Rockfeedback @ SXSW ‘09 – Day Four - 21/3
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Our final day in Austin begins by consoling each other over the tragedy that we'll have to wait another year to give this monster of a festival our love, before we dry each other's eyes and head to Rachel Ray's barbeque at Maggie Mays to catch the f**king New York Dolls(!). I'm not clued up on Rachel Ray myself, but from what I gather she sounds like cross between Jamie Oliver and Ricki Lake... still, she cooks a mean burrito and lets us down the front to film the 'Dolls, so she can't be all bad. Those 'Dolls themselves are just out of bed and moan a bit about having to play a show ("We've already got a record deal, so I don't know why the hell we're here!"), but I reckon there's a glint of sarcasm in the eye those sunglasses they're wearing hides. They're certainly having a hell of a time once they get in to it, and whilst we spend a good while telling our less clued up (but still, y'know, good people) friends that they're "the first punk band, I guess" to an entirely convincing reply of "but now they just sound like Aerosmith", when the sun is shining and your fifth mojito has just been handed to you by a beautiful creature, it's difficult to want for much more. Music mightn't have been perfect, but the situation sure was. (3/5)
[DANIEL JOHNSTON]
After a mad dash for an XLR cable and the fiftieth delay to the endeavour, we finally manage to get Daniel Johnston and a guitar in the same room for us, and the resulting session is absolutely heartbreaking. Whilst many have wondered as to the motivations of those surrounding Daniel, questioning whether manager and family alike are really in it for his best interests or just exploiting an obviously vulnerable character for money, it's in situations like this that the reality becomes clear - those around Daniel are his saviours, involved in and responsible for his career out of a genuine love for a troubled genius. Without them, Daniel could not partake in the one and only thing there is in his life - art. With them, he excels at it.
Johnston's a lovely guy, but it's not just that which is responsible for our admiration of him. Take Max Tundra, for example. He's a lovely guy too. He's a talented one also, compositionally, vocally... the boy can even dance a move or two. But his music's just not doing it for me. It sounds contrived, and, entirely unlike Johnston, as if it originated in the head, bypassing the heart completely on its way out. It's as if these are in jokes that are neither explained to us nor curious enough in their own right to warrant a shared smirk anyway. That said, we must reiterate, he was genuinely bloody charming when we grabbed him for an interview, so much so that to say anything derogatory feels a bit wrong. But hey, I just said his music was a bit whack - it's not like I called the dude a $ *^&"!%? or anything. (2/5)
Staying out of town a little, it's clear that on the outskirts is where the really interesting sh*t goes down. Crystal Stilts are playing in what we in the UK would call a "beer garden", but in the US is probably referred to by the term "bar yard" or something equally stupid. It's a fun place though, a mini festival in something called the Spider Rooms, free to get in and very good natured. Even the darkly clad, doggedly sunglasses-sporting Crystal Stilts are having fun. They make a woozy, shoegazey kind of indie rock that's surprisingly suited as splendidly to outdoor sunshine sit downs as it is dark venues filled with smoke. Yet despite enjoying it, for the very same reasons, it can't help but remind me a little of Glasvegas. And I really, really hate Glasvegas. (3/5)
It's a nice feeling, to make a grand statement like 'Dirty Projectors will be the best band of SXSW' months before you even go, and have everyone tell you you're right when the time finally comes. We catch the band's final performance of the conference at the French Legation, and instantly feel gutted that we didn't see every single not that emanated from their mouths and fingers all festival long. Honest to God, never have I seen a band play nine songs that I have never heard before in my life and enjoyed it this much. Along with the likes of Animal Collective and Deerhoof, you really get the impression that Dave Longstreth and his girls are really doing something to advance music as an art form when they play. This is at once the most stylish and visceral moment of SXSW 2009, and as the sun set over the still very weird looking Austin skyline (bats are everywhere, and skyscrapers are designed to look like owls), we just cross our fingers and hope that the wider world can take this to heart in the same way they did last year's "big thing", Vampire Weekend. There's no reason why they shouldn't. And this is infinitely better - not just better than the Vampires, but better than most music ever made. (5/5)
This might be the first hip hop we've seen all weekend, but we've had a fair share of electro, prehistoric rhythm exploration, Balkan folk and solo violinists, so it's not all been guitar music. Buck 65 wouldn't mind if we'd just indulged our indie side anyway - the first two radical reworkings of his songs aired tonight involve him rapping over Devo's 'Whip It' and Fugazi's 'The Waiting Room'. Gone for the moment is Buck 65 the louche, tweed suit wearing poetry reader, and instead, he's taking it back to the old school beats - he's a rapper again. Fitting, given the rest of the line up and the fact that he's just signed to Sage Francis' label Strange Famous, but surprising - we'd really thought he'd just keep going further and further 'out there'. Yet sometimes the most surprising and invigorating move one can take is a step backwards, and this is certainly great fun - essentially a 'best of Buck 65' delivered in person, it was always going to take a performance from the top drawer to get a crowd at this very, very late stage of a very, very long festival to feel like they were up for another party. But that's conclusively what they got. (4/5)
Daniel Johnston will never play a safer crowd in his life, but though a little tension in the air is usually healthy for a gig atmosphere, the uniformally celebratory end to SXSW that he and his backing band - a Grammy nominated Latin troupe, no less - provide at Emos is just what the doctor ordered. Yeah, it's all a little weird. Everything he does is. They play a cover of 'Live and Let Die', and get it really wrong, in some indescribably brilliant manner. He tells a story of a dream he had in which he was in a court room pleading not to be executed for the crime of trying to commit suicide. Daniel spends the entire time shaking, but also seeming entirely focussed. A man with a 'Hi How Are You?' tattoo next to me become my friend, even though I'm holding my video camera in his line of sight for the entire set. The closing rendition of 'True Love Will Find You In The End' really gets me wondering - if someone with a list of problems as long as Daniel's can maintain an unshakeable belief that eventually true love will come his way, then hell, maybe there's hope for all of us. Or, maybe true love is only deserved by those blessed with this much talent. In which case, we're all f**ked. (5/5)
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