ryan Dombal's SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat
Amy Phillips' SXSW Reports: Wed | Thu | Fri |Sat

During the first few minutes of my SXSW 2010 experience, I was heckled ("faggots run that way!" some bonehead yelled from his car as I rushed around 7th St.) and propositioned ("I'll write you a song for a dollar," begged an uber-DIY act trolling downtown Austin). Clearly, I was not in New York anymore.

[Stubb's; 12:15 a.m.]

Considering its gratuitously lo-fi treatment on record, the should-be indie hit "Trouble Comes Running" blasted off in earnest live. On the flip side, previous indie hit "The Underdog" fizzled, largely thanks to its signature horn riff being replaced by dinky piano plinks. Obviously, Spoon don't need to play SXSW-- they didn't have anything to prove to the packed Stubb's audience, who were generally beaming with unconditional love (possibly a by-product of St. Patrick's Day drink specials). And they didn't prove much aside from what we already know. Spoon don't play bad gigs, and they probably won't send you home sweating, either. Ah, the perils of unflappable reliability.

Flying Lotus [The Phoenix; 1:15 a.m.]


Future-thinking producer and DJ Flying Lotus (né Steven Ellison) did send people home sweating. And not only because the Phoenix was particularly sweltering. Though he mixes hip-hop, dubstep, drum and bass, and Radiohead into a continuously surprising and challenging flow, he never forgets to keep the beat moving. So the crowd at this Warp showcase wasn't just filled with nerds appreciating the complexity of a certain swath of sequencing. There were people (including girls!) dancing in a very passable manner. No mystery bee sting moves here.

All the credit goes to Ellison, who is one of the more performative DJs out there. He's not checking his BlackBerry every 30 seconds while reviving the same mashups over and over-- this guy gets into it. He strikes Hulk-like poses at big moments and is constantly flashing a wide smile that can be infectious. He talks just enough, mostly just to reiterate his gratitude-- he seemed genuinely shocked to get a crowd in Austin, Texas, so hyped. And his incredulity is not unfounded. FlyLo's music is not easy; it's not four-on-the-floor. But it retains just enough of the sounds that people are used to hearing in clubs while taking them to uncharted places. At the end of his set, he shook a bunch of hands including one particularly moist one. His reaction to the sweat was priceless: half grossed-out, half proud.  

CHEW LiPS [Latitude 30; 9 p.m.]

London electro-pop newcomers CHEW LiPS are led by one-named singer Tigs, who already has "the pounce" onstage gesture down. She also already has a homemade-looking sweater adorned with minimal bedazzles. Plus: the voice, the "walking on top of the bar during the last song" move, the crystallized tear falling from the corner of her eye, the two guys to either side that make beats akin to Hot Chip and Little Boots, the severe blondness, the polite modesty. But her graciousness was spiked with a world-conquering smirk. Though she asked the lip-syncing crowd "How do you know the words to these songs?" (the group's debut LP, Unicorn, has yet to be officially released in the U.S.), the question was tempered with a knowing look that seemingly said, "You will know all the words to these songs even better next time." She's confident and, based on CHEW LiPS's stellar sounding/looking/feeling gig at Latitude 30, she's got every reason to be. The tracks came off markedly better onstage than streaming on a computer-- a good sign. And with a fully-formed personality front and center, it seems silly to doubt them.

Beaches [Submerged; 11 p.m.]


If the Melbourne, Australia-based all-girl rock group Beaches were based in, say, Brooklyn, you would probably have heard about them by now. Their lo-fi style-- Sonic Youth plus stoner rock plus the dearly missed Electrelane-- fits in with indie trends without coming off as blatantly trendy, despite the wave-lapping name. Truth be told, there's not much sun here-- more like light filtered down through smog. Their music is steeped in reverb and psych signifiers and, live, they're a distorted whirl, with three guitars that are used often and four mic stands that are used less often. There's no center to their haze, everyone just pitches in. They don't write songs as much as they conjure jams with chords piling up and voices a mere atmospheric afterthought. During their set, we learned that they "like Austin more than Seattle" (why not) and they're not against bringing a dude on stage to hunch over plumber-style and hold the bass drum in place (a cinder block was eventually found). They really do pronounce beer "be-yah," too. Beaches looked happy to be here, soaking it all in.

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Last month we tipped you off to some big-name guest stars set to appear on the upcoming Flying Lotus LP, Cosmogramma, and now we've got our first taste of the Thom Yorke collab "...And the World Laughs With You", which has a brief vocal hook sung by the Radiohead frontman that's looped around one of the L.A. producers typically lush and static-y beats. At just under two minutes (might be an early fade), it's painfully brief, but it is getting us excited about FlyLo's follow up to 2008's excellent Los Angeles. This is labeled as a radio rip from Mary Anne Hobbs' Radio 1 show. Thanks to Travis Sedore for the tip.

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