Planet Rock

Blowfly

Emo's Main, Friday, March 18

Standing deep in the mouth of SXSW madness late Friday night, with Blowfly about to go on, this bleary reporter was ready to be entertained with some straight-up foul shit. Not music to interpret, analyze, or conceptualize: just enough bump and thump to stimulate the frontal lobe back into reality. While waiting, two young men could be heard trading tales of sexual conquest during the week's festivities, and never has there been a more appropriate moment for a 60-year-old rap legend to come onstage in a glittering cape. Blowfly (born Clarence Reid) pulled out all the hits: "Shitting on the Dock of the Bay," "Too Fat to Fuck," "Hole Man," "Booty Bus," and the single "Blowfly for President" from his upcoming album Fahrenheit 69. Pasty men in baseball caps grinded with extremely young ladies until the room was a churning sea of hands-in-the-air (as well as hands in unwanted places; this reporter had to step back from a jittery assclown in a shirt that read "FBI: Female Body Inspector." Wrong decade, dude!) Even though things got a little too R. Kelly, Blowfly's funk lightened the mood, as he searched the crowd for big ladies ("I heard things are bigger in Texas!") and paced the stage in his signature cape/mask ensemble. It almost made you forget about the fact that random drunken strangers would go home with each other that night and have awkward sex.