Tuesday SXSW Showcases
First night hangs – showcases!
By Greg Beets, Fri., March 11, 2016
Chicken Ranch Records
ValhallaFounded in Ruston, La., in 1994 by Mike Dickinson, Austin's Chicken Ranch Records herds freaky sounds. Impeccably dressed local openers Mr. Lewis & the Funeral Five chronicle debauchery and deceit through juiced-up cabaret revivalism on their high-water mark, Delirium Tremendous. Puckish Austin supply-side punks the Yuppie Pricks lambaste Obamacare and celebrate Wall Street corruption on 2014's metallic-tasting Appetite for Consumption. Riverboat Gamblers guitarist Ian MacDougall leads Austin's Broken Gold on a frayed journey through the margins that bears kinship to Twin/Tone's golden age. Armed with guitarist/vocalist James Stevens' transitor-ready songs from 2014's Heartbeat Overdrive, fellow locals Moonlight Towers regularly pack coliseum-sized energy onto postage-stamp stages. Same with sensational Georgia garage-rock institution the Woggles. The quartet's new R&B covers EP, Souled Out!, boasts a killer rendition of Chubby Checker's "Karate Monkey." Show-stopping NYC Japanese action-comic punks Peelander-Z end the night right.
