Slo-Mo Video Show
Slo-Mo Video Show NR, 100 min. Directed by Various. Take 100, one-minute-long, slow-motion videos and what do you have? Come see for yourself at the Slo-Mo Video show, as this unique compilation is called. More than 70 international video artists and filmmakers are included in this program, which sent out a call for entry on…
The Fly
He’s half-man, half-insect, and all Cronenberg and Goldblum.
TCB
Out of the Closet Some things, like childbirth, the Houston Astros in the World Series, and R. Kelly live in concert, must be seen firsthand to be believed. Friday night, the embattled Chicago R&B crooner drove the roaring, overwhelmingly female Bass Concert Hall audience completely bananas with rapid-fire litanies of clubs, hotels, afterparties, and sex,…
Phases and Stages
Kelley StoltzRed Eyed Fly, Friday, March 17 San Francisco bard Kelley Stoltz is a funny guy. You see the cover of his latest album, Below the Branches (Sub Pop), and you think maybe he’s a Ben Folds or a John Mayer. Instead, you get psychedelic freak-outs, bucolic folk, and a love of the Velvet Underground,…
SXSW Film
Experimental ShortsD: various Reynold Reynolds’s “Stadtplan” opens the Experimental Shorts program, a hypnotic, split-screen and time-lapsed trip through Berlin, where the divide running down the images stands in stead for the long-separated country. Conversely, Wenhua Shi’s “Endless” is punishing and powerful, fractured, throbbing corpuscles of animation over arcane footage of forgotten rituals, a theatre-rattling drone…
Ballroom Dancing
SXSW Interview: Billy BraggAustin Convention Center, Friday, March 17 Longtime fascist-fighter and sometime Woody Guthrie disciple Billy Bragg proved in a jocular interview with journalist Rick Karr that he doesn’t need a guitar to act the provocateur. Indeed, the veteran British showman, who’s celebrating the reissue of his career-making early discs, recently turned his energy…
Phases and Stages
Mika Uchizato/Keisho OhnoCreekside EMC at Capitol Place, Friday, March 17 AfrirampoFlamingo Cantina, Friday, March 17 Japanese artists represented in full-force on Friday night, which is not to say that some of the nation’s musical charms were not lost in translation. Regardless, it took just two out of five acts at Japan Traditional Night in the…
SXSW Film
Fired!D: Chris Bradley & Kyle Labrache It sucks to be fired. The shame, embarrassment, and failure cloud every day. But as time passes, humor heals. Annabelle Gurwitch was fired by cultural icon Woody Allen, Gurwitch’s first slap in the face. While most of us wish we could be so lucky, Gurwitch felt this unknown misery…
Ballroom Dancing
Quantum Music Analysis (QMA) of Hit Songs Austin Convention Center, Friday, March 17 To some, Mike McCready is a savior-in-waiting. To others, he’s Satan incarnate – at least as far as music-making goes. McCready’s company, Platinum Blue Music Intelligence, has a computer program that determines which overlapping characteristics (“optimal mathematical properties”) are most often found…
Phases and Stages
Gogol Bordello
SXSW Film
JamD: Mark Woollen The subjects of this compelling documentary are former roller derby stars from San Francisco’s glory days of the Bay City Bombers, but the real subject of the film is the human desire to leave a mark on the world: in this case, the skidmarks of a skate wheel. The recent renewed interest…
Ballroom Dancing
Rock the House: GRAMMY Town Hall Austin Convention Center, Friday, March 17 With five congresspersons in the houseâ the Recording Academy showed off some of its muscle for this discussion of the issues it’s passionate about. Unfortunately, as with most political gatherings, there seemed to be more rhetoric on the issues than concrete ideas. Among…
Phases and Stages
Elijah Wood and Harry Knowles
SXSW Film
loudQUIETloud: A Film About the PixiesD: Steven Cantor & Matthew Galkin This fly-on-the-wall account of the titular rock gods’ 2004 reunion tour isn’t about how great the Pixies are. It’s about who the Pixies are. Ten years and some change after the band’s breakup, guitarist Joey Santiago is scoring a documentary; alterna-queen bassist Kim Deal…
Day Party Crawl
Merge/Sub Pop Day PartyPok-e-Jo’s, Friday, March 17 There’s nothing like waking up on a cloudy day to horns, masks, and free beer. New Zealand sixpiece the Brunettes are Sub Pop’s version of Architecture in Helsinki – nothing but smiles and good times. San Francisco’s Kelley Stoltz kept to the Sixties path, bringing his indie rock…
Phases and Stages
Ray Davies at the Continental Club
SXSW Film
My Country, My Country (Mawtini, Mawtini)D: Laura Poitras Imagine the movie Casablanca is real. Imagine it takes place in Iraq today. Imagine Rick, the world-weary tavern owner with a secret heart of gold is instead a doctor struggling to help his people while surfing between the political lines. That’s the heart of My Country, My…
Day Party Crawl
Rjd2/Lady SovereignEmo’s/Waterloo Records, Friday, March 17 Was DJ Rjd2 serious when he qualified his selection of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Turn to Stone” as delivered by “the second best band of all time?” Maybe so, but coming from someone who played ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses” next to En Vogue’s “Never Gonna Get It,” it might not…
Phases and Stages
The Reatards
SXSW Film
The Other SideD: Bill Brown Essay films can bore even the most well-intentioned audience: Meandering thoughts disconnected from the images onscreen just don’t capture the attention like a straightforward story. But Bill Brown’s The Other Side does just that. As he travels along the U.S./Mexico border, his musings, juxtapositions of historical and contemporary curiosities, and…
Ballroom Dancing
RAY DAVIESAustin Convention Center, Friday, March 17 “You can get away from tax people, you can get away from ex-wives, but the back catalog is relentless,” mused Ray Davies at Friday’s words-and-music acoustic performance. As if to prove the point, Davies opened with the first few bars of “Waterloo Sunset” and then stopped, explaining, “That…
Day Party Crawl
Chunklet/Buddyhead/Monitor Records partyRoom Service/Sound on Sound, Friday, March 17 Sometimes all you need to cure a raging, soul-crushing hangover is a nice old-fashioned block party. As North Loop shops Sound on Sound and Room Service hosted the eight-hour tag-team Chunklet magazine/Buddyhead/Monitor Records soiree on Friday afternoon, those hangover cures could be seen all over: Tallboys…
Phases and Stages
Teenage Harlets
SXSW Film
Punk Like MeD: Zach Merck If you’ve ever played air guitar in your bedroom with the music cranked to jet-engine level, Punk Like Me is your film. Rich Wilkes is in his late 30s, married with child. But he never quite recovered from a deep, dark desire to become David Lee Roth, or his punkish…
Girls Can Tell
Not-So-Flatstock, If You Know What I Mean We kicked off the day with a visit to Flatstock 8, the rock-poster show that gathers more cred every year and continues today at the Convention Center, free, 11am-6pm. I wanted to check in with a few of the female artists on hand, simply because there are so…
Day Party Crawl
Aussie BBQBrush Square Park, Friday, March 17 So this is both an apology and a confession. First, I’d like to apologize to Western Australia’s Flairz, because you’re not even all teenagers and neither of the guys in the band has a voice that’s broke. I think I also wrote elsewhere that drummer Scarlett Stevens is…
Phases and Stages
Towers of London
SXSW Film
East of HavanaD: Jauretsi Saizabitoria & Emilia Menocal There is hope yet. In the northernmost curve of Cuba, our country’s stranger to the south, the capital of rap throbs under the weight of a million motivating words. Soandry, Magyori, and Mikki Flow are three cogs in Cuban hip-hop collective El Cartel: a group of revolutionaries…
My SXSW
Friday, March 17 Taxi to O’Hare, 6am flight, belt off, shoes off, “No that’s not a laptop.” I stumble, pants ’round ankles, into O’Plummet’s Pilot Lounge for a quick snort before the evil hometown stench of popcorn, pizza, and napalm drives us off to gate H59 and onto a packed flight to Denver, where we…
Phases and Stages
The Little WilliesTown Lake Stage at Auditorium Shores, Friday, March 17 If the multiplatinum-selling Norah Jones weren’t one of the singers in the Little Willies, they’d be just another band goofing around with well-known country songs. Instead of playing in front of a couple thousand adoring fans, the quintet probably would’ve played a SXSW day…
Phases and Stages
A buncha drunk bananas
SXSW Film
Sisters in LawD: Kim Longinotto & Florence Ayisi The festival brings us the second Cameroonian film to play Austin this month (the first was Les Saignantes, brought here by the Austin Film Society). These two films could not be more different. Les Saignantes presents a strange futuristic world in which women (Les Saignantes translates as…
The Insider
Sam Moore wants to make you feel good; just ask Springsteen
Phases and Stages
The Brakes/KooksBlender Bar at the Ritz, Friday, March 17 “See the World” with the Kooks, or, at the very least, Brighton, England, coastal wonderland and spawning ground of everyone from Norman “Still Fat, No Longer Boyish” Cook to the Electric Soft Parade. The Kooks follow that same seaside groove, mining the pure pop sensations of…
Phases and Stages
Austin’s South Filthy at Antones
SXSW Film
Slam Planet: War of the WordsD: Kyle Fuller and Mike Henry Slam Planet follows two top-notch slam teams from their hometowns of Austin and New York all the way to the titular battle (aka the 2004 National Poetry Slam). So what did co-directors Henry and Fuller teach this dismisser of the slamming arts? I learned…
Spotlight: Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk
Ivan Neville’s New Orleans Social Club
Phases and Stages
Real OnesThe Drink, Friday, March 17 Geographically and stylistically removed from the American pop axis, Bergen, Norway’s Real Ones obviously didn’t grow up being force-fed Eagles songs on the radio every 20 minutes. Perhaps that’s why they’re able to embrace soaring country-rock harmonies and intricate guitar/mandolin/banjo interplay with such eager aplomb. Whatever the reason, the…
Phases and Stages
KT Tunstall at Waterloo Records
SXSW Film
Things That Hang From TreesD: Ido Mizrahy; with Deborah Kara Unger, Daniel von Bargen, Cooper Musgrove, Ray McKinnon, Peter Gerety, Laila Robins Trash, mostly, is what hangs from the enormous Live Oak that sits outside Miss Millie’s diner in St. Augustine, Fla., circa 1969. That tree also serves as the staging crowd for some of…
Spotlight: The Jones Family Singers
Praise the Lord for the Jones Family Singers
Phases and Stages
Head of FemurHabana Calle 6, Friday, March 17 From the back of the room, Matt Focht and Mike Elsener, the two frontmen for Chicago’s Head of Femur, are easily doppelgangers for Trey Anastasio and Wayne Coyne. And in a weird way, it’s not a bad starting intersection for the band. Not that they sound like…
Phases and Stages
Super XX Man at Bella Blue Boutique & Gallery’s Peek-a-Boo party
SXSW Film
Medium Hot: ‘LOL’ The voicemail with no purpose is perhaps the best message of all. Certainly the one that Greta leaves for Chris in LOL makes for some sort of ideal, a heartfelt prose poem for his ears only, that must struggle just a bit not to touch base, plan a rendezvous, leave a number,…
Spotlight: Glass Eye
Austin’s Glass Eye reunites!
Phases and Stages
Isobel CampbellDirty Dog Bar, Friday, March 17 Love makes you do strange, unhealthy things, like stay under the spell of inappropriate partners for longer than you should. But then the spell breaks and you’re free. Isobel Campbell broke with longtime lover and Belle & Sebastian bandmate Stuart Murdoch a few years back and has since…
SXSW Film
2AMD: Korey Coleman; with Travis Ammons, Jeremy Denzlinger, Korey Coleman, Billy Brooks, Sonya Tsuchigane, Robert Henry, Jason Bohn, Mia Stitt-Selexman, Jennifer Matyear Without further ado, here is your official South by Southwest Film 06 Dialogue Quote of the Festival: “Where the fuck did you two meet up at? A gender name exchange program?” Austin filmmaker…
SXSW Film
Light and Dark: ‘Shadow Company’ It comes as no surprise that one of the more controversial documentaries at SXSW Film 06 homes in on one of the more controversial issues of a more than controversial war in Iraq. Private Military Companies – Private Security Companies, if you prefer, or soldiers of fortune, of hire, or…
Spotlight: What Made Milwaukee Famous
What Made Milwaukee Famous does pretty good for Austin, too
Phases and Stages
Robyn LudwickThe 18th Floor at Capitol Place, Friday, March 17 Let’s get this out of the way up front: Country songstress Robyn Ludwick’s family reunions are so musical they could sell admission tickets. Her hubby plays bass, her sisters-in-law are Kelly Willis and Dixie Chick Emily Robison, and her older brothers are Bruce and Charlie…
SXSW Film
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie VernonD: Scott Glosserman; with Nathan Baesal, Angela Goethals, Robert Englund, Scott Wilson, Zelda Rubinstein, Kate Lang Johnson, Britain Spellings Is it possible to do a slasher film today that isn’t self-reflexive? After Scream, is the horror flick that winks at horror flick icons old news? Not in Behind…
Spotlight: Lady Sovereign
‘I’m the little girl with a big voice.’
Phases and Stages
Great Lake Swimmers/PhosphorescentMaggie Mae’s, Friday, March 17 Tony Dekker is childlike and impressionable, but somehow, beneath his curly locks and focused eyes, there’s a wise old man peeking out. His voice is mentholated, a soothing memory of times long gone. Dekker’s trio, Great Lake Swimmers, is marvelous simplicity, a sanctuary from the bustling psychosis outside.…
SXSW Film
Dance Party, USAD: Aaron Katz; with Anna Kaven, Cole Pensinger, Ryan White, Sarah Bing, Natalie Buller, Brendan McFadden, Chad Hartigan, Bryna Smith Everyone’s been to a lame party where all the conversation is forced and all the goers are stoned. Dance Party, USA is that party drawn out in two days. Although it’s absolutely true…
Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party
Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party 2005, NR, 87 min. Directed by Robert Brinkmann. You know this actor even though you can’t place his name. He’s one of the hardest working men in show business, with more than 100 appearances in movies, not to mention his frequent stage and voice-over work. He’s a Dallas native who even…
Spotlight: Skullening
Welcome to Skullening’s loud, guitarless, screwball drama
Phases and Stages
Ponderosa StompContinental Club, Friday, March 17 “In another time and in another place, we could be so together.” Gulf Coast sentimentality endures the winds of change as artists from New Orleans to Galveston work to preserve long-standing traditions threatened by hurricane and physical displacement. Serving as the Ponderosa Stomp house band, Lafayette’s Lil Band o…
SXSW Film
FlyaboutD: Monika Petrillo “Isn’t there something amazingly beautiful about facing your fears and taking the plunge? Because even if you walk away with a black eye, your life will be enriched forever,” monologues Petrillo, as the Australian outback’s natural landscape unfolds like a painted dream below her single engine, self-piloted airplane. Leaving an unsatisfying job…
From ‘Voices of Valor,’ a Play by James E. Garcia
Hector Santa Anna, Miami, Ariz., pilot, U.S. Army Corps My great, great uncle was (in Spanish) General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. (a quick beat, a wry smile) I’m not kidding. The one from the Alamo. (offhanded) And he also was president of Mexico three or four times, I lose track. So our family’s “been…
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
THURSDAY PICKS All showcases subject to change MR. LIF5:30pm, Town Lake Stage @ Auditorium Shores In these days of political conservatism, few MCs are willing to take a dissident stand and stick with it. Displaying no such reluctance, Boston’s Mr. Lif paired with fellow Beantown rapper Akrobatik as the Perceptionists for 05’s Black Dialogue (Definitive…
SXSW Records
Rosanne Cash Black Cadillac (Capitol) In the two years that followed the release of Rosanne Cash’s last album, 2003’s Rules of Travel, she lost her father, Johnny; her stepmother, June Carter Cash; and her mother, Vivian Liberto Cash Distin. That the music on Black Cadillac deals with these events and the effect they had on…
SXSW Records
Corinne Bailey Rae(Goodgroove/EMI) It doesn’t take long to fall under the entrancing spell of this young English chanteuse. Literally, from the first mellifluous notes of “Like a Star” that open this debut, it’s apparent that Corinne Bailey Rae possesses an extra-special voice. Caressingly soulful and unpretentiously sublime, it’s an instrument that offers hints of Norah…
SXSW Records
The DoubleLoose in the Air (Matador) Despite their collective youth, perhaps the Brooklyn-based boys in the Double have learned a trick or two from the 17-year cyclical emergence of cicadas, since their original sound will be redundant – and only vaguely so – to those steeped in the earlier ambience of Sonic Youth and Pavement.…
News Flash
Here’s some surprising news: Nineteen Texans have landed on Forbes magazine’s 2006 list of the world’s richest people, and the majority of them are big contributors to Republican candidates and officeholders
Day Party Crawl
Emo’s IV Garage Rock PartyEmo’s, Thursday, March 16 With the Emo’s dynasty just having assumed control of a new room Tuesday – now they own the entire corner of Sixth and Red River – Emo’s IV was both spartan and loud. Lots of hard surfaces, and at 12:45pm, not much flesh to soak up the…
SXSW Life
HarMar Superstar (l) and Ben Webster at the Beauty Bar
SXSW Film
Suffering and Smiling D: Dan Ollman “Don’t be fooled,” shouts Femi Kuti to the enormous crowd that has gathered to mourn the death of his father, musician and activist Fela Kuti. “He beat the hell out of my father. Why? Because he was singing about things we still see today.” It is 1997, and Femi…
Musician of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: Britt Daniel, Bob Schneider, Guy Forsyth, Eliza Gilkyson, Eric Johnson, Scott Leger, John Pointer, James McMurtry, Charlie Sexton
Best Latin Traditional
RUNNERS-UP: Grupo Fantasma, Ruben Ramos, Cadaques, Alteza, Ghandaia, Bailengua, Maneja Beto, Cerronato, Dave Gonzales
Best Male Vocals
RUNNERS-UP: Britt Daniel, Scott Leger, Bob Schneider, Eric Johnson, Ray Benson, Kevin Fowler, John Pointer, Willy Braun, Malford Milligan
Best Radio Program
RUNNERS-UP: Bobby Bones Show, KISS; Eklektikos, John Aielli, KUT-FM; Lone Star State of Mind, Kevin Connor and Bobby Ray, KGSR; Bobby Ray, KGSR; Sam & Bob, KVET-FM; Folkways, KUT-FM; Morning X, Jason Dick 101X; Jazz, Etc, Jay Trachtenberg, KUT-FM; No Control, Chuck Loescher, 101X
SXSW Film Festival 2006
Something for everyone. See www.sxsw.com/film for full schedule.
‘Biscuit: A Retrospective’
Gallery Lombardi�s posthumous exhibition of 150 collages by local punk rock renaissance darling Randy Turner is a friendly walk through the brain of Biscuit
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
THURSDAY SLEEPERS All showcases subject to change BELAIRE7:30pm, Emo’s IV Everyone loves to dance and smile. Austin fourpiece Belaire is a collaboration between twin sisters Cari and Christa Palozzolo and Voxtrot’s Jason Chronis, but this isn’t dance punk. Caetano Veloso, Air, the Mosquitos, and Os Mutantes: melodic, bossa-nova indie pop. A 7-inch holdover, Haunted Castle…
SXSW Records
Band of HorsesEverything All the Time (Sub Pop) Nobody & Mystic Chords of MemoryTree Colored See (Mush) Not since Shins debut Oh, Inverted World and Beachwood Sparks’ Once We Were Trees distinguished themselves as twin valedictorians of Sub Pop’s class of 2001 has the Seattle indie sponsored a frontrunner like Band of Horses. Trading on…
SXSW Records
Kelley StoltzBelow the Branches (Sub Pop) On his enticing Sub Pop debut, Kelley Stoltz comes on like an acoustic killer, banging his piano like a soul soldier on opener “Wave Goodbye.” Somehow, Stoltz squeezes fresh sounds out of the track. Must be that piano, which anchors Below the Branches’ best cuts, although Stoltz is reportedly…
SXSW Records
Mates of StateBring It Back (Barsuk) While Mates of State’s first three albums could sometimes be as fun as mainlining sugar, it was hard to get away from the question: “Why are you yelling at us?” Maybe the husband-wife pair of Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel didn’t think they were being heard over the euphonic…
CPT Activist Killed in Iraq
Fox tried to mend country ripped apart by horrific violence
Day Party Crawl
Music From Ireland Presents: The Full Irish Breakfast B.D. Riley’s, Thursday, March 16 Okay, so it was the day before St. Paddy’s, but with brimming imperial pints and flowery brogues, no jury would convict you for mistaking the Full Irish Breakfast for the hallowed day. As welcome as bangers and mash on a hungover morning,…
SXSW Life
DJ Major Taylor on Sixth Street
SXSW Film
Perfect Match: ‘The Life of Reilly’ If Neil Simon had been gay, he would’ve written The Life of Reilly. But this surprisingly funny and affecting one-man show was written and performed by Charles Nelson Reilly, still alive and flamboyantly recognizable at 74. Alternately funny, inspiring, and affecting, Reilly relates the story of his life from…
Album of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: Paradise Hotel, Eliza Gilkyson; Childish Things, James McMurtry; Bloom, Eric Johnson; Wicked Twisted Road, Reckless Kelly; Not So Far Away, Wideawake; Love Songs: For and Against, Guy Forsyth; Big Sweet Life: The Songs of Jon Dee Graham, various; Sweet Weaponry, Cruiserweight; Cruel and Gentle Things, Charlie Sexton
Best Metal
RUNNERS-UP: Powderburn, The Sword, Meyvn, The Jolly Garogers, Ignitors, Pail, Down-Stares, Teabag, Course of Ruin
Best Miscellaneous Instrument
RUNNERS-UP: Wammo, harmonica and washboard; Abhinit Bhatt, tabla; Andrew McKee, recorder; Guy Forsyth, musical saw; Bildeauc, laptop; Cindy Cashdollar, steel guitar; Cody Braun, harmonica; Charlie Sexton, various; Thomas “Doc” Grauzer, Irish harp
Best Radio Station
RUNNERS-UP: KUT-FM 90.5, KISS 96.7, KLBJ-FM 93.7, 101X 101.5, KOOP 91.7, KVET-FM 98.1, MIX 94.7, KVRX 91.7, BOB-FM 103.5
V for Vendetta
This is a thinking person’s action film – a futuristic slice of pop-culture agitprop, replete with a costumed antihero, lovingly choreographed action sequences, cunningly ornate dialogue, and a terrific, rousing score.
‘The Bob Schneider Show’
Whatever your ears think of Bob Schneider’s music, your eyes will widen in appreciation at his intaglio etchings on view in his new Flatbed Press solo show
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
FRIDAY PICKS All showcases subject to change HARRY SHEARER’S LE SHOW LIVE6pm, Central Presbyterian Church Perhaps better known as Derek Smalls, the most important completely noninfluential bass player ever, Shearer brings to SXSW his weekly KCRW Le Show filled with song parodies, skits, and real estate listings to town for a live broadcasting. The Dome…
SXSW Records
k.d. langReintarnation (Rhino) When the Canadian post decides to put native daughter k.d. lang on a stamp, it’s going to have a time choosing which phase to use. Philatelic options range from the gender-bending cowpunk who blew down from Alberta two decades ago to the torch-wielding adult-contemporary fixture who laid down tracks with Tony Bennett…
SXSW Records
His Name is Alive Detrola (Silver Mountain) Warn Defever’s first album since leaving 4AD four years ago is titled after his hometown, Detroit, and like that chilly, increasingly depopulated metropolis, Detrola sparkles with wintery beauty, a midnight revelry for those more inclined toward hearth and home. Less a departure for HNA than an aural act…
SXSW Records
Starlight MintsDrowaton (Barsuk) It’s a pretty well-established fact that the Starlight Mints, Norman, Okla.’s second-weirdest band, are great experimenters. 2003’s Built on Squares was a testament to making meaning out of homonyms and rhyming words. Drowaton, the quartet’s third LP, marks a huge leap forward artistically, moving from toying with the sounds that words can…
Point Austin: Lessons Learned
I was down at the precinct last Tuesday, but I didn’t see you
Hey Sailor, Pt. 2!
This is part two in a series! Check out part one! Welcome to Austin, you good-looking travelers! As you will see, Austinites are scary-proud of their town. And we figured that you are getting so much “official word” on what’s great by so many here at the Chronic, as well as from our SXSW breathren…
Day Party Crawl
Hip-Hop Hooray!Capitol Place/Beauty Bar, Thursday, March 16 Oakland’s Blackalicious declared that “this is not your average everyday tune” as their three-song set at Capitol Place worked a lunchtime crowd into a post-hangover chipper mood. Captured for a broadcast on 89.3 the Current, Gift of Gab’s dizzying rap flow traversed speedy extremes by way of “Rhythm…
In-Store-O-Rama
Wolfmother at Waterloo Records
SXSW Film
Home Made: ‘Cottonfields and Crossroads’ When documentary filmmaker Hector Galán decided to tell the Los Lonely Boys’ story, he thought his film would be the first to introduce them to a national audience. “There were 40 people in the audience when I saw them at [Austin’s] Saxon Pub,” Galán says. “Then they took off!” In…
Song of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: “Childish Things,” by James McMurtry; “Paradise Hotel,” by Eliza Gilkyson; “Long Long Time,” by Mark Addison, Nina Singh, and Guy Forsyth for Guy Forsyth; “Your Sweet Eyes (Courante),” by Eric Johnson; “Hammer in My Head,” by Grady Johnson for Grady; “Not So Far Away,” by Scott Leger and Wideawake for Wideawake; “Man of God,”…
Best None of the Above
RUNNERS-UP: Hedda Layne, Marc Gunn & the Dubliners’ Tabby Cats, Isola, Pieces of East, John Pointer, BK & Mr.E, Mingo Fishtrap, Imperial Golden Crown Harmonizers, Alive
Best Songwriter
RUNNERS-UP: James McMurtry, Eric Johnson, Jon Dee Graham, Scott Leger, Bob Schneider, Guy Forsyth, Monte Montgomery, Kevin Fowler, John Pointer
Best Record Producer
RUNNERS-UP: Mike McCarthy for Spoon: Gimme Fiction; Mark Addison for Guy Forsyth: Love Songs: For and Against; Mark Hallman for Eliza Gilkyson: Paradise Hotel; Roy Salmond for Wideawake: Not So Far Away; Eric Johnson for Bloom; Chet Himes for Big Sweet Life: The Songs of Jon Dee Graham; Carl Thiel, various; Gurf Morlix, various; Lars…
Neil Young: Heart of Gold
Jonathan Demme dreams us back to the golden age of performance films, in which Neil Young unfolds his latest album Prairie Wind in concert at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
Arts Review
In its rotating repertory of ‘Richard III’ and ‘The Rivals,’ the Austin Shakespeare Festival shifts between polar extremes: violent tragedy and frothy romance
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
FRIDAY SLEEPERS All showcases subject to change LUCKYIAM.PSC7:30pm, Emo’s Main A founding member of Mystik Journeymen, LuckYiam.PSC introduced himself as an MC to contend with in ’95 with “fuck a record deal, I’ll get a job and go to school and still rip the place.” Along with his clan of Living Legends, the L.A. rapper…
SXSW Records
Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives Live at the Ryman (Superlatone) Famed Nashville disc jockey Eddie Stubbs nails it when he introduces Marty Stuart as “country music’s Renaissance man” at the start of Live at the Ryman. Equally at home with country, gospel, rock, and bluegrass, Stuart is one of the best ambassadors country music…
SXSW Records
DeadmanOur Eternal Ghosts (One Little Indian) Like many a cosmic cowboy, Austin songwriter Steven Collins of Deadman wears his Gram Parsons obsession on his sleeve. On Deadman’s Our Eternal Ghosts, it’s also spooky how much Collin’s wife Sherilyn, who shares vocal duties and plays keyboards, sounds like Emmylou Harris. Filled with electro-gospel stylings and steel-guitar…
Skies Partly Cloudy
Two years down the road, liberal network still struggles to establish itself
Beside the Point
Council and SOSA haggle over ballot language
Girls Can Tell
Oh yeah. I forgot. Today was the day to gad about on South Congress, so it was off to Yard Dog for the Schubas party, which never disappoints. This year’s treat was the Minneapolis quartet Tapes ‘n Tapes, who were refreshingly smiley and goofy, which is to be expected from a slightly punky band that…
Day Party Crawl
Indian Jewelry, Make a Rising, Jana Hunter, Andy D, Times New Viking, the RebelFurniture Residence, North Loop, Thursday, March 16 As well all know, the best horror movies all involve a shed. Thursday afternoon’s house party, actually shed party, combined all the elements of a great horror movie soundtrack. Houston/L.A. beat-killers Indian Jewelry cranked out…
In-Store-O-Rama
Asobi Seksu at Cheapo Discs
Winsome & Thensome
The Moaners incite small, sweet noises from the back of the throat
Best Bluegrass
RUNNERS-UP: Warren Hood & the Hoodlums, The Greencards, Weary Boys, The Gourds, Grassy Knoll Boys, White Ghost Shivers, Reckless Kelly, The Hudsons, Meat Purveyors
Best Novelty Band
RUNNERS-UP: White Ghost Shivers, Asylum Street Spankers, Brobdingnagian Bards, The Spazmatics, The Eggmen, Big Mama & the Furballs, George W. Bush Singers, Austin Lounge Lizards, The TunaHelpers
Best Strings
RUNNERS-UP: Chris Whitten, fiddle; Omar Lopez, violin; Marc Gunn, autoharp; Tosca Strings; Will Taylor, violin; Chris Buckley, fiddle; Phoebe Hunt, violin; Cody Braun, mandolin; Erik Hokkannen, fiddle
Best Record Store
RUNNERS-UP: Cheapo, End of an Ear, Antone’s Records, Encore, Sound on Sound, MusicMania, Snake Eyes Vinyl, Piranha Records, Sundance Records
Arts Review
Spank Dance Company’s ‘Greyhounds and Other Virtual Ways to Travel’ may not move you to the next plane of existence, but its force and beauty will make this plane much more satisfying
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
Blurbing the pinnacle of SXSW 2006.
SXSW Records
Hank Williams III Straight to Hell (Bruc) When he performs live, Hank III can be loud, proud, and metal, or the honky-tonkin’ grandson of Hank Sr. With the 2-CD Straight to Hell, III’s hard rock is absent, but one thing’s for sure: his coarse worldview is perfectly in sync with his country side. Williams nearly…
SXSW Records
Heartworn Highways(Hacktone) In 1976, producer Graham Leader and director James Szalapski documented the outlaw songwriter scene that extended from Austin and Nashville. Included were then relative unknowns Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell, and John Hiatt, plus their musical mentors Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. Born was Heartworn Highways, a cult classic film among fans of…
Feds’ Animal ID Program Raises Ruckus Among Small Farmers
National Animal Identification System favors factory farms over Ma and Pa
The Hightower Report
Wal-Mart’s New Frontman; and Mr. President, Greenland Is Melting
My SXSW
Ahh, Austin, the Paris of Texas (with apologies to Paris, Texas). This is my fourth SXSW, and maybe this time I’ll get to see some music. Maybe not. I arrived late Wednesday, checked into my hotel, and had dinner. Woo-hoo. Thursday morning and early afternoon were interviews, and getting ready for the Big Show on…
Live Shots
Beastie BoysStubb’s, Thursday, March 16 Some day, someone’s going to cobble together the world’s greatest hip-hop song and it’ll be based around a sampled loop of Ennio Morricone’s score for Chi L’Ha Vista Morire?, best known Stateside as Who Saw Her Die? Until then, however, we’ll have to make due with Brooklyn’s finest borrowing the…
In-Store-O-Rama
The Psychic Ills at End of an Ear
Off the Radar, On the Gaydar Shows
�Gay Place Xtra� reviews of Dreadful Sorry, Zoe Lewis, the Gossip, and the Eagles of Death Metal
Best Blues
RUNNERS-UP: Carolyn Wonderland, Guy Forsyth, Toni Price, Eric Johnson, Ruthie Foster, W.C. Clark, Cyril Neville & Tribe 13, Black Joe Lewis & Cool Breeze
Best Pop
RUNNERS-UP: Spoon, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Eric Johnson, John Pointer, Cruiserweight, Danny Malone, Damesviolet, Monte Montgomery, Rachel Loy
Best Acoustic Venue
RUNNERS-UP: Saxon Pub, Flipnotics, Lucky Lounge, Momo’s, Threadgill’s, Ruta Maya International Headquarters, Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, Buffalo Billiards, Hill’s Cafe
Best Video
RUNNERS-UP: Ray Wylie Hubbard, “Tall Tales”; The Addictions “Rollergirl”; Texas Tornados, Live From Austin Tx; Lubbock Lights
Arts Review
In her exhibition ‘Into the Soul of the Rhythm’, photojournalist Jana Birchum provides perceptual richness of the moment when the music and the camera dissolve
Letters at 3AM
Bob Dylan says he doesn’t know how a guy like him came out of a place like Hibbing. He’s been saying things like that for 40 years and I don’t know a rock critic who doesn’t take him at his word. But I also don’t know a rock critic who’s been to Hibbing. I wanted…
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
SATURDAY SLEEPERS All showcases subject to change CATFISH HAVEN7:30pm, Emo’s Annex Ignoring the audacity of the redneck moniker – the trailer park vocalist George Hunter grew up in – Catfish Haven takes Southern rock & soul to the city. The Chicago trio’s new release, Please Come Back (Secretly Canadian), is Hunter’s response to the Kings…
SXSW Records
Jon Langford Gold Brick (Reach Out International) Jon Langford is as busy as an octopus at a handshaking festival. Founding Mekon, Pine Valley Cosmonaut, and Waco Brother, the Welshman is an established solo act as well, soon to publish Nashville Radio, a collection of bold writings and paintings, some making an appearance at Austin’s Yard…
SXSW Records
GossipStanding in the Way of Control (Kill Rock Stars) Beth Ditto is punk rock’s Aretha Franklin. As the voice of Portland, Ore. threepiece Gossip, Ditto growls and croons through the group’s fourth album with her slicked-back Arkansas roots showing. Cleaner and more structured than 2003’s lo-fi Movement, Standing in the Way of Control isn’t dance…
Primary Numbers
Crunching the numbers on who voted where in the 2006 primaries
2006 Texas Film Hall of Fame
“You’ll find copies of the Kyoto Treaty under your chairs,” quipped Texas Monthly Editor Evan Smith at the start of the sixth Texas Film Hall of Fame induction ceremony, a nod to Friday night’s unseasonable swelter. If anything, the sultry conditions inside the Austin Studios soundstage seemed to loosen purse strings, among other things; what…
The Insider
With folks like Jason Flom at SXSW, yes, Virginia, there’s a Santa Claus
Live Shots
Deadboy & the ElephantmenStubb’s, Thursday, March 16 Okay, so who followed Jesus after the Sermon on the Mount? Or maybe more topically, anyone know who played after the Flaming Lips Wednesday night at the Fox & Hound? So God help you if it reads “Special Guests” on the lineup before your band’s scheduled start time…
In-Store-O-Rama
Whyte Seeds at Cream Vintage
After a Fashion: Saturday
Your Style Avatar does SXSW in style!
Best Country
RUNNERS-UP: Kevin Fowler, Reckless Kelly, Dale Watson, Heybale!, The Texas Sapphires, Willie Nelson, Cornell Hurd Band, Alvin Crow & the Pleasant Valley Boys, Warren Hood & the Hoodlums
Best Punk
RUNNERS-UP: Yuppie Pricks, The Addictions, Midgetmen, Lucid Dementia, The Skunks, Pink Swords, Hit by a Car, BK & Mr.E, Adrian & the Sickness
Best All Ages Venue
RUNNERS-UP: Redrum, Threadgill’s, Antone’s, Ruta Maya, The Back Room, Jovita’s, Flipnotics, Red Eyed Fly, The Broken Spoke
Readings
Yannick Murphy’s Here They Come is, as its main character might say, a fuck of a book
After a Fashion
Stephen goes to the Texas Film Hall of Fame and tells who was dripping in what
SXSW Records
Ray DaviesOther People’s Lives (V2) They say musicians have their whole lives to make their first album. Since the Kinks’ last notable shout-out remains 1984’s Word of Mouth, Ray Davies’ solo debut unfolds like the diary of a 21-year-old still searching for his identity. “I joined the Kinks before I was a completely formed adult,”…
SXSW Records
Teddy ThompsonSeparate Ways (Verve Forecast) Eschewing any notion of a sophomore slump, British singer-songwriter Teddy Thompson delivers in a big way on his second effort. Separate Ways finds this son of UK folk rock royalty Richard and Linda Thompson with an emotionally compelling collection of original songs that attests to his growing maturity as both…
SXSW Records
Th’ Faith HealersPeel Sessions (Ba Da Bing!) The early Nineties sprouted more than enough mediocre fluff from its sweaty, grungy pit. Then you get bands like Th’ Faith Healers, an English quartet whose noisy, dirty, understated catchiness wafted through the underground. These Peel Sessions, recorded 1992-94, are like smelling salts. The fuzzy chainsaw of opener…
How to Read a Charter Amendment
Ballot language too confusing? Let us translate!
After the Crash
‘AMERICANese’
Spotlight: Archie Bell
Houston’s Archie Bell still knows how to “Tighten Up”
Live Shots
Echo & the BunnymenAuditorium Shores, Thursday, March 16 After three decades on stage, it’s only fair that big-time rock stars like Ian McCulloch get to keep their sunglasses on while getting naked. Emotionally, that is. Following the belles of the ball, Spoon – still reeling from their domination of the Austin Music Awards – McCulloch…
SXSW Film
Beethoven’s Hair D: Larry Weinstein How far would you go for a lock of the Maestro’s hair? And, more intriguingly, how far would the Maestro go? That’s the premise of Weinstein’s unique documentary, which incorporates re-enactments, long-forgotten silent films, and the actual snippet clipped from Beethoven’s cadaver the day after his death. Based on the…
Best Cover Band
RUNNERS-UP: The Eggmen, Sauce, Big Balls, The Atlantics, Hell’s Belles, The K-Tel Hit Machine, Diamond Smugglers, Odyssey, Blue Mist
Best Rock
RUNNERS-UP: Wideawake, Cruiserweight, Eric Johnson, Vallejo, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Monte Montgomery, Carolyn Wonderland, Guy Forsyth, Grady
Best Concert By a Touring Artist
RUNNERS-UP: Los Lobos, Antone’s, Oct. 27, 2005; Arcade Fire, Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, Sept. 23, 2005; Gang of Four, Emo’s, Oct. 12, 2005; Nine Inch Nails, Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, May 25, 2005; Nickel Creek, Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, Nov. 4, 2005; My Morning Jacket, La Zona Rosa, Nov. 17, 2005; Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant, June 9, 2005; Foo Fighters, Erwin…
Readings
You might consider using this entertaining read as the basis for what not to do if you find out your spouse is having an affair
To Your Health
Useful tips in avoiding lung cancer for smokers and nonsmokers alike
SXSW Records
Arctic MonkeysWhatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not (Domino) Much has been made of the fact that Arctic Monkeys’ frontman and chief songwriter Alex Turner was only 15 when he formed this UK pop-punk steamroller, but what critics have failed to pick up on is the fact that this means he was…
SXSW Records
Josh RitterThe Animal Years (V2) What happens when a singer-songwriter makes a transcendent sophomore album, as was the case with Josh Ritter’s 2003 release Hello Starling? It sets the bar ridiculously high for a major-label debut, that’s what. The first few spins of The Animal Years, Ritter’s third LP, might inspire such pondering, as it…
SXSW Records
Big Al AndersonAfter Hours (Sony/Legacy) Musician magazine nailed it in naming Big Al Anderson one of the Top 100 guitarists of the 20th century, right before Anderson left NRBQ after 22 years of blazing chicken-pickin’-fused mischief and melodic pop six-string genius. After Hours showcases Anderson’s second act as a go-to Nashville songwriter, featuring his versions…
Is It Legal to Save Energy? Well, Maybe …
Blackland neighbors told they can’t share solar power, but Austin Energy tries to find a loophole
SXSW Film 06 Film Awards
Jury and Audience awards from the March 13 ceremony
Spotlight: Barbara Lynn
Beaumont’s southpaw R&B queen, oh yeah
Live Shots
Starlight MintsThe Parish, Thursday, March 16 While some bands suffer from being too samey, sounding exactly like their studio work in concert, Starlight Mints steer clear of that particular affliction. They offer up tunes that don’t vary much, structurally, from what you’ll hear on the albums, but it’s rough around the edges: stripped down, raw,…
SXSW Film
Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool IdeasD: Scott Lew; with Patrick Fugit, Olivia Wilde, Matthew Lillard, Cheryl Hines, John Cho, Fran Kranz His actual ideas are sophomoric cosmo-babble, but this genial farce loves its titular hero (Fugit), a frat-house basement dweller whose journal falls through the hands of a free-spirit art slut (Wilde, lately of The O.C.) and…
Best DJ
RUNNERS-UP: DJ Chicken George, DJ NickNack, DJ Manny, Scorpio Rising, Lila’s Medicine, BK & Mr.E, Trey Lopez, DJ Hobo D., Rapid Ric
Best Roots Rock
RUNNERS-UP: Reckless Kelly, 2 Hoots & a Holler, Shelley King Band, Honeybrowne, Warren Hood & the Hoodlums, The Gourds, Gene Pool, Jon Dee Graham, San Saba County
Best Concert Poster
RUNNERS-UP: Bill Narum: Masquerade a Go-go, Ruta Maya, Oct. 29, 2005; Justin Petro: The Midgetmen, Emo’s, Sept. 20, 2005; Billy Perkins: Arc Angels, Stubb’s Bar-B-Q, Feb. 25-26, 2005; Pixel Peach: Wideawake, Antone’s Dec. 3, 2005; Billy Perkins: Butcherwhite, Nov. 19. 2005; Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant, June 9, 2005; Scott Kinnebrew: BK & Mr.E, Velvet Spade;…
News/Print
Also around Austin …
The Common Law
Boating on Town Lake – what’s the law?
SXSW Records
MorrisseyRingleader of the Tormentors (Sanctuary) Ah, Morrissey. The only man in pop with the chutzpah to title his songs “Dear God, Please Help Me” and “I’ll Never Be Anybody’s Hero Now,” and the talent to bring them off. Middle age suits the Mozzer: His rich, near-operatic voice continues to ripen, and his peculiar blend of…
SXSW Records
Troy Campbell Long in the Sun (M-Ray) Since the break up of Loose Diamonds in the late-Nineties, Troy Campbell’s been the type of songwriter that will only release his songs when they’re ready. Long in the Sun is the Austinite’s third solo album, and it’s filled with tunes that have obviously been carefully distilled. It…
SXSW Records
Deadboy & the ElephantmenWe Are Night Sky (Fat Possum) Deadboy & the Elephantmen certainly haven’t done themselves any favors. With Deadboy being Dax Riggs and the Elephantmen aka-ing drummer Tessie Brunet, the White Stripes comparisons aren’t going to be easy to avoid. So here it is: it’s kinda White Stripesy. And it’s not just the…
Naked City
Headlines and happenings from Austin and beyond
SXSW Interactive 06 Web Awards
Eminem.com and Technorati win big, while the Dewey Winburne goes to Dale Thompson
Spotlight: The Subways
‘England’s Newest Hitmakers’ try to love up to the hype
Live Shots
Bobby BareMomos, Thursday, March 16 Celebrating his first new album in 22 years, The Moon Was Blue (Dualtone), Bobby Bare seemed in high spirits for this way-too-brief set. He set the mood perfectly by opening with a spot-on twangy rendition of the big hit “Detroit City.” Even if his voice was a bit more weathered…
SXSW Film
BondageD: Eric Allen Bell; with Michael Angarano, Illeana Douglas, Griffin Dunne, Eric Lange, Evan Ellingson, Mae Whitman, Andy Dick, Rocky Marquette, Michael K. Williams, Ezra Buzzington Michael Anganaro might just be the next generation’s Johnny Depp. Not only is a young man of extreme talent and appeal, but his script choices (Almost Famous, Will &…
Best Experimental
RUNNERS-UP: Hedda Layne, Ohn, John Pointer, Echo Base Soundsystem, John Pointer & Carlos Sosa’s BoomBox, Eric Johnson, Opposite Day, Gorch Fock, Pong
Best World Music
RUNNERS-UP: Pieces of East, Teye & Belen, Sarah Dinan Band, Atash, Cluan, Alteza, Grupo Fantasma, Ghandaia, Del Castillo
Best Cover Art
RUNNERS-UP: Pixel Peach for Wideawake’s Not So Far Away, William Schaff for Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy, Tom Corgatelli for Reckless Kelly’s Wicked Twisted Road, Ingrid Houwers for the Brobdingnagian Bards’ Brobdingnagian Fairy Tales, Nathan Bowden for Isola’s Loud Alarms, Billy Perkins for Exit to Naples’ You Belong to Me, Cruiserweight’s Sweet Weaponry, Rob Jones…
Page Two: Tonight’s the Night
Moving forward into the fog of SXSW
Day Trips
A family feud has given barbecue lovers two top-notch options in Lockhart, Smitty’s Market and Kreuz
SXSW Records
GoldfrappSupernature (Mute) One thing to remember in approaching Supernature: You are Alison Goldfrapp’s bitch. And you love it. Her warm voice atop Will Gregory’s chilly synth removes the cool detachment inherent to the electronica/dance genre, which is this Bath, England, duo’s triumph on their third studio album. Opener “Ooh La La” evokes everything one might…
SXSW Records
Matthew Sweet and Susanna HoffsUnder the Covers Vol. 1 (Shout! Factory) On the heels of their musical collaboration in the Austin Powers film series, Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs spin off the delightful Under the Covers Vol. 1. The 15 songs, all covers, bubble with effervescent charm and are so exuberantly performed that it’s hard…
SXSW Records
South FilthyCrackin’ Up (Licorice Tree) Reach down into this gutbucket of streetwise roots blues and whaddaya get? Muddy water rising with a wolf howl and tongue-in-cheek hogjaw roots. Add a taste of first-wave punk, and stir with a sharp stick in the eye of tradition. South Filthy’s wicked brew won’t go down easy, but these…
Suspect Allegedly Runs Over Austin Cop With Car
Officer recognized suspect from previous scuffle
TV Eye
The theatre of outrage: What happened when I slipped into the packed house for the one-on-one with Henry Rollins at SXSW last Sunday
Spotlight: Jana Hunter
Jana Hunter’s unstaring DIY
Live Shots
Anthony HamiltonLa Zona Rosa, Thursday, March 16 Looking and sounding like 1974 strolling through the door, Anthony Hamilton wears his heart on his sleeve as he belts yearning odes to powerful loves both lost and found. With a butter voice that echoes through expanding ventricles, the North Carolina native promised the La Zona Rosa audience,…
SXSW Film
Cruel and Unusual D: Janet Baus, Dan Hunt, Reid Williams Ophelia robbed a bank with an unloaded gun. Ashley got in the habit of forging checks, Anna got bullied into armed robbery, Yolanda got busted for beating on somebody who called her a drag queen, and Linda resorted to stealing and selling copper wire because…
Best Folk
RUNNERS-UP: Terri Hendrix, Bob Livingston, Kacy Crowley, Wendy Colonna, Ruthie Foster, Brobdingnagian Bards, The Hudsons, Patty Griffin, Sarah Dinan
Best Acoustic Guitar
RUNNERS-UP: Monte Montgomery, Guy Forsyth, Scrappy Judd Newcomb, Teye, John Pointer, Rick Del Castillo, Scott Leger, Willy Braun, Scott H. Biram
Best Instrument/Equipment Store
RUNNERS-UP: South Austin Music, Strait Music, Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas Music, Tommy’s Drum Shop, Austin Vintage Guitars, MusicMakers, Rock n Roll Rentals, Bass Emporium, Brook Mays Music Company
What Have We Seen?
Well, quite a lot, actually. Where should we begin?
Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
Zebras are evolving something fierce, and how to gauge your shotgun
SXSW Records
The Magic Numbers (Capitol) Despite some baby fat around the edges, the debut album from British cottage-pop sensation the Magic Numbers certainly has its moments of tender clarity. Two brother-and-sister sets make up this quartet, and the familial ease with which their songs fall together is charming. Their inauspicious, homespun vocal harmonies are less the…
SXSW Records
Davíd Garza(Wideopen) Over the nearly 20 years Davíd Garza has been on Austin’s musical radar, he’s morphed from the charismatic leader of the onomatopoeic Twang Twang Shock-a-Boom to a solo alt-rocker looking to shred eardrums (and panties). He’s both mellowed artistically and retained his sensuous ear, as evidenced on this self-titled disc. “Litany of Woe”…
SXSW Records
Nine Black Alps Everything Is (Interscope) Manchesters’s Nine Black Alps are on a mission to blow out your new stereo speakers, and, if you don’t check your breakers before spinning their debut LP, Everything Is, you’ll find yourself haunting Best Buy’s electronics’ department before day’s end. Unlike so many of their Mancunian compatriots, this ravening…
Still Seeking No-Kill Solutions
San Francisco consultant offers advice on reducing animal shelter euthanasias
Gay Place
Howdy, friends, and welcome to this Very Special Gay Place, wherein your buds, Kate & K8 extend a heapin’ helpin’ of Texas-friendly to our guests in for SXSW, with chats, pics, blog entries, interviews, and a few other special things. Gay Place, the Chronicle’s weekly queer events calendar is the place to check out the…
Spotlight: The Clutters
Nashville’s Clutters are cleaning out the garage
Live Shots
Erase ErrataEmo’s, Thursday, March 16 Wearing dresses made of what looked like purple rabbits’ feet, gold lamé, and Eighties bathing suits, San Francisco’s Erase Errata looked like some sort of acid-tinged rainbow as they jerked across the stage. Singer/guitarist Jenny Hoysten has taken over guitar duties since the departure of Sara Jaffe in 2004, and…
SXSW Film
DarkonD: Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer knew they’d be throwing audiences into an unfamiliar world while making Darkon, about a 300-strong group of Medieval role-players who improvise elaborate battles in Baltimore-area parks. But rather than bog us down in the rules, rituals, and 20-year history of this complex war game,…
Best Hip Hop
RUNNERS-UP: John Pointer & Carlos Sosa’s BoomBox, Overlord, Dirty Wormz, The Word Association, Zeale32, Jabarvy, KJAE, Tee Double, Bombasta
Best Bass Guitar
RUNNERS-UP: Bruce Hughes, Chris Heerlein, Albert Besteiro, Dave Hawkins, Jojo Garza, Mark Andes, Rachel Loy, Roger Blevins Sr., John Farmer
Best Live Music Venue
RUNNERS-UP: Saxon Pub, Antone’s, Emo’s, The Continental Club, The Parish, The Backyard, Redrum, Red Eyed Fly, The Broken Spoke
TCB
Chicago Heat While TCB was sleeping off Wednesday’s Blender party featuring Echo & the Bunnymen, local event emperors Charles Attal Management and Capital Sports & Entertainment announced the lineup for Austin City Limits North, or as they insist on calling it, Lollapalooza. Scheduled Aug. 4-6 in Chicago’s Grant Park, topping the bill are Lolla vets…
Food-o-File
’60 Minutes’ digests Whole Foods; plus, St. Patrick’s Day predictions by local publicans
SXSW Records
Isobel Campbell & Mark LaneganBallad of the Broken Seas (V2) Imagine a ghost town in the Old West: tumbleweeds blowing down deserted dirt roads, saloons and gun shops beaten down by nature’s cruel fist. Isobel Campbell’s slight voice echoes through the alleys on the whim of the wind as Mark Lanegan plays Nick Cave, the…
SXSW Records
Jason CollettIdols of Exile (Arts & Crafts) A guess culled from Jason Collett’s second solo LP: In the realm of Broken Social Scene, Collett takes care of the booze while BSS head Kevin Drew provides the stony glory. Not that all music is a sum of vice and influence, but Collett’s Idols of Exile is…
SXSW Records
The HellacoptersRock & Roll Is Dead (Liquor and Poker) Sweden’s Hellacopters chopped the classic into rock from the first whir of their high-flying Seventies barrage. In the beginning, ’95-’99, punk and metal went tooth & tail until 2002’s High Visibility lightened the load with keyboards, ballads, acoustic guitars, and ’04’s By the Grace of God…
Study Finds Pesticides Tainting U.S. Water Supply
Industry argues chemicals at safe drinking levels, activists worry about impact on wildlife
Lesbians on Ecstasy
Hot Canadian queer dance party drips into town
Spotlight: KT Tunstall
KT Tunstall, what a difference a year makes
Live Shots
DeVotchKaVelvet Spade Patio, Thursday, March 16 Chances are if you hear “gypsy, indie rock, and European folk” used to describe a band, you’re in store for one of two things: a confused pile of crap, or something transcendent. Last SXSW, Denver’s DeVotchKa provided the latter, converting those in attendance with their self-described “Eastern-bloc indie rock.”…
SXSW Film
The Last RomanticD: Aaron Nee & Adam Nee; with Adam Nee, James Urbaniak, Shalom Harlow, Jane Bradbury, Sarah Grace Wilson, Ben Brock, Albert Macklin Calvin Wizzig (Adam Nee) is one of the last great poets, but the world doesn’t know it yet. Based on a fictional book, The Last Romantic is Wizzig’s amazing journey through…
Best Industrial/Goth
RUNNERS-UP: I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness, Chant, Lust Murder Box, Lucid Dementia, Piranha Culture, Down-Stares, Exit, Hollow, 5591
Best Drums/Percussion
RUNNERS-UP: Tommy Taylor, Brannen Temple, Nina Singh, Frosty, Yogi Maxwell, Matt Fletcher, Jim Eno, Mike Zeoli, Tom Lewis
Best Local Music TV Show
RUNNERS-UP: ME TV (any show), Channel 15; Pure Metal Sickness, Channel 16; Austin Music Network (RIP), Channel 15; CapZeyeZ, Channel 10; Local Live, KVR-TV, Channel 16; Rawtime, Channel 10; FOX News in the Morning, FOX Channel 7; Hank Sinatra Presents the Songwriters Series, METV, Channel 15; Red River Rocks, METV, Channel 15
The Sixth Course
Eating our way up and down the city’s busiest street
Private Life
The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde tells it like it is
SXSW Records
Neko CaseFox Confessor Brings the Flood (Anti-) Neko Case’s fourth studio album makes one thing unmistakable: 2002’s Blacklisted wasn’t a swerve from Furnace Room Lullaby on the path to somewhere else. It was a full-on turn, signal and all. To put it in rock analogy parlance: If Blacklisted was her Kid A, this is her…
SXSW Records
The Mammals Departure (Signature Sounds) Formed in 2001, this Woodstock, N.Y.-based quintet quickly established themselves on the folk festival circuit with energetic live performances. With Pete Seeger’s grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and fiddler Jay Ungar’s daughter Ruth Ungar on board, the Mammals’ traditionalist folk leanings make perfect historical sense. For Departure, the quintet’s third disc, they…
SXSW Records
Figurines Skeleton (The Control Group) Copenhagen, Denmark’s Figurines skitter about the periphery of sanity on a hyper-caffeinated power-pop buzz, never quite going over the edge, but always keeping you on guard. Combine that with a 150-proof undercurrent of forlornness and you’ve got the LP equivalent of your loquaciously neurotic friend that just got dumped. The…
Bolsheviks in Our Classrooms!
Two activist UT professors branded ‘dangerous’ in Horowitz book
Spit it
Pick Up the Mic skews hip-hop expectations
Ballroom Dancing
Keynote Conversation: Neil Young/Jonathan DemmeAustin Convention Center, Thursday, March 16 On more than one occasion during his keynote conversation to an adoring overflow audience, Neil Young insisted that he’s no different than anyone else. Perhaps he was attempting to deflate the iconic image evoked in opening remarks by SXSW co-founder Louis Black, who mentioned him…
Live Shots
MorrisseyAustin Music Hall, Thursday, March 16 “By some shocking act of fate, you find yourself in Austin,” the Moz posed from his throne. It’s been a long time coming. He is Morrissey, the man in pompadour and suit jacket, the one with the cold sneer and the broken heart, the cool runner of sympathy and…
SXSW Film
Live Free or Die D: Andy Robin & Gregg Kavet; with Aaron Stanford, Paul Schneider, Zooey Deschanel, Michael Rapaport, Judah Friedlander, Kevin Dunn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach Rugged (Stanford) likes to think he’s a parka-bound Billy the Kid for the great state of New Hampshire, but his scams, laughably, amount to ripping off rebate stickers from Gordon’s…
Best Instrumental
RUNNERS-UP: Octopus Project, Eric Johnson, Cadaques, Mundi, 3 Balls of Fire, Tea Merchants, Explosions in the Sky, Omar Lopez & Forever Red, Echo Base Soundsystem
Best Electric Guitar
RUNNERS-UP: Eric Johnson, Monte Montgomery, Eddie Willis, Charlie Sexton, Scrappy Judd Newcomb, Urny Maxwell, Gordie Johnson, John Pointer, David Abeyta
Best Music Writer
RUNNERS-UP: Christopher Gray, Andy Langer, Michael Corcoran, Robert Gabriel, Raoul Hernandez, Audra Schroeder, Joe Gross, Darcie Stevens, Sharon Jones
TCB
What if Austin was its own satellite-radio service?
Pretenders Reviewed
PretendersPirate Radio (Rhino) The Pretenders’ Pirate Radio is notable for how well it mirrors the band’s history: Epic start, strong recovery from devastating setbacks, a long lull, then a nice accumulation after the charts stopped paying attention. Nearly all of the band’s eponymous 1980 debut is here in some form, as well as the bulk…
SXSW Records
Tres ChicasBloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl (Yep Roc) God, but this is a gorgeous album. With Bloom, Red & the Ordinary Girl, the angelic choir that is Tres Chicas descends from pure heaven. Lynn Blakey (Glory Fountain), Tonya Lamm (ex-Hazeldine), and Caitlin Cary (ex-Whiskeytown) have woven individual careers with golden vocals and silver material;…
SXSW Records
Richard SwiftThe Collection Vol. 1 (Secretly Canadian) “I am New York, tired and weak. I try to write a book each time I speak.” A master of easement, Richard Swift waltzes between measures and words. “Trying so hard to craft a rhyme with nickels and dimes,” Swift’s craftmanship is simple, tactful, lenitive. His first release…
SXSW Records
I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness Fear Is on Our Side (Secretly Canadian) There’s no Morning in America for I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness. The debut LP from this Austin quintet is an icy, black-hued affair that conjures up the eerily apocalyptic patina of oppositional post-punk club culture circa 1984, when bands…
Austin’s New Karl Rove
Former council member doesn’t care for SOS’s charter amendments, and they don’t like him, either
After a Fashion: Thursday
Your Style Avatar dishes the style dirt at SXSW!
Ballroom Dancing
SXSW Interview: k.d. langAustin Convention Center, Thursday, March 16 The comfortable setting gave writer Holly George-Warren’s conversation with k.d. lang the feeling of a taping of Ellen. Looking particularly butch in jeans and a blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, lang joked, “I am Brokeback Mountain and this is the Jake Gyllenhaal look.”…
Live Shots
The Rogers SistersClub de Ville, Thursday, March 16 This herky-jerk avant-pop trio from Brooklyn is one of many New York bands plundering the past for mod grist, emerging with Railroad Jerk-style sharp right turns, some New Wavey B-52’s girl/boy vocals, and a rumbling patina of surf-trash guitar. Their just-released The Invisible Deck packs a buzz…
SXSW Film
Maxed OutD: James D. Scurlock A disturbing look at the state of debt in America – from the highest levels of government to the working-class poor – Maxed Out elevates corporate power and greed to a whole different level. They say nothing causes more stress than money. After the images of mothers who have lost…
Band of the Year
RUNNERS-UP: Asleep at the Wheel, Eliza Gilkyson, Eric Johnson, Wideawake, Cruiserweight, Jon Dee Graham, Reckless Kelly, Dale Watson & the Lonestars, Del Castillo
Best Jazz
RUNNERS-UP: Bobby Doyle, Cadaques, Monster Big Band, Eric Johnson, Sarah Sharp, David Chenu, Blue Mist, Gnappy, Omar Lopez & Forever Rev
Best Female Vocals
RUNNERS-UP: Carolyn Wonderland, Stella Maxwell, Toni Price, Kelly Willis, Patrice Pike, Ruthie Foster, Patty Griffin, Patricia Vonne, Shawn Colvin
Best New Club
RUNNERS-UP: Club 115, Vicci, Six, Troubadour Saloon, Peacock Lounge, Bourbon Rocks, Latitude 30, Barcelona, Karma Lounge
Who They Are and What They Deserve
The new play ‘Voices of Valor’ records the memories of a generation that won the war abroad and at home
Over the Wall
Echo & the Bunnymen’s guitarist Will Sergeant didn’t much care for Donnie Darko.
SXSW Records
Centro-matic Fort Recovery (Misra) Can it be that long? With the release of Fort Recovery, Austin/Denton’s favorite sons celebrate a decade together, all the more remarkable when one considers how fresh Centro-matic still sounds. While not a big jump from 2003’s Love You Just the Same, the band’s 10th full-length contains some of bandleader Will…
SXSW Records
Anthony Hamilton Ain’t Nobody Worryin’ (So So Def/Zomba/Arista) When Anthony Hamilton asks, “Why must they try to tear down my house when they know it’s made from love,” he’s expressing tragedy rather than demanding an answer. Festering wounds make for great R&B, and here, the Carolina singer wallows chest-deep in the mire, and the follow-up…
SXSW Records
Film School(Beggars Banquet) With their first “proper” release, Film School finally tear off the “shoegaze” tag that’s dogged them from the beginning like toilet paper on their shoes. The San Francisco quintet’s four-song EP, Alwaysnever, and 2001 LP Brilliant Career were both hit or miss, combining the band’s talent for beautiful, serpentine sounds with a…
Weed Watch
UT students pass initiative calling for equalization of penalties associated with pot and alcohol use, plus other weed news
Ballroom Dancing
When Indies Attack!Austin Convention Center, Thursday, March 16 “I dream of being pirated,” Cooking Vinyl managing director Martin Goldschmidt half jests. “Being pirated would mean I have a successful record.” It’s old hat by now: Labels are threatened by technology, but the argument has transformed from “How do we stop this?” to “How do we…
SXSW Life
Jonathan Demme and Lyle Lovett
SXSW Film
Reel Shorts 3 With any short-film program, the odds of screening nary a lemon equate to winning the lottery. With Reel Shorts 3, not everyone is a winner, but there are no whammies. “Bump, Tick, Scratch” started the show with what appeared to be an MTV spot about a hip New York drummer’s side project.…
Best Kid
RUNNERS-UP: The Steps, Loose Canons, Soul Raiders, Max & Henry, NEMStars, Palm School Choir, The Frets, Courage Under Chaos, The Flickers
Best Horns
RUNNERS-UP: Grooveline Horns, Ephraim Owens, Carlos Sosa, David Chenu, Alex Coke, Carolyn Wonderland, Del Puschert, M Squad, Topaz
Best Radio Music Program
RUNNERS-UP: Eklektikos, John Aielli, KUT-FM; Local Licks, Loris Lowe, KLBJ-FM; Folkways, Larry Monroe, Ed Miller, David Obermann, KUT-FM; Next Big Thing, Andy Langer, 101X; The Lounge Show, Jay Robillard, KOOP; Horizontes, Michael Crockett, KUT-FM; Celtic Storm, Donnelle McKaskle, KOOP; Country Gold, Tom Allen, KVET-FM; Twine Time, Paul Ray, KUT-FM
Collecting Voices
When journalism professor Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez first conceived of the U.S. Latino & Latina World War II Oral History Project, she thought they might collect about 200 narratives. “We were overwhelmed with the response,” she says. Interviews conducted at veterans centers and other locations all across the country came pouring in. And it wasn’t just veterans…
SXSW Picks & Sleepers
Blurbing three nights of SXSW 2006
SXSW Records
Bruce Robison Eleven Stories (Sustain) There’s been talk lately about how Nashville has returned to making music that comes from its roots. While that’s true, occasionally, with Eleven Stories Austin’s Bruce Robison demonstrates how it’s done. Of course his bread and butter comes from Music City, with superstars Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, the Dixie Chicks,…
SXSW Records
BlowflyFahrenheit 69 (Alternative Tentacles) Given a recording career that goes back to the early-Seventies, you might have come across Blowfly (Clarence Reid), or if you’re a woman, he might have come across you. Yeah, on the surface, that’s the level of what we’re dealing with. Pay just the slightest bit of attention, however, and you’ll…
SXSW Records
The Rogers SistersThe Invisible Deck (Too Pure) With Jennifer on guitar and Laura on bass, the Brooklyn-based Rogers Sisters are actually sisters. Novel, yes. Even more mind-blowing, their last name – get this – is Rogers. All snark aside, it wouldn’t have been surprising if the Rogers Sisters had pulled some kind of trickeration. With…
Public Benefit Problems
Health and Human Services Commission pilot program for testing new system of enrolling Texans in public benefit programs reveals problems, concerns
Ballroom Dancing
Upload DownloadAustin Convention Center, Thursday, March 16 The Upload Download panel was formatted as a hypothetical with the panelists all role-playing. The Fat Americans are on the verge of being the biggest band in the world. The next album, Cheese With Everything, is almost in the can, and once released, it’s a lock to sell…
SXSW Life
Quintron (l) and Miss Pussycat at the Vice Party at the Victory Grill
SXSW Film
Tales of the Rat FinkD: Ron Mann The career of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth is a perfect fit for pop-culture documentarian Ron Mann. Roth, the California gearhead and artist, springs to life here in ways never achieved on paper by Tom Wolfe in his first book of essays, Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Mostly that’s due…
Best New Band
RUNNERS-UP: The Black Angels, Warren Hood & the Hoodlums, Cyril Neville & Tribe 13, Elana James & Her Hot Hot Trio, Ghostland Observatory, Black Joe Lewis & Cool Breeze, Tammany Hall Machine, Danny Malone, Wendy Colonna
Best Latin Contemporary
RUNNERS-UP: Del Castillo, Ghandaia, Patricia Vonne, Alteza, Cadaques, Teye & Belen, Maneja Beto, The Brew, Mary Welch y Los Curanderos
Best Keyboards
RUNNERS-UP: Cole El-Saleh, Marcia Ball, Tom Burgess, Patrick Barker-Benfield, Stefano Intelisano, Floyd Domino, Earl Poole Ball, Aeron Riordan, Pinetop Perkins
Best Radio Personality
RUNNERS-UP: Dale Dudley, KLBJ-FM; John Aielli, KUT-FM; Jason Dick, 101X; Bobby Ray, KGSR; Charlie Hodge, KLBJ-FM; Kevin Connor, KGSR; Jody Denberg, KGSR; Bob Cole, KVET-FM; John Erler, KOOP; Janice Williams, KVET
Spotlight: Bobby Bare
Bobby Bare Sr. returns with one helluva fish story
SXSW Film
Manhattan, KansasD: Tara Wray While her daughter was young, Evie Wray was a cosmic wanderer: 20 houses in 20 years, no job, a family bed, homeschooling. She calls it “unusual parenting.” Daughter Tara, all grown up and moved to New York City, recalls her mother’s agitation, her threats of suicide, and “taking care of the…
Live Shots
Ryan McPhun & the Ruby SunsWhisky Bar, Wednesday, March 15 There’s inherit danger in one’s LPs being the function of studio luxuries, and Ryan McPhun’s debut is a lesson in utilizing all the tricks of the tape. Compound that with the limitations of playing a festival and you’ve got a recipe for, well, something less…
SXSW Film
High ScoreD: Jeremy Mack I dreamt as an arcade-going youngster of being so masterful at a game that one quarter would last me days. As an adult, those dreams have not only faded but ring masochistic. Not so for Portland, Ore.’s Bill Carlton, who attempts to break the 80-million-point all-time high score on Missile Command.…
Spotlight: DJ Rapid Ric
The king of the Lone Star mixtape
SXSW Film
Reel Shorts 1D: various Short programs are by nature a mixed bag, and Reel Shorts 1 is no exception. Its six films represent genres from documentary to surrealism, and production values from amateur to professional. “Follow Me” is a beautifully shot but uneven film. Involving an earnest, nonthreatening stalker à la Lloyd Dobler, its strengths…
Live Shots
The Young KnivesParish, Wednesday, March 15 Ever felt like you were Mark E. Smith? Didn’t think so. Still, the Fall frontman and sporadic football announcer for Score was here in spirit via UK’s the Young Knives. It can’t have been easy growing up in in a musical landscape that suddenly seems dominated by the overriding…
SXSW Film
The Great Escape: ‘Summercamp!’ They’re all regular kids ages 6 to 15. Some are superstars and some are troublemakers. But they’ve all come to the same place: Swift Nature Camp – “Where Nature Is Fun” – an old-school sleepaway summer camp in Minong, Wisc., where they will learn about songbirds, step on one another’s sandcastles,…
Spotlight: Ben Taylor
A chip off the ol’ J.T.
SXSW Film
The Refugee All StarsD: Zach Niles & Banker White Sometimes, a story can be so big, rich, and complex that the documentarian telling it doesn’t stand a chance. So it is with the story of refugees from war-torn Sierra Leone starting a dynamic band that would eventually play camps in West Africa, record an ambitious…
Live Shots
Four Reasons to Love the Ark• The best SXSW spe-cific lyric to date: “Austin is a goldmine for rock city wankers.” • When most bands say they have a question for you, they ask: “Are you ready to rock?” Not the Ark. They ask: “Do you believe in free will?” • The cutest girl in…
Spotlight: Translator
Translator, ‘Everywhere I’m Not’ – except SXSW 2006
SXSW Film
TV Junkie D: Michael Cain and Matt Radecki After the first SXSW showing of TV Junkie, Alamo Drafthouse co-founder Tim League grinned and admitted he’d just had a “movie experience.” More about that later, but for now, consider that we are on the cusp of a video diarist age. First was Houstonian Jonathan Caouette’s 2003…
Live Shots
BalanceBack Room, Wednesday, March 15 Drawing parallels between Bay area and Texas rap, Oakland’s Balance teamed with Austin’s DJ Rapid Ric for a compact set of hyphy allusions. Beginning with a freestyle over the beat to E-40’s “Tell Me When to Go,” Balance highlighted the nuances of sideshow culture within which the still-popular Ecstasy pill…
After a Fashion: Friday
Your Style Avatar does SXSW in style!
Live Shots
The M’sEmo’s Jr., Wednesday, March 15 Next year, the M’s should lead a panel entitled “How to Play SXSW.” In spite of transportation and technical trials, the Chicago rockers put on a tight set that was faithful to their indie muse. Having a crowd wasn’t an issue, as the club reached capacity halfway through the…
Day Party Crawl
Emo’s Day PartiesWednesday, March 15 You might think we’d take it slow; kind of ease into the debaucherous spirit of SXSW. You might be flat-out wrong. At noon in the River City, the inside room at Emo’s is full of leather jackets and Converse, despite the 75-degree weather. Local post-punk fourpiece the Arm wails onstage,…
Live Shots
The Golden BoysJackalope, Wednesday, March 15 Don’t tell SXSW, but there’s a party going on downtown. If you squint your eyes, you can see the bottle of cheap whiskey being passed around from stranger to stranger. Arms are thrown around the necks of brothers, and the girls are just one of the guys. The Golden…
Luv Doc Recommends: SXSW Free Concert with Spoon & Echo & the Bunnymen
You may not feel it yet, but it’s on. You might be tooling around Pflugerville in your honeydipper truck, hoovering up porta-potty turds and listening to Tom Petty 8-tracks, but down here in the bowels of the city, the SXSW shit has hit the fans. There’s music all over the goddamned place: Sidewalks, trailers, parking…
Day Party Crawl
Capitol Salute to Texas MusicVelvet Spade, Wednesday, March 15 Willie Nelson and Gov. Rick Perry may not have much in common politically, but judging by the entertainment at the Sixth Annual Capitol Salute to Texas Music, they share a taste in music. The headliner of the AT&T-sponsored show at the swanky Velvet Spade was none…
Live Shots
Serena-ManeeshEmo’s, Wednesday, March 15 With all the contenders for heir to My Bloody Valentine’s throne, Serena-Maneesh has all the qualifications. The loud squall, the breathy vocals, the five-minute-plus freak-outs of noise. Fuck shoegaze, though. The Norwegian sixpiece did the freak-out right. Singer/guitarist Emil Nikolaisen, dressed in a white shawl, eyeliner, and bandana, ended up on…
Day Party Crawl
Rachel Goldstar & the Colorforms, Tunng, My Education, Brothers and SistersEnd of an Ear, Wednesday, March 15 Last SXSW, End of an Ear was still a work in progress for owners Blake Carlisle and Dan Plunkett. Now, the South First record store has taken a place in every Austin record nerd’s heart. Since opening last…
Live Shots
World PartyExodus, Wednesday, March 15 It has been, as Karl Wallinger put it, “five, six, seven years” since World Party last visited in America, but this performance made it seem like they’d never left. They were pared down to a trio, with David Duffy on fiddle and mandolin, and John Turnbull on electric guitar, but…
Ballroom Dancing
Billboard’s Indie Label White PaperAustin Convention Center, Wednesday, March 15 With Billboard having recently made a study of independent labels in the marketplace, the surprising thing about this panel was what wasn’t discussed. A logical jumping-off point would’ve been what Billboard’s definition of an indie label is, especially since the two label reps present were…
Live Shots
Beth OrtonAntone’s Wednesday, March 15 The audience didn’t deserve the encore, and Beth Orton let them know when she told the crowd to shut up because she couldn’t hear herself sing. It was an inimitable Ricki Lee Jones-type moment, although Orton is a bolder presence, and her voice that much more of a weapon. The…
TCB
Schmooze Cruise Interesting people TCB has met so far … Malcolm Campbell, Spin publisher Stephen Thompson, former music editor, the Onion Zoe Silver, documentarian, BBC Culture Show Paul Devitt, Beauty Bar owner Art Fein, host, Art Fein’s Poker Party
Ballroom Dancing
SXSW Interview: Ted CohenAustin Convention Center, Wednesday, March 15 It was impossible to miss the central point of Ted Cohen’s SXSW interview: “It’s not about the technology, it’s about the business model.” Cohen, head of digital business development for EMI, was a little vague, however, on who the models served, because ultimately the fights in…
Live Shots
Belle & SebastianStubb’s, Wednesday, March 15 There’s that old saw about time flying when you’re having fun; a recent science-oriented radio program revealed that time moves more slowly when you’re moving fast as compared to standing still. That must be why Belle & Sebastian’s extended set at last night’s Matador showcase seemed to last slightly…
2005-06 Austin Music Awards
Austin Music Hall Wednesday, March 15 Like a wet, sloppy kiss from a fleeting, beery-breathed soul mate, this year’s Austin Music Awards was a rough, rocking, and unabashedly romantic paean to the city’s trademark resource. Although SXSW’s draw is globe-girdling, the Awards remains a local affair. When emcee Paul Ray asked out-of-towners to raise their…
Ballroom Dancing
Get on the Road. Stay There.Austin Convention Center, Wednesday, March 15 As the economics of recorded music are rewritten by file-sharing, touring is becoming an increasingly critical revenue stream for artists at all levels. Wednesday’s panel provided both aphorisms and real-life tips for the road-hungry. Step one is accepting the enduring reality that you’re only…
SXSW Film
Wanna see a movie on Thursday? First, read today’s reviews, interviews, and more.
Girls Can Tell
The Ides of March Things have already gotten off to a rocky start for yours truly, thanks to a restless seven-month-old who thinks 2am is a perfectly dandy time to wake up and play. This after I kicked off SXSW 06 at the Film fest’s closing party Tuesday night, featuring the clarion cry of Sleater-Kinney…
Ballroom Dancing
SXSW Audience Interview: Beastie BoysAustin Convention Center, Wednesday, March 15 Allowing audience questions to guide the extent of a panel discussion surely seemed like a great idea for a group releasing a concert film shot by 50 random fans. Unfortunately, a live public interview can’t be edited the same way that the Beastie Boys’ Awesome!…
SXSW Film
Running on Empty : ‘OilCrash’ If you’re not worried about peak oil, you will be after watching OilCrash, Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack’s meticulously researched look at the world’s dwindling petroleum supply. Oil is in everything – from the ink you’re reading to the trucks used to deliver the paper you’re holding – and we’re…
My SXSW
Tres Chicas’ Caitlin Cary
SXSW Live
The Octopus Project, Red Eyed Fly
SXSW Film
Bata-ville: We Are Not Afraid of the Future D: Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope Bata-ville takes us on a long, yolk-colored coach trip on a historical journey through the rolling pastures of two forgotten counties in England all the way to the Moravian town of Zlín in the Czech Republic. The subject of the film…
The Insider
Ultragrrl handicaps SXSW 2006
SXSW Live
Carina Round at the Fader party
SXSW Film
ChampionsD: David Wike; with Wike, Kevin Corrigan, Ebon Moss Bachrach, Xander Berkeley, Clea DuVall Categorizing writer/director David Wike’s debut feature, Champions, as one of SXSW’s Emerging Visions serves it well. About three New York City denizens – Derek (Corrigan), Stan (Bachrach), and Russell (Wike) – experiencing quarter-to-midlife crises, the film follows the trio upstate and…
Spotlight: Richie Furay
Buffalo Springfield, Poco, and Richie Furay – one with God
SXSW Film
Inner Circle Line D: Eunhee Cho; with Eunyong Yang, Yongkun Bae, Yumi Jung, Moonsu Bang, Soyun Jang Not everyone will like Inner Circle Line. The film begins in a deceptively straightforward manner, following four young characters whose lives we know are connected somehow. Though one senses immediately that the characters’ lives either once converged or…
SXSW Live
The Ponys, Emo’s
SXSW Film
Conversations With Other WomenD: Hans Canosa; with Helena Bonham Carter, Aaron Eckhart, Nora Zehetner, Erik Eidem, Olivia Wilde It only takes one night to change a life. Conversations With Other Women is Hans Canosa’s narrative on undying, irresponsible love – undying in that time only erases the bad memories and irresponsible in that sometimes the…
Spotlight: Anthony Hamilton
Ain’t nobody worryin’ about the future of true R&B when Anthony Hamilton croons
SXSW Film
Jumping Off Bridges D: Kat Candler; with Bryan Chafin, Glen Powell Jr., Savannah Welch, Katie Lemon, Michael Emerson, Anne Nabors, Rhett Wilkins Austin filmmaker Kat Candler is one of the most astute observers of teenage behavior working behind a camera today, and jumping off bridges, her powerful, resonant examination into the impact of suicide on…
SXSW Live
Voxtrot singer Ramesh Srivastava at Emo’s
SXSW Film
FuckD: Steve Anderson Four out of five fornicators surveyed agree: Fuck rocks. Steve Anderson’s enlightening examination into the history and usage of the English language’s most forceful and utilitarian vulgarity is a hilarious and often eye-opening piece of filmmaking. To his credit, Anderson examines all possible sides of the word and the ramifications of its…
