Ah, Emo’s on an Austin afternoon. The conglomeration of hipsters, the ridiculous name and the sort of street bazaar layout of the place always make me feel a little trepidatious. However, the mood on Friday was instantly put into perspective when I came across a group of maybe nine guys all posing for a photo together with several people snapping shots of them – was this some kind of fraternal organization? Maybe they were semi-famous? As it turned out, they were total strangers who all happened to be wearing plaid shirts. “Badass shirt, dude!” I heard one joke to another. They laughed and bantered to each other, “You’re a stylish motherfucker too!”
The normal rule for those living in Austin these days is, there’s no need to go out of your way to see the hundreds of the local bands playing. However, when the psyche instrumental group Octopus Project is putting on the HEXADECAGON, a limited run special event that involves eight channels of audio and eight more of video, blended together into a psyche concoction so powerful it sent the Project out hustling a corporate sponsor for the first time. Two shows only, free, all ages, all freaks welcome. You bet Austin turned out for this one.
Glass Candy turned out a dance freak fantastique set at the Mad Decent Carniville Friday night. The whirl of neon and bright, festive lights flashing in the background synched naturally with the hard buzz of the electronics as the band kicked off their set. The electro-disco music Glass Candy cranks out reminds me of neon black light posters of Lamborghinis. Ida No and Johnny Jewel know how to make you throw down. We caught up with Jewel for a quick Q&A as he hauled equipment off stage.
You hear the sort of terms that music critics might throw around for a band like Men, and they might tend to sound over-inflated. Terms like electro-punk or dance collective. These sort of labels don’t really take into account that Men are a good goddamn time. The three-piece fronted by Le Tigre’s JD Samson was at turns hilarious, subversive, cool and flat out fun. Samson greeted the freezing crowd with plenty of appreciation and the band started to pull into gear. Men sounds like all kinds of crazy thrown together and twisted around. Halting, Kraftwerk style singing with some of the dance bounce and bravado of classic Devo or Talking Heads.
The consummate man-behind-the-curtain, Diplo, aka Wes Pentz, has been responsible for the rise of pop musicians like MIA, Blaqstarr and Santogold, a record label (Mad Decent) and one of today’s most hyped acts, Major Lazer. So it was pretty fitting that I was able to slip into the depths of the Mexican-American Cultural Center for a few minutes with one of modern music’s most influential heads. He’s done this a million times already and is cool and collected, friendly and far from flapped even though we spoke in the midst of what I was later told was an extremely hectic time.
Imagine basically living on a bus. Traveling from town to city to college, a vagrant, a nomad, a castaway soaking in the hardscrabble tales of this country. Putting in work, with no time to shave or shower or change your clothes even. That’s how Juiceboxxx does his thing, man, and he’s proud to say he’s been doing it since he was 15. The Juicer climbed aboard Carniville’s stage on the coldest day of South-by and still managed to get the crowd roiling screaming with a hoarse voice to turn up the sound, “I’m 23 and already deaf man, turn it up!” Juiceboxxx flung himself around the crowd, on speakers, on stage, on top of a security guard wearing a neck kerchief and cowboy hat. After the show, I caught up with him to ask some quick questions while he was packing up his backpack next to the stage.
The first hard rays of Austin’s afternoon sun were going to have to work a bit harder to beat back the crowd at Carniville on Thursday afternoon. As it was, the heat was no match for the lure of free beer, a wild musical lineup, actual carny rides and corndogs. Those assembled quickly formed the beer recyler line – that is getting in line for a beer, then getting to the back of the line, drinking it in time to get a refill. Surely not a great combination with the Tilt-aPuke spinning madly in the background. In the background, DJ Paul Devroe spun some slow southern fried rap cuts, perfectly made for such lazy sun drenched and immobile afternoons. The line started swaying and jiggling, and just waiting for something to really catch hold.
Jacob Cottingham is from Louisville, Kentucky and moved to Austin a year and a half ago after traveling the county for 10 months in a vintage Airstream. He writes about politics, the environment, music and culture for a variety of publications. He’s published a weekly crime newspaper, edited a regional lifestyle magazine and was ghost writer for a book about airlines. In 2007 he received an award for Best Series from the Magazine Association of the Southeast. His favorite freelance job of the last two years was penning ridiculous “How To” articles for eHow.com, which included such gems as “How to Easily Fool A Child” and “How to Build a Ship That Sinks.” A graduate of Bard College, Cottingham is currently a columnist for 303 Magazine in Denver.
The Postelles are living the dream. Four friends from Columbia Prep high school get together, have a genuine rock star produce their album, tour the world and pull down praise from five year olds and grannies alike.
They are currently in the studio finishing up their first full length. Before they could even begin digging into brunch, the Postelles were fielding multiple interviews. I sat down with Billy Cadden and John Speyer to take some uncomfortable photos and hear about their SXSW – which was only about 45 minutes old. Here’s what I learned.
If Bigelf was a sex act, lead singer and keyboardist Damon Fox says they would be 69, “you’re giving and receiving, it’s a good flow of pleasure.” On Friday the band was metaphorically in the alley bent over, giving it away like a boozed up skank. Fox jokes that the psychedlic rock group’s “gigantic surge of sexy wattage” was responsible for blowing the power – literally. As the band was mid-song, toward the end of their set, the power at the famously friendly Rusty Spur went out. It’s not the first time Bigelf has sucked a venue dry – Fox says they’ve blown the power out at the Viper Room, a venue in Sweden and about a dozen other times. It’s no surprise when you consider the amps needed to power a Vintage Hammond C3, a vintage melatron, a mini-moog, a Groupamster Echoplex and several other analog oddities.
Anyone close enough to feel the sound waves thrown from Bigelf’s stage can’t help but notice a delicately placed Yoda figure perched on top of the keys. The Yoda, “harnesses the evil forces,” says Fox who makes sure to keep the sci-fi zen master close at hand. Tonight, the band was almost without the Force. “We were leaving tonight to park the van and I didn’t have him… so I went back to open the trailer and get him out because I realized that tonight was going to be one of those specifically chaotic, heinous nights and I needed Yoda. Do or do not, there is no try.” Read the full story →
