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March 23, 2006
SXSW, a visual fairytale
While SXSW wrapped up a week ago, the images and sounds are still in the minds of attendees. The festival, to the uninitiated, combines one week of interactive, film, and music components. Breakout bands like the Fiery Furnaces play alongside up-and-coming ones like the Noisettes. It's a splendid place to be, with barbeque experts diligently slicing brisket while live and energetic music wades in and out. The streets are filled with a cacophony of nearly every genre of music, and Swishahouse and SUC cliques mingle with My Chemical Romance emo nerds and Fiery Furnaces-loving mp3 bloggers. All is washed down with beer and 80 degree weather. Splendiferous! Here is a photo journal of the festivities. [ed note - Click on the SXSW marquee for full SXSW coverage from Keith O'Brien, starr reporter.]
Eleanor Friedberg, Fiery Furnaces, playing version #542 of “Asthma Attack”.
Those of you who have been to a Mates of State show – or read any Mates of State fan fiction online – know the lore of how the married duo look longingly in each other’s eyes when they’re doing a drum or keyboard fill (or otherwise not singing). It’s definitely true and more endearing then you might think.
365-750, depend on Annie Hardy of Giant Drag to combine great musicianship and a stellar voice with puerile banter between songs. Call me a skeptic, but when someone ever so delicately sips from a water bottle, but talks so shamelessly dirty, I think, VISAGE!
The Islands show, while horrendously hot and long-delayed, was spectacular, save for Nick Diamond’s childish rants of calling people assholes and complaining about the ads that invariably allowed the band to be compensated while drawing a free audience of likely influential people who would report how fantastic the band sounds. Excuse me for being Starchy McStarch, but you have a new album coming out and are still (relatively) under the radar. Just play and leave your capitalism commentary for the glowing Spin profile.
Austin, TX darlings Voxtrot trotted out "Start of Something" to an adoring base. Austin dudes, take note: If you need to get your weight up with a chick, just coo, "If I die clutching your photograph, don't call me boring, it's just because I like you."
No, it's not a Steve Nicks impersonator. It's Serena Maneesh, and it is what killed (non-fatally) SXSW.
The Boy Least Likely To is flat-out fun to watch. Band members have this nervous air that makes you think amateur band playing their first show until they actually play and you hear the cleanness of songs, no doubt complicated by the many musicians involved.
Photo (unfortunately) missing:
Look, I've never played a rock show. I played a saxamaphone in elementary school because my parents made me pursue some sort of musical endeavor until I entered high school. However, my antipathy towards it impelled me to pretend I was actually playing at recitals during the last year of our "contract". I have no idea about how the energy of performance produces juices that causes people to freak out and act all weird. Maybe its involuntary. But, from the spectator POV, it looks ridiculous. And the chief practitioners of this "craft" at SXSW were Thunderbirds Are Now, at the Stereogum party. Re: TAN, like some other bands I saw, it's not my cup of tea. TAN is technically proficient, energetic, and displayed some good hooks. But the band’s thrashing around, assembling mics in weird positions, and over-emoting looked silly. Sorry, it did. And to the keyboardist, who decided to climb a ladder in the back of stage to presumably propelling himself onto a rafter or something, man was that crazy uninteresting. I wonder if I was the only one who was patiently waiting until the stagehand came to tell him, "No, you lack the star power to get away with such chicanery." Perhaps some were hoping that he'd reach the beam (or whatever) and be forced down, rather than stopped before he could do it. A little more dignity in the former, I think. No such luck for the keyboardist. Oh well, back to thrashing the keyboard like it was a chocking victim.
Fin.
Tags: SXSW, Fiery Furnaces, Voxtrot, Voxtrot, Serena Maneesh
Posted by Keith O'Brien at March 23, 2006 02:39 AM
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