Great heavens, South By South West is almost upon us! I’m not quite a virgin, in that I went last year, but even if you’ve been up and down 6th Street a thousand times, and believe me, by the end of the week your feet feel like that, it still remains almost indecipherable in it’s hugeness.
I wrote a bit of a survival guide after last year’s conference (yes, it’s one of those) and you can read it HERE if you can put up with year old news. But let’s assume you know all that, which also means you know that with a week’s worth of gigs, and over a hundred venues ranging from major stages to petrol station service bays to back alleys, there is very little chance of anyone seeing the definitive ‘best of South-By’, it just ain’t possible. Instead, here in no particular order are some bands that have blipped on our horizon.
Let’s start with the one gig that’s a definite for us, in that I will be dashing from the airport to catch their mid-night set on Monday, whilst co-conspirator / blogger Peter Erickson will be making sure he drives down from Chicago in good time. Drives down, you say? He’s a bit tapped that way. Still, he’s bringing the beer and tea bags.
Yes, our first band are The Joy Formidable. Second time at SXSW for them, they were here two years ago and played something like eight shows in four days, the highlight maybe being Rhydian Dafydd’s amp bursting into flames. This time round they are playing bigger showcases and not so many bicycle shops. This is ‘This Ladder Is Ours’, arguably the best track of their latest album, ‘Wolf’s Law’, and suitably dusty for Texas
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Next up are another band that have something in common with TJF, in having their roots in North Wales.
Deaf Club are now London based, and are a band that get better with every listen and live gig that I get to. We chatted over Christmas, or rather, I bothered them while they were loading out of a venue, and they told me then they’d been invited back to Austin (for those that don’t know, Polly and the guys were in an earlier band that re-emerged as Deaf Club). I am really excited to see them on the list. Here’s their spine tingling new single
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South By is just one big rumour mill, with hints and allegations that such-and-such a ridiculously named band might just turn out to be someone you know. So in that vein, with no guarantees whatsoever, just enjoy for a moment Atoms For Peace‘s ‘Ingenue’ . Just look out for a band in the wrong place, a band that might just have a sad name. In the meantime, Peter and I will scour the streets for Thom and Flea
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Here’s a US band that I’ve personally been jonesing to see for a year or two, even though they’re on the pleasantly acoustic side of the tracks, rather than all that electronic filth that I’m usually immersed in. Little Tybee are from coastal Georgia and are on always-on-the-money Paper Garden Records. Jesus, it rips my heart just to listen to opening bars. Thank god it happies up as it goes along. It’s gorgeous though
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Every year, there’s a band on the line-up that I will simply burst darling if I don’t get to see, and this year, that honour goes to Austra. Check out this video of ‘Beat And The Pulse’ actually filmed at SXSW in 2011. This is just magnificent, it’s enough to make anyone believe in music, EDM or otherwise. I love the way one camera vibrates out of focus with the bass. There’s four separate acts represented in Austra, and the way this pulls all the parts and threads together just thrills. My personal temptation will be to to go to every one of their sets, they are unmissable.
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By way of contrast, if you’ve just watched that, the two girls doing backing vocals, the ones who look like twins because that’s what they are, go by the name of Tasseomancy. A couple of years ago Sari and Romy Lightman were pretty much a folk duo. There’s still a huge legacy of that, but with a new and dark heart pounding away under there. If you haven’t heard them, let this one build way beyond the choral opening until you drown in a dark swamp
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Big Freedia is someone I really and truly saw playing in an alleyway last year. I was hooked and at the same time afraid that with all that ass-shaking, it was somehow…oh fuck, let’s say it, some sort of hipster version of pole dancing. But I asked some questions and widened my education about Big Freedia (who as readily identifies as a girl as a guy), and trust me, this is ass shaking that’s owned by and for the benefit of nobody but them that’s doing it. Big Freedia is gaining momentum, and is back this year with bigger proper shows. I will be there !
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Built out of the ashes of other bands, Glasgow’s CHVRCHES have had a startling upward trajectory. Just see happens if you snooze instead of snapping up tickets for UK shows. The band consists of ‘old pros’ (if I might be so bold to call them that) Iain Cook, and Martin Doherty who provide dense dense drama to underpin the voice Lauren Mayberry, who I knew when she was still toiling away In Blue Sky Archives. Here’s a live cut of ‘The Mother We Share’, seeing as we like it even better than the new one.
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I like Icky Blossoms more and more. They’re out of Omaha, Nebraska, and share Derek Pressnall with Tilly And The Wall. It’s dance-pop with massive attitude. The new single ‘Village’ is nothing but a paean to every kid that never fitted in, but then, in later life, turned out to be the really interesting people who didn’t share your boring existence. I like their style something rotten. They’ve recently caused offence in Omaha (oh lord I wish I’d been there for this) by performing this single, which mentions sexy-times with beelzebub, at an open air festival. Oh come on, you’d have to listen really hard to draw offence from this. I caught the last few minutes of their set last year, when I nipped upstairs in restaurant to use the men’s room. This time they’re on my ‘unmissable’ list
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It’s a toss-up being a Brit at SXSW. Do you hang round the British Music Embassy, rubbing shoulders with Huw Stephens, and supporting our exports? Or do you make a point of only seeing bands you’d never see at home. So let’s dive back for a UK band now, in the shape of ISLET. Apparently they’re elusive and shun the internet. Rather than shunning them right back, the internet says “here, check out their experimentalism”
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A Brit band we will definitely be seeing will be NO CEREMONY///, who, despite being an hour away up the motorway in Manchester, I’ve so far failed to see in the flesh. When Feelsolow came out, I said “No Ceremony feel like a sleeper act, despite their newness, and that’s kind of wrong, we should be all over them. This is haunting, and frankly, in my perfect little world, would be compulsory listening”. Five months on, I stand by that
