See here is the thing about SXSW, sure you have all the issues revolving around this big overblown marketing beast where small independent bands scream to be heard above the fray, but forget that. Put that aside and what you have at SXSW is this crush of humanity descending on our proud state capital every year to hear some great music and have a great time. I mean look at this fellow below.

Chris Gray – Responsible Writer
Yes, that’s our dear friend Chris Gray of the Houston Press working hard like the excellent writer he is. He’s got his press badges, his wristbands, and he blogged extensively throughout. Well, not us. No sir we are down in the trenches with you plebeians. While Chris was jumping from show to show in the evening, we had to pick our shows*, pay for each one, and drink like fishes at our homebase bar on 7th. While Chris was blogging extensively we were either too hungover to type in the morning or threatened with death for typing too loud at the early hour of 1PM. While Chris was bringing you the latest and greatest bands, we were discovering new uses for Guideon’s Bible that probably would fall under sacrilege in most denominations. So, no, you are not going to get the full SXSW musical experience here. Neither will you get a run down of all the silliness, weirdness, drama, and genuine party call me insanity of the weekend – this ain’t no personal blog. But here is a quick recap of what I got to see from Thursday and Friday. Blogger is being weird right now so Saturday’s recap will have to wait.

Thursday 19 April

Consider this a stand-in for all lame SXSW bands
Let this band take the place of all awful and middling bands of SXSW. Ya see, for all the good that you can find at SXSW, you can find something terrible. Now granted, the “Texas Rock” stage on 7th street is the worst crap you will ever hear at SXSW no matter what year it is and even these guys above couldn’t hold candle to that shit but in their own bar band/blues rock tropes kind of way they were pretty unbearable.

Elaine Greer’s death metal set at Casa de Gallo
Next stop was Casa De Gallo and when I got there I had JUST missed Giant Princess play. The setting was pretty nice – a small little home in an obscure street on the east side and there was a good representation of all your music friends relaxing while enjoying some food and music. Elaine Greer played a great set with Travis on bass being his usual jovial self and Austin lending his skills on guitar, accordion, and backing vocals. The room sounded great, the band delivered, and Elaine’s voice carried all the melody, wit, and intelligence of her songs with a charming grace. Of course, if you’ve read my columns or blogs, you’d know that this is nothing new. Buxton was to follow Elaine Greer but I had to leave to catch an old friend from Austin. No worries, you know as well as I that it’s an easy bet that Buxton would take no prisoners. Need proof? That new single they have coming out KILLS! When it comes out buy a copy, then you will truly know of this band’s might.

Friday 20 April

Friday ended up being my Battan Death March. Let’s just say, I paid for Thursday all of Friday and leave it at that but, using every possible method available to me, I plugged through. Still we did see some good bands along the way.

Jana Hunter
After that is was a race across town to see Jana Hunter at Domy books. I’d missed her Tuesday so I was glad to find that Domy was running a bit behind schedule. I mean c’mon you know Jana: that singular phrasing, that jangly guitar, the slow spacious emotional songs. Much like Lou Barlow’s set the prior night, Jana hailed in the cooler evening weather playing her haunting music as the sun began to fall and birds flew across the sky overhead. I couldn’t have asked for better.

*My band didn’t apply this year and so I didn’t ahve wristbands like I did last year.

Anyhow, let me jump to the penultimate band of the evening – Oklahoma City’s Stardeath And White Dwarfs. I want you to take a good look at these photographs…

…and I know what you are thinking. This looks pretty bad-ass. And you are right in that they had a spectacular light show. The set up was amazing with multi-colored lights flashing to the music under a haze of fog. There was only one problem – that’s all they brought with them. Let’s break it down. The light show was spectacular but their performance and songs were neither here nor there. And this problem was evident from the start. Their choice of opener – a note for note cover of the Butthole Surfers Sweat Loaf. That’s right this band starts off with a cover of the Butthole Surfers covering Black Sabbath complete with the piped in intro. Hey, I can hear that album at home guys! NEXT! The second song was actually OK but from there it was downhill: an entire set of cool lights and no content. I mean look, I caught Hearts of Animals play the Mink on Monday night – just one woman with a guitar and a voice – and she blew these clowns away. OH wait, she bothered to write songs! Oh wait, she actually has talent! Oh wait, she doesn’t need to hide behind a wall of lights to hold people’s attention! It’s like the juxtaposition of Celine Dione and Elliot Smith at the Oscars: one, a hollow artifice hiding behind flash and glitz and , the other, a lone individual doing nothing more than simply saying what they need to say without ornament or frills – where the work speaks for itself. Take your pick but I’ll take Hearts over Stardeath anytime, thank you.

The evening closed with Deer Tick which was really my reason for going because Deer Tick‘s John McCauley is also one to lay his soul bare through his music. If you saw him a long while back at Sound Exchange perform sitting on the floor with only his voice and his guitar you saw a phenomenal performance – one that left everyone in the room in awe. That night McCauley demanded your attention both because of his beautifully crafted songs as well as the pure unrestrained emotion. So having seen him perform that show, last year’s SXSW, and my endless admiration for his debut on Feow records a few years ago, I had some pretty high expectations. Unfortunately, to my disappointment this performance, while fair, lacked any of the spark an immediacy of his prior performances. It was almost as if the band was going through the motions performing few new songs and losing any momentum with a flat rendition of a Lightning Hopkins song that seemed endless. That may sound harsh and likely makes it sound worse than it was. I mean, I had a fine time and I can’t say it was a terrible performance but it just was a long way from that young kid belting his soul out on the Sound Exchange floor.

OK! Time to hit the streets of our capital. See y’all soon.

More Pics on my Flickr (Link)