Rockfeedback @ SXSW '09 – Day Two - 19/03
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
We oversleep. Some of us get up in time to make the Andrew Bird acoustic session we're filming, and some of us don't. Those who don't regret it, as those who do tell us that it was quite spectacular, despite the 'Bird himself feeling a little under the weather (although the actual, non-health related weather continues to be spectacular). The gent's voice is apparently a thing of wonder. I however am a tw*t, and missed it, so I'll have to wait for the footage to be edited, just like you.
[DANIEL JOHNSTON]
One thing I wasn't going to miss for the world however was our proposed acoustic session with Daniel Johnston straight afterwards. However, the 'session' part of the meeting was not to be - when Daniel's brother Dick dropped him off outside his manager's office on Congress for the filming, Dan forgot to take his guitar out of the car. He then bought a hot dog and spilt sauce all over himself. Though the musical magic had to wait for a few days, the interview with Austin's adopted golden boy Johnston was a revelation - the guy's utterly engaging, wholly charming, and to be in his presence is to be humbled by the idea that your problems don't really amount to sh*t, when you think about it. We'll catch up with him a few more times, for increasingly engaging meetings. News follows.
We had a party to throw next, as we donned yet again the hat of our sister label Transgressive Records. Amidst the dusty brown grass of Bush Park opposite the Austin Convention Centre, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson announced his signing to the label with an acoustic yet full band set, before Free Moral Agents, who feature members of the Mars Volta, left everyone with a 'huh?' look on their faces. Benjamin Esser, however, delivered a set as intriguing and glamorous as his exceedingly intriguing and glamorous jacket, sporting a new tattoo of the outline of the state of Texas added to the boy's arm only hours before. Graham Coxon wrapped things up with the gazillionth of his gazillion and twelve shows this year, his new 'spooky acoustic' vibe settling wondrously with the all seated on the floor crowd, reminiscent of an alt-rock wedding, sat as they were in a big white marquee sipping free beer on the sunniest of sunny days yet.
[GRAHAM COXON]
The fact that there are only four f**king cabs in the whole of Austin, and that we're so taken by Coxon's rendition of 'In the Morning' that we find it difficult to leave his set on time, means that we sadly miss our appointment with The Mae Shi across town - word has it that each of their fifteen SXSW showcases rocked the party, however. We feel bad about this for the rest of the week, yet the (three, large, delicious) frozen Margaritas and Burritos at the Iron Cactus ease our pain somewhat.
[J. TILLMAN]
Whilst we soak up the sun on the balcony overlooking 6th Street, one of us (our producer, Kevin) decides to take a detour to meet up with an old friend. Over at Peckerheads, for the first time since the now legendary Rockfeedback session at our Lexington home in London, we shake hands with Fleet Foxes sticksman and arguable more impressive solo artiste J. Tillman. Though his delicate tunes are delivered with aplomb, a noisy audience doesn't make for their happiest home, yet our time with Joshua is still highly enjoyable - he 'makes' Kevin drink so much whisky that he's entirely useless for the rest of the day, and after our next band, goes home to bed. Now that's a gig. (4/5)
That next band is one of our favourites of the festival - No Age. As seems to be the norm for many bars on 6th Street this SXSW, they play in a big tent outside the bar (this being Radio Rooms) whilst another band plays inside. This often leads to a confusing cacophony in the background, somewhat ruining the act you're trying to watch, but with No Age this ceases to matter - if ever a two piece guitar band revelled in distant cacophony, it's this pair. They spend a good minute or two before every song just making some squall, looping it, chopping it up, sampling themselves in to infinity, and then unleashing hell - two minute songs that, if played on an acoustic guitar and accompanied by a drummer who wasn't completely possessed, would sound very normal, yet played with an army of sounds in the background and with a man keeping a beat whilst he loses his mind, it's exhilarating. Finally, Rockfeedback encounters its first blistering noise of SXSW, and couldn't be happier. (5/5)
All that's left for us to do is find a spot in Maggie Mae's bar and consume its various delicious products whilst we act like foolish English tourists until it's time to head back to that aforementioned church to point our cameras in the direction of Elvis Perkins in Deerland. Thing is, probably through absolutely no fault of his own, the dude takes an absolute age to come on stage - and, poor thing, there aren't so many people who have bothered to stick around and check him out. Why wait for a band at SXSW when you can go and see a gazillion others, after all? Those who skipped it missed some fine wandering brass section action and gently sleepy song writing par excellence, but due to it being so dark in there that we could barely make out a thing, the feeling that there was another gig across town that was probably a little more, ah dunno, vital, and having a particularly uncomfortable seat (how do the Church of Christ expect to get congregation numbers up when they refuse to put cushions on pews?), we're not feeling it that much. There's always tomorrow (3/5).
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