Thursday Sleepers
SXSW Music Fest preview guide
Fri., March 16, 2007
Sunwrae
8pm, Elephant Room That's Melbourne, Australia's Rae Howell as the falling rain of this chamber ensemble, putting mallet to vibraphone and grace to the ivories. Last year's Eavesdropping, Live at St. Stephens glistens like morning dew puddling up in some outback enclave. – Raoul Hernandez
Say Hi to Your Mom
8pm, Buffalo Billiards Eric Elbogen is the master of the one-man band. So much so that the Brooklyn fixture Say Hi to Your Mom doesn't sound like one. Last summer's fourth LP, Impeccable Blahs, is an East Coast OC player that likes to sleep in the bedroom but sometimes goes out at night with laptop in hand. – Darcie Stevens
Service Industry
8pm, Molotov Musical counterpart to Barbara Ehrenreich's 2002 bestseller Nickel and Dimed, only funnier, Service Industry relates life on the minimum-wage margins in songs like "My Job Is Gay" and "Bookstores and Restaurants." Local headwaiters Mike McCoy and Hunter Darby (Cher UK, Wannabes) ensure 2006's Ranch Is the New French elicits as many knowing nods as chuckles. – Christopher Gray
Hummersqueal
8:45pm, Club de Ville In their long awaited debut Di: Helo, the four rockers from Dey-Effey bring it all – the hard rock licks, the shirt-tearing screaming into the night, the soul searching that any die-hard emo-loving alt-rocker could want just short of a meltdown. Hard but not brutal, sometimes soft but not squishy. – Belinda Acosta
Prosser
9pm, Tap Room @ Six Seattle's Prosser, essentially the solo project of Eric Woodruff, former guitarist for now-defunct Northwest psych-rockers Delay, is lo-fi indie folk with pop sincerity. 2006's self-titled debut was an acoustic basement affair with help from cellist Dylan Rieck. – Doug Freeman
APOLLO SUNSHINE
9pm, Dirty Dog Bar Voted 2006's Best Local Act in Boston's The Phoenix, Apollo Sunshine ply jukebox-savvy, psychedelically tinged pop rock with plenty of bells and whistles. The Berklee-birthed quartet drew national raves for their 2005 self-titled album, and Bonnaroo awaits later this year. – Greg Beets
The Sights
9pm, Blender Bar @ the Ritz It ain't easy lugging around a vintage Hammond organ during SXSW, but that's a sacrifice the Sights are prepared to make. The power trio rolls right off the Motor City garage rock assembly line, issuing classic psychedelic and gospel grooves on their self-titled third album, driven by left-handed bassist and organist Bobby Emmett and singer/guitarist Eddie Baranek. – Austin Powell
Old Time Relijun
9:30pm, Emo's Lounge Taking its name from a Captain Beefheart song, the appropriately chaotic K Records project of Arrington de Dionyso is an ungodly mash-up of horns, stunted rhythms, and de Dionyso's Tuvan-inspired vocals. Cutting the third album in their Lost Light trilogy, again produced by Calvin Johnson, the group sounds like the Rapture being ruptured. – Doug Freeman
Daughters
9:30pm, Emo's Annex Falling from the same estranged family tree as Blood Brothers, Daughters' violent branch of noise-core cracks manic time signatures and blitzkrieg drumming. The Rhode Island quintet's latest is Hell Songs, a math-metal mindfuck that smashes 10 songs into 23 minutes. Someone call a therapist. – Austin Powell
One Mississippi
10pm, Red 7 Patio The latest outing from Prescott Curlywolf, which mates Rob Bernard and Ron Byrd, has demonstrated encouraging early results. Bernard's leads are as shred-worthy as ever, while Alex Livingston and Conrad Choucroun create a sturdy rhythmic bulwark for the two guitarists' twang & roll. After two years, an EP may be out this month, or not. – Christopher Gray
Spod
10pm, Elysium When your musical personality is an overtly sexual egomaniac, there's no need to be coy. The self-proclaimed "raddest band in the land," Spod's swanky glam electroclash debut, Taste the Radness, points to a mental health facility in Sydney being short a patient since about 1995. – Michael Bertin
Snowden
10pm, Lamberts Forget the Catch-22 character. Two negatives yield positive results for Atlanta's Snowden, whose debut LP, Anti-Anti (Jade Tree), recorded by local producer Erik Wofford at Cacophony Recorders, freezes layers of gloomy, shoegazed dream pop atop the slippery-when-wet vocals of guitarist and keyboardist Jordan Jeffares. – Austin Powell
Warmer Milks
10pm, Hideout It was just another steamy July night at the local pizza joint when they walked in. The hot air emerging from the ovens gave Austin's Parlor a sauna quality, yet Kentucky's Warmer Milks were warmer. For 20 minutes, it was feedback, screaming, and mind-bending damaged differently than latest Radish on Light. – Audra Schroeder
Shout Out Out Out Out
10:30pm, Beauty Bar Patio With a bass or sampler for every member and two vocoders more than you, Edmonton, Alberta's SOOOO make Knife-sharp dance music for Roombas vacuuming Kylie Minogue's rug. Addictive, futuristic, verging on guilty-pleasure, last year's Juno-nominated debut, Not Saying/Just Saying (Normals Welcome), is secondary only to follow-up 12-inch Dude You Feel Electrical. Get it? – Darcie Stevens
The Trucks
11pm, Tap Room @ Six Pull over, honey, these Bellingham, Wash., darlings will be driving into town on 18-wheels of lust and a cargo of no-wave feminism not seen since Le Tigre's last pit stop. New Wave and old wave launch genre trips across the interstate and pile up on a playful self-titled disc loaded with tomes about life, love, and "Titties." – Kate X Messer
Matt & Kim
11:30pm, Beauty Bar Patio Matt (Johnson) & Kim (Schifino) have made an art form out of being their rambunctious selves. The chaotic forces of the duo centrifuge into a manic blitz as Kim hammers the drum kit and Matt handles keys and vocals. Last year's self-titled debut was a wonderful pop frolic, but hunt down their videos for the real party. – Doug Freeman
Fucked Up
12mid, Lamberts Don't confuse Toronto's Fucked Up with Toronto's Holy Fuck. Sure they've both got fucking cool names and share the same fucking hometown. But the fucking similarities end there. Fucked Up are hard-fucking-core, riot-inciting punk-fucking-rock. Sample more than you can probably fucking handle on 2006's double-LP Hidden World. – Michael Bertin
Ladyhawk
12mid, Mohawk Slanted and enchanted, the bearded and heartbroken members of Vancouver's Ladyhawk seek vindication through sleazy sex, six-packs, and six-strings. The quartet's self-titled Jagjaguwar debut, one of 2006's sleepers, revels in this trifecta, tracing mythological origins back to J Mascis and Neil Young. – Austin Powell
