LA Weekly

Bloggers are every journalist's favorite whipping boy. If a shitty band gets too popular, blame the bloggers. If the standards of professional journalism have eroded too much, blame the bloggers. If by 2010, Vampire Weekend has inspired legions of college freshmen to dress as ironic yachters, blame the bloggers. Ultimately, it's as easy to scapegoat the blogosphere as it is to blog and at worst, blogs are benign (at least music ones), at best you discover a lot of good music for free. The horror.

Most importantly, the blogosphere knows how to party, which I discovered at the blogger-promoted Hot Freaks party on Saturday afternoon, a place where Al-Queda could've wiped out 82 percent of the game had it gotten enraged by one post too many about the peace-promoting qualities of the Arcade Fire (Osama hates Neon Bible). I'm not exaggerating either, the place was a veritable Elbo.ws chat room (for those keeping score, that may have been my nerdiest joke ever). While watching Islands, Lykke Li, and Japanese cartoon psychos Peelander-Z, I stumbled across My Old Kentucky Blog, Gorilla Vs. Bear, Aquarium Drunkard and Rock Insider. Other bloggers in attendance who I didn't have the pleasure of meeting included Chromewaves, Largehearted Boy and You Ain't No Picasso, who was presumably searching for Picasso.

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A Pitchfork party without Sparks? That's like Eliot Spitzer without whores: fatigued, thirsty and miserable. And rest assured, Sparks flowed like the River Ganges, even going as far to sponsor the bash, which wasn't really as bad as it was boring. A bunch of people sitting in bleachers trying to look affected and disaffected all at the same time. Granted, I arrived late and didn't stay long, but this had to do mainly with Yeasayer and my aversion towards their Spin Doctors brand of hippindie rock (caused by a collision of the hipster and hippie comets sometime around the year 2006). Inside, Times New Viking delivered a set of ear-drum fracturing noise, but as I'd seen the Matador-signed trio absolutely kill it the night before at the Siltbreeze show, I had no need to stay.

That's the thing about festivals like this, you've got to approach them with the mentality of a baseball player, where hitting safely three out of ten times makes you a Hall of Famer. But there's something about being surrounded by all this great music that leaves you impatient and fidgety. It's the same iPod phenomenon of having thousands of songs at your disposal, none of which you want to listen to longer than 90 seconds. Accordingly, Day 4 was dominated by a supreme case of Musical ADD. Or I as saw it, I was taking the buffet approach, not a very difficult prism to assess things through, considering all my childhood Sundays spent at The Soup Plantation.

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Last night. Last night? Umm, last night ... What the heck did I do last night? Wait. Where the hell am I? In a hotel room, okay ... yeah ... good. At least I'm safe. Okay, now, what the hell did I do again? Jeez. Think. Flashes is all I got, and one grainy image on my cell phone. A half a taco on my bedside table, chomped sloppily. A few sparkles of memory burned into my happiness that no amount of Chimay can diminish. A pile of something in my head. But more than anything, what stayed with me into this morning is a feeling.

See the quality of this picture? This captures the blur of Friday night.

It was there at midnight when you're walking downtown. Not so much on 6th, which on the street is more like a celebration of stupidity than of tapping into the creative wellspring. Down Red River Street at 1 am, however, this palpable excitement is in the air like a mist, and the beats float into the street from a hundred different bands in a hundred different bars and combine to create this unplanned symphony of competing rhythms in different time signatures and dozens of basslines rumbling our innards, and screamers harmonizing with folkies competing with rappers eclipsed by the jumbo sound of Blue Cheer riffing on "Summertime Blues." It all touches the ear drums, all enters the same two holes in opposite sides of our head, each note swimming through our ear canals like spermies on a mission to fertilize our minds. And so on Red River walking past Emo's and Stubb's and Club De Ville and Mohawk, lines tangle down sidewalks and people march from here to there and back again, while this big-ass accidental symphony rises from the street and fills the world with music music music. It'd make John Cage's head explode.

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"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."-Hunter S. Thompson

"What you gonna do when the people go home/ and you wanna smoke weed but the reefer's all gone/ And somebody had the nerve to take the herb up out the doobie ashtray/Why they do me that way?"-Devin the Dude

If the going hasn't gotten weird by the third day of SXSW, you clearly haven't been trying hard enough. By now, it's make or break time, you've finally surveyed the lay of the land and begun to accept certain inalterable realities: the crooked spine that feels like it needs to be re-aligned vertebrae by vertebrae, calves that feel like someone has slit cement in the back of, and not nearly enough time to properly convey the bizarre phenomena of this admittedly wonderful excuse to do for nothing but go to shows, drink, and eat burritos (often all three at the same time). You'll have to forgive me--if these posts feel rushed and ill-thought out it's because they are.

There's a thin line that separates artists, the media, and the fans here. After a few days, it's little surprise to see Jim James walking down 6th in a purple suit on his way to presumably blow the minds of people at the Austin Music Hall. Or watching El-P successfully run game on a very attractive female inside of a make-shift roped-off, VIP section at the Def Jux party, surrounded by Del tha Funkeehomosapien and half of Hiero, smoking beadies. Which was where I ended up last night, after watching Islands open up the Anti Party with an absolutely mind-blowing set that I can't even begin to talk about, lest I go off on another 1,000 word ramble.

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So I have not seen any of my fellow LA Weekly bloggers down here in the lovely town of Austin, Texas but that's because this whole thing is a nightmarish clusterfuck that would do Hunter S. Thompson or Hieronymus Bosch proud. (The latter allusion for those of you whose tastes run more towards some classic rock.) It's hard to run into people you like down here and oh so easy to get lost in the throng of tarted-up girls marketing Miller Light; young kids who will eventually go on to take over their family's insurance business handing you demos; bloggers capturing exclusive "content" on their cell phone cameras; and drunk people.

For those who claim this thing is all about the music, I will -- by way of contrast -- offer my experience of SXSW point-by-point:
- Most of the bands here suck and are doing it for the wrong reasons.
- Most of the audience here have bad taste and are listening for the wrong reasons.
- Sponsors are a necessary evil though that doesn't lessen their evil.
- I fucking hate people.
That last point was actually an aside. Sorry for editorializing. That said, I am getting a lot of business done down here on behalf of my various and sundry ventures.

There are a few events I do regret missing this year because I had, like, actual work to do. For one, Van Morrison's performance at La Zona Rosa. The best of the blue-eyed soul singers thumbed his nose at the general shennanigins that too many other artists too readily accept. He took the following actions, as reported in the NME:

Morrison had the bars in the venue closed for the duration of his set, while cameras, voice recorders, and any recording or filming device were prohibited throughout his set.

I'm also sorry I missed the Lou Reed covers extravaganza at the Levi's (sponsored) FADER fort. The line ran around the block, and though I've heard reports from those that got in that it was underwhelming, Lou Reed actually showed up. That it was probably the hottest ticket in town this week only enforces my feelings from my post earlier in the week that "Lou Reed is a complete maniac and he will probably kick your ass in hand-to-hand combat..."

Basically, Lou Reed and Van Morrison gets it. They too kind of hate people who think the dominant youth culture of today has anything to do with the kind of art they make. And Lou Reed in particular understands that blogging about boxing has more to do with rock'n'roll these days than any youth culture festival.

For a true Internet 2.0 metaphor of what this whole SXSW thing feels like you should check out this ad that ran in China for a wool producer that is sponsoring this summer's Olympics. The Wall Street Journal reported the thing was so damn annoying it led to a massive consumer backlash, which media reporters are taking to suggest that "increasingly sophisticated Chinese consumers are rejecting low-budget, low-quality marketing."

SXSW is basically like that ad, only the thing being advertised is America's out-of-control youth music culture. It too is too often just low-budget, low-quality marketing. And too infrequently is it actually about music.

Why don't all the reporters down here understand this?

After the jump, video of that really annoying ad.

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Okay, so I actually cried tonight. Not sobbed, not wept, not got all blustery and snotty. But about five songs into Le Loup's remarkable, thrilling set at Emo's IV Lounge, they hit upon a combination of chords and chorus that, coupled with my joyful mood and the feeling of how lucky all of us assholes in Austin are to be here and not, say, Baghdad, or Kabul, or the Gaza Strip, or still living in the parents' basement, rushed from my ears to my heart and head and flooded my eyes with tears beautiful tears. What a life this this!

Le Loup at Emo's IV Lounge

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There are a lot of sacred songs in the rock and roll canon, songs that are so connected with their composer that any attempt to replicate them, to put your spin on them, to reinterpret them, is at best doomed to fail, at worst will insult not only the song but your fans. Near the top of that list, right next to "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit," is "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen. Today at the Twangfest showcase at Jovina's, I witnessed not only a cover of the latter, but a double-whammy.

"Born to Run" was attempted by a collection of rockers called the This Is American Music Revue, featuring members Grand Champeen, Two Cow Garage, Glossary, and The Drams. It wasn't bad, per se. It was capable, they were having fun, and there was enthusiasm. But it was "Born to Run," and even if I think The Boss is over-rated, "Born to Run" is a perfect pop song so tied to Bruce that even capable musicians fail miserably. The shortcoming wasn't in the execution. It was in the very idea of it.

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Hey, Aren't You Juliette Lewis?

Walking down 6th street yesterday, you had to wonder if everyone in the world somehow heard that Art Brut song, "Formed a Band" and decided that if Eddie Argos could do it, how hard could it really be? I've seen telephone directories thinner than the official SXSW guide they give you to registration, with about 54,322 bands scattered out in tiny print over four days, with each one playing an average of 3.2 shows. Even at the Red Roof Inn right now 15 miles out of Austin, I'm watching two dudes with long scruffy hair, goatees, porkpie hats, and skinny jeans bemoaning how their van broke down on the way here and how their keyboardist got denied entrance. As far as I can tell, they weren't demanding a Myspace Music page to enter the city limits of Austin this week, so the band must be Canadian. Or else very very stupid.

If you aren't in bands, you work for a newspaper, or you write a blog, or work for a music-related tech company, or in promotions or for an agency--something. Which goes back to my trade show theory. To paraphrase Back to the Future: it's like an alternate Austin 1998 Corvette Day. But things here actually look a little more '88. There are a lot of mustaches running wild, beards, blazers, lame head bands, ironic MTV sunglasses, the accursed neon (confession: I own one neon jacket that I purchased in the fabled year of our lord, 1998.). Even the Ice Cream Man showed up and gave me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle ice cream bar, something I probably haven't done since l learned to tie my shoes (translation: roughly four weeks ago).

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Van Morrison at La Zona Rosa, Austin, Texas; Division Day, The Ting Tings and The Duke Spirit at Buffalo Billiards.

Van Morrison's pretty cool, wearing his trademark cap and sunglasses, holding a saxophone and totally nonplussed about this show. He's got nothing to prove, nothing to hide. He couldn't care less about "The State of the Industry," the collapse of the label system, digital downloading. He's Van Morrison, motherfuckers. He's gonna do what he pleases. And if, when he's scat-singing, he breaks off into, literally, a riff on the words "blah blah blah" -- and he did this during the show -- who's gonna call him on it? He did. He got stuck on "blah blah blah," and did a little vocal solo with the words, as if we wouldn't catch it. But a few of us did, and it didn't really bother us. He played the sax, as he is wont to do these days, and his dozen-odd band members filled the club with a variation on the cool jazz that he used to such great effect on his early classics - Astral Weeks, Moondance and St. Dominic's Preview - and the crowd enjoyed it. Which isn't to say he tore the house down. He could have, had he dropped "Moondance," or "The Way Young Lovers Do," or "Ballerina," or "Brown-Eyed Girl." But Van don't pander, has no time to give the people what they want. He gives them what they need. At one point between songs, he said, "I'm glad we're getting somewhere, because I've got other things to do tonight." Not many people can get away with saying such a thing on stage, but, well, this is Van Morrison, and his boredom is our medicine.

At least for a while. About six songs into the hour-long set, the crowd started getting a little restless. We all had other things to do tonight, too, and one of the joys and curses of SXSW is the reality that even when you're seeing Van Fucking Morrison, the greatest of all blue-eyed soul singers, in the back of your mind you're still thinking, what's next? Who will I see next? Maybe (ugh) Yeasayer? (I will remind you all again: the dude plays a FRETLESS BASS, which are, by definition, WACK). Or Vampire Weekend? Or some other Men at Work flavor of the week?

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If you do a Google Image search for "Austin" this is one of the first things that pops up. Two girls at the 1998 Austin Corvette Day. Granted, this probably has nothing at all to do with SXSW--yet judging by my first impressions of this place, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if by the end of the week, I end up seeing two highly siliconed and bleached women purring atop a sleek sports car. It's shaping up to be that kind of trip.

SXSW is essentially a trade show. Except instead of blonde spokesmodels insinuating that they will be yours provided you spend $60,000 for a car that will make you look douchier than Steve Sanders, SXSW (and the major corporate behemoths paying for it), attempt to ply you with nothing but free booze, free food and free music. As Dilated Peoples once aptly put it, "You Got to Work the Angles."

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In our ongoing attempt to prop some worthy musicians headed to Austin this week, yet another list of LA bands/songwriters to chase down at SXSW in Austin this week. This is a tipsheet for those of you with $$$ in your eyes. Looking for a band to break, license, co-opt, manipulate, convince to sell out? Here are some tips.

Tom Brosseau
Gender: One man
His MySpace Descriptive: “Folk/Acoustic/Emo”
How might they make money for your label/agency/blgo/film project/TV show/bake sale? Brosseau has a sweet voice, high in the register, delicate but not without weight, and his Fatcat Records debut, Cavalier, was one of 2007's under-appreciated gems. “Kiss My Lips” is especially wonderful, and would make for a great bed for a lipstick commercial, or maybe a sweeping, bittersweet health insurance spot featuring snapshots of an aging couple spinning on a merry-go-round.

Buddy
Gender: Six men.
His MySpace Descriptive: “Indie/Acoustic/Alternative”
How might they make money for your l/a/b/fp/TVs/bs? Well, actually, one of Buddy's songs, “Say A Lot,” has appeared on Gray's Anatomy. It's a gentle piano ballad, and perferctly nails their self-described “wimpycore” sound. The band cites Sebadoh as an influence, which totally makes sense: simple and from the heart, little dramas for rainy days. (Below is an unauthorized video featuring "Say A Lot."

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Here's a list of LA bands/songwriters to chase down at SXSW in Austin next week. This is a tipsheet for those of you with $$$ in your eyes. Looking for a band to break, license, co-opt, manipulate, convince to sell out? Here are some tips.

Abe Vigoda
Gender: Four men
Their MySpace descriptive: "Tropical/Pop-Punk/Regional Mexican"
How might they make money for your label/agency/blog/film project/TV show/bake sale? One of LA's most promising young guitar bands, Abe Vigoda (alas, no relation) comes out of the thriving downtown Smell scene, which spat out fellow spazzes Mika Miko, No Age, Health, Sissy Spacek (one more celeb-band-name and we've got a trend!) and the Mae Shi. Abe Vigoda are smart, young, tightly wound guitar band that understands melody and dynamics, and scream in perfect harmony. They're also wonderfully comfortable and chatty in front of the mic.

Abe Vigoda featuring Mama Chancla (a Silver Dagger/Mika Miko)

Acid Girls
Gender: Two men
Their MySpace descriptive: "Regional Mexican/Glam/Punk"
How might they make money for your l/a/b/fp/TVs/bs? Acid Girls make kick-ass funky party music as part of the thriving IHEARTCOMIX scene, mix Bonde Do Role with the Fugees with Simian with the Acid Girls' remix of Health's amazing "Triceratops." It's electro, it's kinda cheesy, but it gets 'em dancing.

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So I'll be covering SXSW next week for the LA Weekly. I have never been nor do I have any idea of what to expect. I'm pretty excited to go though. I've been asking around and have generally been met with the boiler-plate response that "SXSW is awesome." However, one friend did tell me to expect lots of free BBQ, free liquor, free indie rock and lots of loose women. Which by my guesstimation sounds eerily similar to heaven, or at the very least Freaknik for white people.

The Deadly Syndrome:

Wednesday, March 12 11:30 p.m. Beauty Bar Backyard (617 E 7th St)

Saturday, March 15 10:00 p.m. Cedar Street Courtyard (208 W 4th St)

If I were bucking for cool points, I'd say that that the LA band you need to see most at SXSW is No Age or Health. Of course, bucking for cool points by writing about a trendy band on the Internet is perhaps the most un-cool thing I've ever heard (every time you say this out loud, another blogger dies). Nothing against Health or No Age, they'll both appear later on this list, but right now, the best band in town is The Deadly Syndrome.

I've brought nearly a dozen people to see these guys in the last year and all but one of them has walked away impressed. Last month, when I was in Mexico at my friend's wedding, I got to talking to another guest from Seattle who was really into music. When he found out what I did for a living (at least one of us could figure it out), he asked me if I knew about The Deadly Syndrome and then proceeded to tell me they were his new favorite band and wondered out loud why nobody really knew about them. I didn't really know what to tell him other than that a) they don't have mustaches b) they don't wear dresses and c) they're from LA. You should see them next week if you're in Austin. If you don't like them, you're allowed to write hate mail in the comment section.* Deal. Deal.

*Offer does not apply to people who voted in the 2007 Pazz & Jop Poll.

Download:
The Deadly Syndrome: "Eucalyptus"

Health

Friday, March 14 12:20 a.m. Flamingo Cantina (515 E 6th St)

Saturday, March 15 2:00 p.m.

SESAC Day Stage Cafe Austin Convention Center (500 E Cesar Chavez St)

I'm not only writing about Health to win cool points (they're like the 500 ring in a game of hipster skee-ball), I'm writing about them because I like their taste in neon hoodies. I mean, who knew that it was possible for 1988 and 2008 to exist in one American Apparel American made dimension? Retina-shattering use of neon of aside, these Smell staples are pretty awesome live and worthy of the advance hype. I mean these guys are an electronic-minded art-punk band and if that doesn't get the Pitchfork types going, I don't know what would. (Panda Bear as Obama VP?)

Download: MP3: HEALTH-"Crimewave"

 

The Mae Shi

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Mark your calendars if you're making the trip to Austin for South by Southwest this year. The LA Weekly party is Friday, March 14 from noon to 5:00, at La Zona Rosa, 612 W. 4th Street, Austin.

The LA Weekly / Village Voice concert will feature The Black Keys (seen below playing Austin two years ago)

Health (just written about in LA Weekly a couple of weeks ago.)

The Cribs

And Soundtrack of Our Lives, seen below playing Australia, not to be confused with Austin.

Nice....

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Last week we offered an extensive list of L.A.-based bands hitting South by Southwest in Austin this year (March 13-16). Alas, we missed three of them, all from the beautiful township of Midcity, Cali. This from Brian Miller:

Noticed on the la weekly sxsw blog that 3 la acts are missing. I have
a feeling its because they are registered as all being from Midcity,
CA ... midcity being the neighborhood in la around the 10 freeway and
fairfax. Could you please add them to the list?"

the acts are:

Captain Ahab (watch this video right now, but you have to commit to watching it to the very end).

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Want proof that L.A.'s in the middle of an astoundingly fertile period of musical expansion? See the list below. We're going to have our hands full this year. Expect around the clock coverage from Austin.

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