SXSW: Saturday

I know it’s Monday and that all of these performances happened on Saturday, but I never went to sleep that night, so it’s as if this post isn’t late.  Saturday brought freezing cold weather and drizzly rain to Austin, and it admittedly put a damper on everything.  After a miserable morning, I managed to obtain some extra clothes and rallied, for what was undoubtedly one of the craziest, most fun nights ever.

The day was supposed to start off with me checking out Smith Westerns and Let’s Wrestle at Mess With Texas, but their equipment was rained on and Gwar was taking a really long time to soundcheck, so everything was backed up.  Rather than wait around, I ran up to Red Eyed Fly to see Blair’s set.  (I saw a lot of bands I’d already seen Saturday, but all of them were just as good the second, third, or tenth time around, so I feel justified.  Plus, I was a bit burnt out on taking photos, so apologies if these are a tad sub-par.)  Buy Blair’s album Die Young right now.  Her pop-tinged tunes are going to take her places, and her set I caught at SX was even better than the one I’d seen at Pianos.  I only managed to see three songs, but they sounded very rocking, very tight, and were downright pleasant, which is something you don’t always get a lot of these days amongst all the lo-fi garage.

I went to Mess With Texas again, but still no luck.  I was worried about frostbite, so I escaped to Ms. Bea’s and happened upon a singer-songwriter, Cheyenne Mize.  I accidentally tried to steal one of her cds (I was absolutely mortified; it looked like they were giving them away!), but thought that she had a beautiful voice that went very well with her quiet, sad songs.  She plays with Ben Sollee and Daneil Martin Moore quite often and is on tour with them now.  If you’re a fan of quiet singer/songwriters I would definitely recommend her.  A lovely cold-morning surprise.

Back down to Mess With Texas for a very cold Smith Westerns set.  Jay Reatard’s ex-bassist was there watching, as evidenced by his hair in the photo below.  Smith Westerns are a wonderful young rock band.  The stage was a bit too big for them, but their swagger is reminiscent of bands that I didn’t think there were any of left, and I love that they just ooze sex appeal.  I’m not sure how we arrived at this point, but it’s actually refreshing to hear a band just singing about girls, wearing leather jackets, and tossing their hair back as they play scuzzy solos.  Their sound is simple, but well-honed, and I can’t wait to hear the new songs they played on record.  If Morning Benders are the young virtuosos, then Smith Westerns are their evil twin punks.  And I guess that makes Surfer Blood the brightly colored second cousins who I just don’t like quite as much.

After waiting around slightly too long for Let’s Wrestle, I gave up and headed back to Ms. Bea’s.  Bobby Birdman was just setting up, then proceeded to sing karaoke with a live drummer.  Actually, sometime he was just dancing along to pre-recorded vocals.  The man has a very charming way about him, but there’s so little to the live performance that it’s really rather dull.  I was relieved to see that Vivian Girls were setting up next, specially for a quiet, stripped-down set.  I’ve never felt all that positively about Viv Girls, though never that negatively either, but this was a heart-grabbing performance.  Asking everyone to sit on the floor, they quietly played through a few of their tunes, with an emphasis on vocals.  They sounded raw and stunning.  It gave me a better handle on where they’re coming from songwriting-wise, and was actually one of the most enjoyable sets I saw all week.  I waited around for Tyvek, excited to hear their hard-rocking tunes, but was disappointed.  Just a loud, hard band that was not particularly memorable.

I hadn’t been to Fader Fort at all yet, and wasn’t too stoked about the thought of standing outside at Ms. Bea’s, so I headed down to Fader Fort with my friend.  I saw Dum Dum Girls, Washed Out with Small Black (again), Real Estate, and Sleigh Bells.  Not the best lineup of new music for me to write about on this blog, nor was I in the best position to take photos, but I was having fun.  Fader fort is cool and infuriating at the same time, a good place to relax with mostly good bands, but irritating in the indie-cool vibe they are clearly trying so hard to project.  Dum Dum Girls were exactly the same as they were at Mercury Lounge, but they filled the festival atmosphere and huge stage surprisingly well.  Washed Out is fun to dance to, but still not my cup of tea.  Real Estate were as dreamily relaxed as ever, and looked much more comfortable, if not a bit tired, in front of a large audience than they did at Brooklyn Bowl.  Sleigh Bells, also fun to dance to, sometimes have interesting melodic lines and a nice, heavy guitar sound, but also left me feeling electronically unsatisfied.

I intended to wait around for Fader’s special Saturday night guest, but after Twitter rumors seemed to indicate that no one not already on the schedule was going to show up, I high-tailed it over to local dive bar, Club Primos.  I walked into a very heavy set from a metal band, and waited for recent Best New Music recipients Fang Island.  I’d meant to post about them after hearing them on I Guess I’m Floating, but I procrastinated on it and now I’m kicking myself.  Especially because their live show is so fun.  Huge, intricate guitar solos and fast tempos paired with a few great hooks and memorable lyrics makes this RISD band stand out from the crowd.  Did non-lo-fi make a comeback at this SXSW?  That’s definitely not a useful framework for looking at music, but if we’re going to talk that way, yes, yes it did.

We stuck around and hung out for a bit and watched another metal band.  Club Primos was great- a refreshing break from all the beaten-path SXSW venues.  It was only $2 for a tallboy of PBR, and you got the impression that the confused looking locals slumped at the end of the bar were irritated that they had jacked up the prices just for SXSW.  I felt a bit bad for invading their bar, but it looked like both SXSWers and locals were having a good, amused time together for the most part.

Then, we were whisked away further into East Austin in my friend’s friend car to a house party.  Apparently, this is a house that puts on shows once every two months or so, but does as much as they can during SXSW.  We were there to see Eastern Sea, who turned out to be one of the great surprises of the whole week.  Lots of guitars, and brass, and keyboard, playing in this magical little East Austin house, they were full of good-band-who-hasn’t-broken-yet energy with surprisingly tight arrangements.  The band floats along with a familiar, home is where the heart is energy, that’s supported by down-to-Earth vocals.  They don’t sound like Conor Oberst or Bright Eyes, but they have that same sort of “we’re from the middle of the country and this is the kind of music we’re playing whether or not it’s popular” vibe to them that I really like.  They sound like they fall in love a lot.  Hopefully they’ll tour to NYC soon.

Ending SXSW at a house party watching a great local band was probably the best night a girl could ask for.  I saw 57 different bands in Austin, some of them more than once, many of them very, very good. I have a lot more photos and videos to share, though I’m not quite sure how I’ll do that yet.  I’ll probably put up more content from SXSW for the rest of the week, hopefully in a way that best lets you discover some new music.  In the meantime, more photos and MP3s below.

Blair:

Cheyenne Mize:

Smith Westerns (and Stephen Pope’s hair):

Bobby Birdman:

Vivian Girls:

Tyvek:

Dum Dum Girls:

Small Black/Washed Out:

Real Estate:

Sleigh Bells:

Fang Island:

Eastern Sea:

MP3: “Daisy” – Fang Island

MP3: “Hearts” – Blair

MP3: “Where Do You Run To” – Vivian Girls

My Favorite Albums of 2009: 10-1

Well, this is it.  My top ten favorite albums of 2009.  There was so much great music this year that it feels strange to narrow it down to so few albums.  I really did love each of these though, and I hope you do, too.  Let me know what you think.  I probably won’t be blogging too much until 2010, but I can’t wait to hear what happens next year.

I’ve included my favorite song from each album, unless it was on my Favorite Songs list, in which case I’ve included a different favorite.

10) Yeah I Know – Darlings Darlings are charmingly adolescent.  They’re like that adorable kid you used to baby-sit, but who you know is going to grow up to be really attractive.  With lines like “We can do things to each other,” and “We’ll get fucked up in the park/And we’ll get fucked up in the dark” scattered throughout Yeah I Know, there is something innately raw and youthful about these songs.  They give a pretty great picture of what it feels like to be a twenty-something in New York, as well, with songs like “Eviction Party.”  I think they capture something innate about the spirit of Brooklyn right now.  Then you get a song like the title track, “Yeah I Know,” that’s so full of ecstatic songwriting ideas, and sublimely mature for such a young band (and it’s even better live).  This is a great, fun album, but I’m even more excited about it because of what it signals for this band’s future.

MP3: “Yeah I Know” – Darlings

9) Ducktails – Ducktails Matt Mondanile has put out so much music this year.  This self-titled Ducktails LP is probably the most concrete chunk of output, but I’d really like it to represent everything Ducktails has put his name on in 2009.  From splits with Julian Lynch to tapes to work with Real Estate, Mondanile has created a wonderfully unique soundscape and new musical sensibility.  It’s so calming and peaceful without being too easy to accept.  Ducktails is swirly and complicated and totally satisfying.

MP3: “Backyard” – Ducktails

8 ) Here We Go Magic – Here We Go Magic This album deserves to be on any top ten list based on the strength of “Tunnelvision” and “Fangela” alone.  While those tracks circulated around the internet quite a lot in early 2009, Here We Go Magic somehow didn’t get the kind of buzz that other bands have garnered in 2009.  I believe this is due to Luke Temple’s maturity as a musician and songwriter.  These songs age well with repeated listens.  Temple’s been around forever and is finally getting the recognition he deserves.  This album is full of serious compositions, wonderful and bewildering- not the kind of thing that’s easily hyped.  Instead, this album is solid and stable, steeped in talent and vision, and will be a work to remember for years to come.

MP3: “I Just Want to See You Underwater” – Here We Go Magic

7) Hospice – The Antlers This is the saddest album I’ve ever heard.  A year ago, The Antlers were another Brooklyn Antlers band, one that I frequently mixed up with Crystal Antlers and in turn, Crystal Stilts.  A year later, I doubt anyone will make that mistake again.  Dubbed as one of the best albums of 2009 all the way back in January by NPR, Hospice is stark and honest, a frank take on death and mortality, especially from a young person’s point of view.  Hospice feels like an accomplishment, one that must have been difficult to produce.  I saw The Antlers play it, front to back, at Union Hall earlier this year.  I’ve seen the band several times since then, but I particularly remember Silberman’s a cappella vocals at the end of that Union Hall set for “Epilogue.”  That’s when I knew how truly good this album is.  What a talent.   My only worry about Hospice is that it’s so well-conceived, that the extremely talented Silberman will have a difficult time ever creating anything better.  I’m not the only one to be struck so starkly by the Antler’s live show.  I’ve heard others complain that the album sounds like it’s too muted compared to the sound of the songs live.  I think, though, that this only adds to the beauty of Hospice.  Suffocating, choked, and dying.  The whole thing is so despairingly gorgeous.  Truly one of the most remarkable works of art produced in 2009.

MP3: “Bear” – The Antlers

6) Real Estate – Real Estate I feel the same way about Real Estate as I do about Ducktails.  This band really created a sound this year, something that didn’t exist before they started doing it.  Plus, they’ve done it with two guitars, bass, and drums- a remarkable feat at this point in rock and roll’s history.  It’s less that I love this album, and more that I love all of the output from Real Estate that’s been floating around the internet all year, much of which did find its way onto this release.  An immensely talented group of young men.  Not only is Ducktails a side project, but so is Alex Bleeker and The Freaks, another band that I bet you’re going to pay attention to in 2010.  I’d like to crown all the boys in Real Estate champions of 2009.

MP3: “Fake Blues” – Real Estate

5) Songs of Shame – Woods Maybe it’s because one of my favorite tracks off of Songs of Shame is “Rain On,” but this is the perfect album for a rainy day.  There’s just enough melody to ground all of the psychedelic noodling, and it holds together because all of it is so pretty.  Tapes and old microphones and beards and guitars all add to Woods’ homey aesthetic.  There’s a reason why I put Woods and Real Estate next to each other on both this list and my Favorite Songs list.  They’ve both cultivated, in different ways, a laid-back, quiet rock sound without being too much like that lost 60s band from way back when.  I don’t know, I just really love this stuff.

MP3: “The Number” – Woods

4) Smith Westerns – Smith Westerns Young, overconfident, gritty, naive, celebratory, excited, already jaded.  These are all the things a good punk record should be, and the Smith Westerns deliver all of this on their debut self-titled lp.  Boys and girls and girls and boys, I had to exercise a lot of control so that this wouldn’t be the only album I listened to throughout the month of November.  I’m astounded that these guys are only seventeen years old, but at the same time, no one older could have made such a confident, brash, excellent album.

MP3: “Girl In Love” – Smith Westerns

3) Post-Nothing – Japandroids The title really says it all.  Post-Nothing.  Don’t call them post-punk, post-noise, post-Pavement.  Japandroids know that they sound like a lot of things that came before.  In a year that truly did mark the evolution of what indie music means with the enormous proliferation of genre-bending electronic acts like Animal Collective, Japandroids put out a rock and roll album.  And while it might not be a huge step forward for music like the aforementioned band, it’s no less good or important.  The urgency of the vocals and drumming were unparalleled anywhere this year, and few bands put out an album with so much energy and rock and roll grit.  While the Smith Westerns take their burgeoning boy/girl crushes with the humor of a teenager, Japandroids take their crushes a little more seriously, a little more urgently.  Just like this style of music we love, they’re getting older and maybe wiser, and feel the impending sense of time.  You can hear all of this in their songs.  In the end, it makes my heart feel good.  Let’s go French kiss some French girls.

MP3: “Wet Hair” – Japandroids

2) Wavvves – Wavves Amidst the sudden rocket to fame, amidst the drinking and the drugs, the breakdowns, the backlash, the broken arm, and the bar fights, Wavves put out this album.  It’s easy to forget the music, in light of all of the hype-inducing antics.  Let me illustrate this clearly.  I know the number rankings aren’t ultimately important, but Pitchfork gave Wavvves a higher ranking than it did Jewellery.  But Jewellery made it onto their 50 Best list, and Wavvves did not.  After all of the furor (that Pitchfork largely created) over Wavves this year, it’s become gauche to include Nathan Williams in your best of 2009, or possibly to even admit liking him at all.  Well, I don’t care.  I stand by my convictions that when you cut out all of the other bullshit, you’re left with a fantastic, innovative lo-fi album.  Wavves was one of the first of the whole “lo-fi” craze this year, and frankly, I don’t think anyone does it better than him.  If there’s a better representation of contemporary suburban kids’ existential angst than “So Bored” in music, literature, or art, I haven’t heard, seen, or read it.  With his “ooos” and “waas,” Williams also creates a wonderful pop tension above his difficult, scuzzed out guitar.  Lest we forget the more experimental tracks on Wavvves – while other lo-fi artist like Times New Viking incorporate the pop into their noisy songs, Williams actually divides noise and pop into two different types of songs on his album.  There’s “Goth Girls,” “To the Dregs,” and “Killr Punx, Scary Demons.”  Then there’s “So Bored,” “No Hope Kids,” and “Gun in the Sun” – Ramones-worthy punk janglers.  There’s a wonderful logic to structuring an album in this dual way, one that says quite a lot about bedroom music versus live shows (one of the main tensions of Wavves’ act), and it really sets this album apart for me.

Sometimes it may be difficult for an artist to get themselves heard if they’re not getting hyped by the proper sites.  But we’ve reached the other end of the spectrum, where it’s sometimes difficult for an artist to get heard once they’re in the hype machine.  It’s challenging, but we need to put our notions about Wavves aside and stick to the music on this one.  When you subtract how popular or hated or obnoxious or overexposed Wavves might be, you’re left with one hell of an album.

MP3: “Sun Opens My Eyes” – Wavves

1) Jewellery – Micachu and the Shapes Jewellery is the most original, unique record to come out in 2009, hands down. Micachu and the Shapes are an androgynous female-fronted band of twenty-two year olds banging on beer bottles and home made guitars,  who play completely bizarre Waitsian ditties with more dark humor than a Poe short story.  Maybe it’s because they’re British and didn’t tour in America as much as other bands this year, but this is another album that escaped the hype machine.  Pitchfork gave them an unbelievably low review the first time around, but did indeed include the album in their Fifty Best list.  I honestly can’t understand how this album, with its stunning originality, wasn’t in the top ten.  For starters, they are straight-up weird.  For being so strange, it’s a remarkably versatile album.  “Golden Phone” and “Calculator” are two of the catchiest songs of the year.  Jewellery can be dark and scary, or fun and lighthearted, depending on what mood you’re listening in.  They’re also one of the few indie bands that have really incorporated electronics with guitar-based tunes in an exciting, creative, new way.  The first forty seconds of “Just In Case” are a great example.  It’s still, vaguely, rock and roll, but the electronics combined with the home-made guitar make sounds that are totally new.  It might all be a little too wacky for some to take seriously, but to my ears, Jewellry is absolutely delicious and refreshing, and will certainly be one of the coolest, most interesting artifacts of 2009.

“Calculator” – Micachu and the Shapes

Great New Band: Smith Westerns

(photo by Rev Avissar for Pitchfork)

I was well-aware of the Smith Westerns before CMJ and had posted at least one mp3 for you guys before.  Pretty much everyone has blogged about them by now.  I enjoyed their performance at Pianos at CMJ so much that I’ve spent all day revisiting their self-titled album.  It’s official.  I love this Chicago band.  The sound is really lo-fi, but the songs are full of pop hooks about wanting to hold hands and kiss girls (though you can tell from the scuzzy sound that there’s quite a lot more insinuated).  It’s all so pleasurably, teenagerly innocent.  The best part is, everyone in the band is an actual teenager.  AND Matt Mondanile of Ducktails and Real Estate Tweeted that they got kicked out of Music Hall of Williamsburg for peeing in garbage cans.  They just seem like they’re genuine, and I love that.  You should buy their album on vinyl, but I’m posting three songs below (one of which I’ve posted before) in the hopes that you’ll fall in love with them as much as I have.

MP3: “Dream” – Smith Westerns

MP3: “Girl In Love” – Smith Westerns

MP3: “Be My Girl” – Smith Westerns