Official SXSW 2006 Thread

I'm going and in addition to locals I have to see for work, my short list includes Art Brut, Gogol Bordello, Drive-By Truckers, Brother Ali

ninja tune and big dada present:
Spank Rock
TTC
Blockhead w/DJ Signify
NMS (Bigg Jus & Orko)

Friday, March 17 at Oslo.

also, i am speaking on a panel.

My schedule's much more flexible w/o four must-see Hold Steady appearances this year ...

actually, i plan on crowdsurfing during the panel. people in the first row -- BEWARE!!!

Let's see. Here's some others that have piqued my interest:
Field Music
Richard Bishop
Jack Rose
Whitehouse (this would probably rule, no?)
Spoon
Dungen
Women & Children
Richard Swift

http://www.yaris-sxsw.com/previewsandreviews.php?dates_filter=&bands_filter=&editors_filter=25

thursday @ backroom
blowfly
devin the dude
jean grae
chingo bling
alkaholiks

friday @ flamingo cantina
blowfly
dmbq
bad wizard
afrirompo
shell shag
zzz
genghis tron

friday at ????

AAM Party – March 16th - Habana Calle - 709 E. 6th St / 9 PM
Ice Cream Man Party - March 17th - Hole In the Wall - 2538 Guadalupe St. - 9PM
Arthur Magazine Party – March 18th – French Legation – 802 San Marcos
St./ 12:40 PM
Fader Magazine Party - March 18th - Fader Post - 708 East 6th St. / 3:15 PM

really looking fwd to catching one of your sets! i've been spinning 'the cavalry of light' lots lately.

i'll be seeing:
Marissa Nadler
Castanets
Om
Wooden Wand
Jack Rose
Richard Bishop
Kris Kristoferson

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/arts/music/sxsw-journal.html
3-18
"Is perky the new glum? On the third day of the South by Southwest music festival, I kept running into smiley-faced bands playing bouncy, clap-along music. There was the Boy Least Likely, an English band strumming acoustic guitars and hooting on harmonicas like some skiffle hootenanny, singing about dreams and happiness and, just for balance, how their old small-town neighbors had grown up to be monsters. And there were, even better, the Brunettes, a band from New Zealand that riffled through 1960's and 1970's pop with winsome optimism. The Brunettes had an arsenal of toy instruments (along with some adult ones like clarinet and trumpet) and a wry interplay between its two lead singers: a woman vowing love and a man who was only a little skeptical of it. They also had synchronized arm-waving and choruses that went "oooh, wah." And if that weren't perky enough, there were the Flairz, an Australian band reaching back to its parents' or grandparents' garage-rock: a 13-year-old female drummer and two 12-year-old boys who bravely vowed: "I'm not afraid of the high-school women."

Not that introspection will ever disappear from indie-rock. Shara Worden (who has been singing backup with Sufjan Stevens) led My Brightest Diamond in beautifully enigmatic songs: part memory, part parable, part shared secret. She set her lustrous voice against a bare-bones trio, in husky confessions that grew more intimate with each verse. Deadboy and the Elephantmen made more outward noise; it's a duo of a male guitarist and a female drummer who are probably tired of being compared to the White Stripes. They shouldn't be; there's less blues and more metal in their songs, and their lyrics are haunted by God and death. Band of Horses put its introspection on a larger scale, with three guitars, sometimes including a steel guitar, shimmering and chiming behind Ben Bridwell's high, fragile voice and cryptic lyrics. He also sang a well-chosen, desperately lovelorn Otis Redding hit: "Chained and Bound." Band of Horses fits somewhere between the Flaming Lips and My Morning Jacket; between songs, Mr. Bridwell's gawky presence was hugely endearing.

If one thing is eternal at SxSW, it's drone and fuzztone. Idolatry for the 1960's of the Velvet Underground and one-hit garage bands shows no sign of abating. Roky Erickson, who led Austin's cherished psychedelic band the 13th Floor Elevators in the 1960's and had been known until recently as an acid casualty, re-emerged at last year's SxSW and performed all around town this year with a strong voice, a steady hand on the rhythm guitar, a vociferous band and songs that still stomp their old blend of blues-rock and free association, like "Don't Shake Me Lucifer." Garage-rock revivalists can get tedious fast, but the legacy gets transfigured by bands like SSM, a three-man band from Detroit that brilliantly twists its chosen genre: with a drum machine, with synthesizer swoops, with startling tempo changes and goofy electronic effects. Drone and fuzz were also brutally effective for Th' Faith Healers, an early-1990's band that broke up in 1994 and reunited this year. It tore into its songs at top speed and severe volume, with the singer Roxanne Stephen flipping her hair like a thrash-metal headbanger; it would bear down on a riff and then, like its contemporaries the Pixies, suddenly throttle up the volume to something approaching frenzy. There were plenty of other bands playing that 1 a.m. set, but I couldn't tear myself away."

"Mr. Young also said that after more than a year working on the acoustic, pastoral album "Prairie Wind" and "Heart of Gold," the Jonathan Demme film featuring performances of the album's songs in Nashville, he was tempted toward his other extreme: the stormy, plugged-in music he makes with Crazy Horse. "Now I just wake up and hear this massive distorted crunchy hideous noise and it makes me feel like I'm going home."

the rhys chatham thing was definitely great - thurston moore showing up was a nice surprise. my other highlights - the happy flowers, tunng, afrirampo, brightblack morning light, the evangelicals, and a whole bunch more. 'twas my first SXSW and i couldn't have had a better time.

Who's Gonna Be In Austin, SxSW Weekend?

i heard brightblack wasn't so hot at stubb's.

The Million Dollar Marxists

Man Man

Billy Bragg

david cross is dumb. i like superchunk, and they played a great set, but they did not "start it all," you indie-rock apologist.

parts and labor were definitely killer at todd P's. can't believe i'd never seen them in NYC before ... that will need to change soon.

we're called tolchock trio. www.myspace.com/tolchocktrio or www.tolchocktrio.net. the soundman at our final show on saturday said we sound like 'replacements meets sonic youth'

Too bad, they are a good band.

Ah well, I'll have to go to portland I guess.