Wednesday Sleepers
The Chronicle sez see these SXSW acts directly afterwards
Fri., March 9, 2007
The Soul of John Black
8pm, Continental Club Delving deeper into blues on his second album, The Good Girl Blues, John Bigham gives the music a funky, modern burnish without sacrificing its strong southern roots. The L.A.-based soul man is a left-handed guitar slinger but also put in time as a percussionist with Miles Davis. – Jay Trachtenberg
Chris Letcher
8pm, Red 7 South African songwriter Chris Letcher, who currently studies music composition for film at the Royal College of Music in London, composes avant-pop through a Spectorian scope. His fifth LP, Frieze, is like a delicate ice sculpture whose beauty must be appreciated from a distance. – Austin Powell
Shapes Have Fangs
8pm, Lava Lounge Patio Just in case you're Wincing the Night Away about no longer being able to see the Shins in a moderately sized venue, give Austin's Shapes Have Fangs a try. Dustin Coffey's mercurially pitched vocals slide down Chutes Too Narrow, moments of garage-pop rawness on SHF's upcoming debut establishing a bit of their own "New Slang." – Doug Freeman
Simple Kid
8pm, Copa On Ciaran McFeely's follow-up to 1, the Irish songwriter takes his folktronic Britpop to the next level. 2 to be precise. What he lacks in creative naming, McFeely, aka Simple Kid, amends with music that's complex: slacker-smart lyrics, electronic indulgences, Parsons-esque country, and Kinks-ian pop. In America, we call it Beck. – Doug Freeman
Le Meu Le Purr
8:30pm, Habana Calle 6 Distorted but clean guitars. Precision rhythm. Shout singing. Are we to postmodern rock yet? The trio's A New Canvas is out on TVT this year. Faster, le pussycat. But don't kill. – Michael Bertin
Ola Podrida
8:45pm, Mohawk Patio Brooklyn/Austin-based David Wingo garnered attention scoring acclaimed indie films George Washington and All the Real Girls, and his songs on Ola Podrida's self-titled debut, due in April on Plug Research, have a distinct cinematic flair of their own. The quintet, which features American Analog Set's Andrew Kenny on bass, builds beautifully visceral narratives through detailed imagery à la Iron & Wine. – Doug Freeman
Krista L.L. Muir
9pm, Ale House Armed only with a baritone ukulele, Montreal's Krista Muir – the L.L. stands for her better-known alter ego, Lederhosen Lucil – plucks through songs about ... well, we don't know. Our French sucks. These aren't your grandpa's island ukulele tunes, though. – Darcie Stevens
Those Peabodys
9pm, Lava Lounge Patio Raised on Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, Austin's Those Peabodys embody generations' worth of binge drinking. A power trio following the departure of the Sword's J.D. Cronise, the band is currently recording their long-overdue follow-up to belligerent 2003 full-length Unite Tonight with Erik Wofford. Just keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N. – Austin Powell
Lodger
9pm, Uncle Flirty's Loft Alternating between faraway somnambulant pop and skittish techno bubblegum music, Helsinki-based Lodger brings a markedly Beck-ian skew to catchy confections like "I Love Death" and "Two Smiles Is a Long Walk." Lodger's U.S. debut, Hi-Fi High Lights Down Low, comes out on Ryko this month. – Greg Beets
Best Fwends
9pm, Beauty Bar Two boys, one iPod, and a roll of cellophane and/or banana hammocks: Austin/Fort Worth's Best Fwends are spastic, silly, hyperrhythmic monsters. Last summer's second Moshi Moshi 7-inch, Alphabetically Arranged, is retarded pop for Adderall-addicted preteen virgins on a bender. – Darcie Stevens
Mezklah
9:10pm, Opal Divine's Freehouse Between Angel Garcia's muscular vocals and Greg Hernandez's guitar, these L.A. wizards conjure a bold stew that bubbles with drum 'n' bass, reggaeton, and a big dollop of Afro-Cuban rhythms they call "tribal electronica." SpiderMonkey is their remarkable first album, garnished with dense lyrics that are playful and thought-provoking. – Belinda Acosta
Langhorne Slim
9:30pm, Beauty Bar Patio The last time Langhorne Slim passed through Texas, his band's 90-year-old upright bass was demolished when cops stormed the Two Gallants show in Houston. The Brooklyn songwriter continued undeterred, churning folk-pop filtered through Neil Young's nasal twang, as heard on his Narnack debut. Working toward his follow-up on new label V2, Langhorne released the more mellow Engine EP last fall. – Doug Freeman
Blacklist
9:45pm, Elysium We Austinites know James Minor as current Voxtrot manager, but after a few years in NYC, he's become the guitarist in black-clad retro-rockers Blacklist. The reverb-loving fourpiece has a knack for dramatic dynamics, leading into last year's self-titled EP. Now with Interpol's former manager in tow, expect alt-goth ruminations on death and dying. – Darcie Stevens
Monsters are Waiting
10pm, Friends This quartet from L.A.'s Echo Park released its debut LP, Fascination (Retone), last summer and with it scored a solid seven on the "I saw them when" scale. Pushing that number toward the high side is frontwoman Annalee Grey as she's got total it-girl qualities. Her childlike-but-sultry voice punctuates the playful cool of the band's hypno-indie sound. – Michael Bertin
Praise the Twilight Sparrow
10pm, Momo's Migrating from the Netherlands to Louisiana and back again, PTTS, an unsigned act led by Pascal Hallibert – formerly of Templo Diez – culls Appalachian folk music with broken wings. – Austin Powell
Holy Shit!
10pm, Redrum There's something admirable about a band that, in eight letters and one piece of punctuation, write off any shot at mainstream commercial success. The Milwaukee quartet's hardcore punk is a perfect fit for anyone with the attention span of a ferret on crack. – Michael Bertin
A Northern Chorus
10pm, Buffalo Billiards The chamber pop of Ontario's A Northern Chorus fills in the gaps with silence and tension. Fourth release The Millions Too Many (Sonic Unyon) fuses the foundations of pop with violin and cello, creating an expansive collaboration of drama and joy. – Darcie Stevens
CPC Gangbangs
10pm, Lava Lounge Patio If you begin with an offensive name, does everything just fall into place? Montreal garage punk fourpiece CPC Gangbangs just wants to tear shit up. Their newest consideration, a split with fellow Montreal punks the Confusers, blasts back to late-Eighties hardcore with just a hint of the MC5. – Darcie Stevens
White Denim
10pm, Blender Bar @ the Ritz It takes a certain amount of unconcerned hipster panache to pull off a faux pas such as white denim, and the same is true of the relatively new Austin post-punkers' sound as well. The group threads primal rhythms with glam and riotous chanting that manage to still move a dance floor. – Doug Freeman
KJ Hines
10:05pm, Visions Austin's KJ Hines exudes the youthful enthusiasm necessary to pull off rap music as something fun rather than as something so vain it makes you sick. Not that KJ's teenage swagger doesn't come across as determinedly cocky, but his single "Capital City" received so many repeated spins on local outlets that the unifying effect of the song excuses any possible narcissism on his behalf. – Robert Gabriel
The Early Years
10:15pm, Emo's Jr. Led by the dual guitar front of David Malkinson and Roger Mackin, who share an affinity for pedals and delay effects, this London trio's eponymous debut on Beggars Banquet constructs reverb-drenched space pop through expansive sonic soundscapes of post-rock. – Austin Powell
K-Rino and South Park Coalition
10:30pm, Visions Take a serious look back to where Houston rap acquired its pensive "never seen a man cry 'til I seen a man die" personality and you'll discover from the get-go it was K-Rino and South Park Coalition steering it along that self-reflective path. Klondike Kat and Dope-E dissect hood predicaments with razor-sharp precision. – Robert Gabriel
Finally Punk
10:50pm, Habana Calle 6 Patio Boasting members of the Sixties-girl-group-inspired Carrots, Austin's Finally Punk takes sweet to task. The female foursome unleashes minute-long scrawls of riot grrrl fury, trading instruments and turns screaming into the mic. – Doug Freeman
The Postmarks
11pm, Blender Bar @ the Ritz This Miami trio, led by the fragile voice of female Tim Yehezkely, introduces Blonde Redhead to indie pop. The result is a Sunday morning daydream. The Postmarks' new, self-titled debut on Unfiltered Records surrounds Yehezkely's whisper with horns, strings, and beautifully arranged songs about the weather. – Darcie Stevens
Kidz in the Hall
11pm, Visions Chicago's Naledge (Jabari Evans) and Jersey DJ Double-O (Michal Aguilar) started the collaboration that became Kidz in the Hall when the former met the latter on a recruiting trip to the University of Pennsylvania. While there's plenty of "Yeah … yeah …" on 2006 debut School Was My Hustle, the total package is far more musical than your average hip-hop. – Michael Bertin
The Big Sleep
11pm, Red Eyed Fly With a narcotic drone of tremors, feedback, and brooding bass, the Big Sleep channel pure Evol with Sonic Youth-style rave-ups and crashing come-downs. The Brooklyn threesome's Frenchkiss full-length, Son of the Tiger, capitalizes on their promising debut EP, You Today, Me Tomorrow, with largely instrumental avant-rock textures. – Austin Powell
Uncle Monk
11pm, Momo's From the ashes of the Ramones comes ... a bluegrass band. Tommy Ramone's second act is Uncle Monk, a duo he co-fronts with vocalist/guitarist Claudia Tienan. The upstate New York act's debut is due May 22.
– Jim Caligiuri
Thunderbirds Are Now!
12mid, Red Eyed Fly Thunderbirds Are Now! is less a band than an experience. The Detroit quartet has released two EPs and two LPs with Frenchkiss, the most recent being last year's Make History, but the true hallmark of the band is their live shows, which routinely spill members and instruments from the stage and into the equally frenzied crowd. – Doug Freeman
Rebuilding the Rights of Statues
12mid, Spiros The Albini-esque post-punk herk 'n' jerk of Beijing trio RTROS skanks on Ma Hui's Eighties backbeat, Liu Min's Eighties basslines, and Hua Dong's Eighties Brit-wave yelp. May's Cut Off! EP (Tag Team Records) unsettles like a cold night in a Chicago drunk tank. – Raoul Hernandez
Honeycut
12mid, Friends Bart Davenport's white-boy falsetto oozes Boz Scaggs with dollops of Lambchop and Shuggie Otis in this tuneful take on Seventies soul. Live, the manic fwapping of RV Salters on synth and Tony Sevener's concussive paw pummeling of an MPC (vs. pre-sequenced beats), proves this SF combo more thrashy than their satiny 2006 The Day I Turned to Glass (Quannum) might imply.
– Kate X Messer
Holy Fuck
12mid, Beauty Bar Don't confuse Toronto's Holy Fuck with Toronto's Fucked Up. Sure, they've both got fucking cool names and share the same fucking hometown. But the fucking similarities end there. Holy Fuck is fucking out there: improvised electronic music without the aid of standard genre crutches (laptops, tape loops). – Michael Bertin
The Glass Family
12mid, Room 710 Austin fivepiece the Glass Family is more than just Salinger fiction. Michael Winningham's songwriting dives into love and life and left a knowing impression with 2005's textural Sleep Inside This Wheel (I Eat Records). With a newbie on the horizon, the Family promises greatness beyond trite pop. – Darcie Stevens
Peter, Bjorn & John
12:30am, La Zona Rosa Although their infectious single "Young Folks" was blogger gold last year, Peter (Moren), Bjorn (Yttling), and John (Erikkson) are hardly a flash in the pan. The Swedes' third LP, Writer's Block, makes its stateside debut on new imprint Almost Gold, simple as the group's name. – Doug Freeman
1986
12:45am, Habana Calle 6 1986's name begs a brief history lesson. It's the year before the Replacements' Pleased to Meet Me and Dinosaur Jr.'s You're Living All Over Me. Who knows why it's not 1987, but the trio led by sometime Austinite (and Rosebuds bassist) Giorgio Angelini is vintage alt-rock all the way, fuzzed-out melodies in fine form on 2006 debut Nihilism Is Nothing to Worry About (Palentine). – Christopher Gray
Hayseed Dixie
1am, Momo's Founded on the premise that heavy songs (OutKast, Green Day, Franz Ferdinand) could be bluegrassed, North Carolina/Nashville quartet Hayseed Dixie has – thanks to this year's Weapons of Grass Destruction (Dualtone) – made it to seven albums. AC/DC are fans, too. – David Lynch
Ume
1am, Tap Room @ Six If the petite Lauren Langner Larson were walking down the street nonchalantly, you'd have no clue of her Kim Gordonness. Onstage with her Austin trio, Larson freaks out, blond hair flailing, guitar light as air. With her husband Eric on bass and Jeff Barrera on drums, Larson's Ume is a reckoning force, as evidenced on 2005's debut, Urgent Sea (Pretty Activity). – Darcie Stevens
Black Moth Super Rainbow
1am, Blender Balcony Bar @ the Ritz A colorful electronic outfit from Pennsylvania, Black Moth Super Rainbow, whose members go by aliases Power Pill Fist, Tobacco, and Fatherhummingbird, uses vintage instrumentation. Completing a remarkable collaboration with Austin's the Octopus Project, The House of Apples & Eyeballs, they're set to release their sugary sweet third LP, Dandelion Gum. – Austin Powell
