Los Angeles Music Blog

Sid Vicious never filled one of these

​Tomorrow at midnight is the deadline to submit your application for you and/or your awesome LA band to play at the 2010 South By South West conference/festival/music-biz-clusterfuck.

Yeah, we know. Part of the reason you got into music was because you don't like bureaucracy and filling forms, but SXSW is not the Smogcutter and in order to play there you gotta pay $40 and sign up for some kind of complicated music biz subscription thingie called "Sonicbids."

If you don't wanna do it, ask your less-talented buddy to do it for you and tell him he can call himself your "SXSW road manager" or something like that. If he complains, tell him some dude who started doing boring errands for the Beatles ended up running their not-insignificant business as the president of Apple Corps for decades (think we're bullshitting you? Google "Neil Aspinall")!

(advice by SXSW insiders on how to be picked, after the jump)

View the SXSW archives for complete coverage .

Randall Roberts

Strange Boys drummer Matt Hammer at the Beauty Bar

It's all a blur, but a few snapshots remain. Many who follow the fest, of course, were there and damn sure weren't anywhere near the Internets. We were. We were blogging. Over the past five days a few of us raced around Austin chasing music, and logged it in West Coast Sound. For those of you catching up on sleep and information, here are a few glimpses we recorded.

On Saturday afternoon, Fannius, the female rapper from West Hollywood who drops a power pop beat, stands outside Rusty Spurs Saloon on E. 7th Street in downtown Austin, watches people walk around on the street, and says she wants to have "fun."

Patrick Range McDonald

Fannius

In the past three days, she and her band drove 22 hours straight in an Econoline van to Texas, played a South by Southwest show in front of a wild, drunken crowd on Friday night that, according to her bassist, wanted to "interact" with them, and replaced her rented van with a new one because the old one suddenly caught fire.

Despite all of these things, and despite the fact that she starts her gig at Rusty Spurs with only her manager standing in front of her, it doesn't stop Fannius and her six-member band from rocking out.

Randall Roberts

Saturday afternoon at the Mess with Texas party.

Yes, they pulled it off.

For the past three years, Sean Carlson and Keith Morris, in conjunction with Transmission Entertainers, the founders of Austin's renegade summer autumn Fun Fun Fun Fest, have thrown the Mess With Texas party, which features a few dozen bands on two stages in the very crowd-friendly Waterloo Park.

Last year was the first year that Mess with Texas did it at the park, and much to their credit, they somehow pulled off a huge, un-SXSW-sanctioned show featuring as headliners a reunited Breeders. This pissed off the official SXSW festival greatly, because the Breeders didn't play a sanctioned event. The camps have since reached an understanding, and the result is a big-ass outdoor party.

Maybe we ought to blame Kanye--even though this trend started well before him, and will likely persist long after he retires to pursue French anime interior spaceship design. Like it or not, 'Ye's massive success re-removed a lot of barriers into the major label rap game. No longer did you need street cred, or an ice-grilled veneer, no longer did you need to kick raps about the bodies under your belt, the weight you push, or the clips you hold (though--of course--doing so didn't hurt).

The game had ossified and theoretically, lifting arbitrary notions on what it means to be a "real rapper," should've been the the best thing to happen since Biggie and 2Pac got shot and hip-hop turned mausoleum--yet all it did was create a new set of problems. Namely, that a new generation emerged with "Can't Tell Me Nothing," as their mantra. Thing is, it's not that "kids today" are inferior to their forebears, but rather that they need editors, or at least a legitimate set of checks and balances.

Randall Roberts

Casxio, of LA, have a major presence at SXSW this year

Casxio, the synthesizer dance pop band from LA, is on a lot of peoples' radar at this year's festival. And it's not because they've even necessarily performed a transformative show or anything (we've missed them thusfar, and apparently just lost our chance, as they gigged an early afternoon performance at the Rusty Spur). Rather, it's because they've apparently printed up thousands of posters and have been papering like crazy. Harder work than hitting send on your Twitter account and Facebook page, but it gets them into the eyes of boatloads of people cruising up and down 6th Street.

Randall Roberts

Pelican rips it at the Southern Lord Records showcase

I'm sure Metallica was great. They were good when I saw them at the LA Forum a few months back, where the dudes in the pit were in their typical testostero-frenzied state. And the indulgent 45-minute soundcheck that preceded their Stubb's outdoor show sure made it seem as though they were going pour out some serious fucking riffage loudly. A roadie bumped on the kick drum for five minutes, then moved to the snare, then to the tom, then back to the bass drum, then snare and bass together. Then another roadie started working on the guitars in combination with vocals. Metallica has many guitars, and he checked a lot of them.

View live photos in the "Metallica Thrashes Stubb's" slideshow.

On Friday night in Austin, something very weird, maybe even life altering, happened: Metallica and Devo played inspired concerts in the same Texas town, only a 15-minute walk apart, and almost perfectly back to back.

Devo's Booji Boy

It made for one of those bizarro nights in rock history that may end up influencing a generation of young musicians we have never heard from yet, but will cite Friday, March 20, 2009, as the day nothing would ever be the same. And if things shake out that way, the world should prepare itself for something very, very special in the next six, maybe 12 or 18 months.

Maybe it's wishful thinking, but unlike other music festivals, South by Southwest is not only about fans seeing bands, but bands from around the world seeing each other. And it's no doubt a thing or two is learned in the process.

View live photos in the "Metallica Thrashes Stubb's" slideshow.

On Friday afternoon, the four members of arguably the world's most famous heavy metal band flew into Austin, Texas, from San Francisco to promote a new music video game called "Guitar Hero Metallica." For the press conference, they set up shop at the Four Seasons Hotel on San Jacinto Boulevard, a few blocks away from the South by Southwest panel discussions at the Convention Center.

Metallica.com

Metallica, with bassist Rob Trujillo second from left.

After posing for a quick photo session in the San Jacinto Ballroom, where photographers snapped away and the band wore sunglasses to deflect the flashing lights, lead singer and guitarist James Hetfield, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett, drummer Lars Ulrich, and bassist Rob Trujillo went off to separate conference rooms on different floors of the luxury hotel to be interviewed by reporters.

On the ninth floor, in room 916, Trujillo, wearing long black hair, black pants, a black "Black Flag" t-shirt, white socks, and black Vans sneakers, took up his residence before the band played a gig tonight at Stubb's Bar-B-Q. Trujillo sat at a long wood table in a green, comfortably padded swivel chair with a view of downtown Austin behind him. As three reporters walked into the room, the bassist, a Culver City, California, native, stood up and introduced himself. He looked happy.

Randall Roberts

Waking up with Affliction

We don't know whether this was a Hilton Hotel exclusive or not, but everyone checking in received a special gift when they got their (Island/Def Jam/Mercury) keycard: a black and brown pillowcase with a screaming, crazy-looking eagle with its evil tongue sticking out and beady eyes staring into the distance. In big, bold letters above it, the name of the LA-based clothing company giving this to us: Affliction.

Last year was my first year in Austin, so I can't really speak to nebulous notions of the SXSW "good ol' days." Anecdotal evidence suggests that the place has expanded exponentially each year since the rise of the Internet, and the demolition of the quasi-mythological monoculture. In layman's terms, this boils down to: the web created a lot more institutions, some legit, some bastardized, and ultimately, all this tidal wave of taste-makers has led to is a lot more parties.

Right now, as I type this, I'm glancing to my left at a 65-page guidebook to day parties over a scant four-day stretch. If I want to, I can attend the "People In a Position to Know Recordings" Party (a label I'm unfamiliar with), "3rd Coast Magazine" Party (a magazine I'm unfamiliar with), the "Full Irish Breakfast Party" (a culinary delight I'm unfamiliar with), and the "Sonicbids" Party (a type of music-cum-real estate transaction firm I'm unfamiliar with)--and that's just half of the first page. With ankle-high bars for entrance, nearly anyone can come out here, throw out a welcome mat, and cross their fingers that The Pains of Being Pure at Heart will play their Aloha Ice Cream Social, sponsored by Urban Outfitters.

Randall Roberts

Brian Aubert, in black, seated, and band/crew await their date with Daytrotter.

For bands at South by Southwest, there's a lot of waiting involved. Yes, there's hustling, and unloading and reloading the van, and dealing with sound dudes on short notice when everybody's feeling a little grumpy and running on four hours of half-sleep, which makes the world look crazy. But then you get to the place you're supposed to be,in this instance a little makeshift recording studio outside of Austin, and once there, you wait. And wait. And not only that, you wait for Peter, Bjorn and John, who are inside the studio recording their Daytrotter session.

The Soft Pack

"We're The Soft Pack," lead singer Matt Lamkin told the crowd at Opal Divine's Freehouse in downtown Austin last night. "We're from California."

The Los Angeles-based band then launched into a hard-driving, 20-minute set, with another gig tonight at the Mohawk Patio at 11 p.m. The buzz of last year's South by Southwest Music Festival, The Soft Pack once again showed off a take-no-prisoners sound propelled by the exact vocals of Lamkin and the ferocious drumming of Brian Hill.

Last night I posted a "SXSW Notes from the Road" update courtesy of rappers Yak Ballz and Kosha Dillz who are keeping me updated on their SXSW experience via e-mail. Today Dillz sent in this SXSW snapshot of him walking down what appears to be 6th Street with a boa constrictor around his neck. Yes, that is indeed a live snake.

"Can't help but smile here," Dillz writes. "Right before my rap session with Mistah F.A.B, Zion I, EyeDea and Black Skeptik of the Mayhem Poets, I managed to be choked by a boa constrictor to help my root canal pain." (And here I thought that's what Vicodin was for. Shows what I know.)

Devo lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh

At a Thursday afternoon press conference at the South by Southwest Music Festival, punk-art band Devo revealed they will perform new songs at their concert in Austin, Texas, on Friday, March 20.

Two of the songs are titled "Don't Shoot, I'm a Man" and "Fresh." The first song, says bassist Jerry Casale, is "one man's plea." "Fresh," says Casale, is about being fresh.

Sabrina Talerico (courtesy of KCRW)

Bjorn

This morning hanging around Tequila Mockingbird recording studio waiting to chat with Jason Bentley on Morning Becomes Eclectic, a bunch of Swedes were loading equipment in and hanging around in a uniquely Swedish way. Still in a morning fog and on the other side of the space, we wondered what was going on -- this despite the fact that we knew what was supposed to be going on. Anyway, someone calls out a 'Bjorn!', and duh, we've been watching Peter, Bjorn and John getting ready for their in-studio performance on MBE.

Quincy Jones

In a packed auditorium at the Austin Convention Center in downtown Austin, Texas, legendary music producer Quincy Jones gave the "keynote" speech on Thursday afternoon at the South by Southwest Music Festival. From the get-go, Jones struck a personal and political tone--a flyer sat on every seat inside the auditorium, promoting Jones's push for a "Secretary of the Arts" in President Barack Obama's Cabinet.

"There is now a Secretary of the Arts Petition circulating to bring attention to the new White House so that the arts can be made a priority and not just a fringe element," read the flyer, with Jones's picture predominantly displayed.

Jones then spoke about music, artistic inspiration, and succeeding as a black artist during a time of widespread segregation and racism in the United States.

I have this theory: like most things, greatness at music generally* requires an alloy of natural talent, providence, and an Outliers-like tenacity requiring 10 years hard labor in dingy crackerbox clubs, or snagging a Best New Music on Pitchfork--whichever comes first. The corollary being that forming a mediocre "indie" band is one of the easiest things to do, save for possibly Countrywide Mortgage jockey (00-07), cast member of Sunset Tan (R.I.P.), and professional music scribe.

Stumbling through the Austin Convention Center Wednesday morning seemed to bear out this half-baked hypothesis. Bands everywhere. Big ones. Short ones. Tatted ones. Bearded ones. Mustached ones. Mutton-chopped ones. Should the combination of global warming and nuclear winter ever turn America into a frozen tundra, it's nice to know that the flannel-clad masses will keep cozy while churning out recycled riffs from Modest Mouse, Pavement, and R.E.M. Skulking woe-be-gone troubadours loomed around every corner, guitar strapped to their backs, scowl scarring their faces, "Will Ape the Jesus and Mary Chain for Food," intent evident in their eyes.

* Barring obvious Mozart-like prodigy.

One of the most buzzed LA bands going right now is The Henry Clay People, whose debut on Autumn Tone Records has set them on a crash course with ... something. Rumors are swirling about them signing today with a big name management company, and their gigs here will no doubt be teeming with executives. The cool thing is that the band is hooked in with the Aquarium Drunkard blog, who also runs Autumn Tone, so a lot of good people are getting good exposure.

Anyway, if you're in Austin today, check out this show.

The first official night of South By Southwest music, you'd think, would be kind of a pace-setter, a warm-up night. But no, even if you arrive late and think you're going to do some stretching and calisthenics, grab an easy dinner, before really cooking it on Thursday, something calls you from beyond, and his name is Kid Congo Powers.

Though I just returned to L.A. from Austin, Texas after a week working SXSW Interactive with the top players in tech and social media, it doesn't mean I'm not rocking SXSW Music in spirit. When I found out that my early return home meant I'd be missing hip hop acts like Yak Ballz, Kosha Dillz and Cage, I admit I considered "missing my flight." But duty called back at the office so instead of going rogue I asked a few of the guys to send me photos and updates from the road as they made their way through the festival.

Dawes "Love is All I am" from THE FEAR on Vimeo.

In our ongoing effort to highlight a few of Los Angeles' rising and/or under-appreciated and/or overlooked artists heading to Texas this week for the SXSW Music Festival, we bring you Dawes.

MySpace-profile views: 123,340

Dawes could only spring from Los Angeles, or at least possesses that certain magical harmony and appreciation of wide-open spaces, rolling waves and Pacific breezes that's inspired musicians for decades.

Nite Jewel
MySpace profile views: 88,324
Nite Jewel is part of a fascinating little scene of lo-fi cheesy dance music coming out of one corner of LA's art community, one that has connections to the Italians Do It Better world of New York City -- but way more oblique and interesting. The pseudonym of young artist and philosophy student Ramona Gonzales, Nite Jewel crafts semi-clumsy dance funk that feels like it was discovered in the disco trunk in your parents' attic.

Last year one of the most buzzed about parties at South By Southwest was the big-ass Mess With Texas party at Waterloo park. Organized by Sean Carlson and Keith Morris of the F Yeah Fest, along with Austin promoter Transition Transmission Entertainment (which does the great fall Fun Fun Fun Festival in Austin), last year's Mess with Texas party was one of the biggest day parties of SXSW, and delivered, among many others, the Breeders, NOFX, Yeasayer, Kimya Dawson, Atlas Sound, Simian Mobile Disco and a few dozen others, along with a handful of ace comedians (David Cross helped book the first MwT party).

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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