The annual South by Southwest music festival in Austin is one of the world's premier showcases for up-and-coming bands. Jim Carrollreports from Texas on the 2008 acts that got feet tapping, heads banging and label guys licking their lips.
YOU come to South By Southwest (SXSW) to binge-gig. The world's most exciting music festival means four days and nights of bands, bands and more bands playing every conceivable - and often ludicrously inconceivable - venue all over Austin, Texas. Over 1,700 acts turned up last week to play their hearts out, a new record for the 22-year-old fest.
Yet SXSW is ostensibly more than just about live bands. It's also one of the big-hitters on the music industry conference circuit. By day, the convention centre hosted interviews with Lou Reed, Daryl Hall, Steve Reich, Mick Jones and legendary talent scout Seymour Stein, as well as discussion panels on the state of the music industry. These covered everything from 360 deals (where record labels take a share of all a band's revenue streams) and international festivals, to using blogs to plug your band, getting your music onto TV shows and how to make sure you don't sign away your publishing rights to a shyster.
This year, though, there was a notably lacklustre atmosphere at both the panels and the trade show, where music companies go to buy and sell goods and services. While hot weather may have been partly to blame, the subdued mood was probably as much due to current industry woes (fewer record label reps present, for example) as it was a reflection of how SXSW is now more about the live shows all over town than the industry chinwags.
So this year, all the action happened onstage. You could have spent every minute of every day watching bands, with pit stops for huevos rancheros (classic Mexican breakfast) at Las Manitas, tacos at Guero's or chilli from the Texan Chilli Parlour to keep you going.
Over the course of SXSW, this writer saw about 80 bands in all. Here are 20 acts who made me go "wow".
White Rabbits: More they gig, the better they get
The Rabbits created a bit of a buzz last year and came back to play a bigger venue and demonstrate the kind of swagger which only comes with much gigging. Since the release of their Fort Nightly album, they really have become Dexy's Midnight Rabbits, especially on those crackling new tunes which take up half of tonight's set. A band who're becoming more and more compelling with every outing. www.myspace.com/whiterabbits
Crystal Castles: The bravest bleepers in town
Welcome to the rave new world. From Toronto, Crystal Castles make music which is bold, ambitious and thrilling. It's easy enough to break down what they do - take beaten-up chips and processors from old video-games and lash them into synths and keyboards - but such a description doesn't quite take in what actually happens.
Members Alice Glass and Ethan Kath arrived at this year's SXSW as one of the most fêted and blogged acts around, celebrated for bravely bleeping where others feared to tread. Live, it's all intense energy, hyperactive blips and a strobe light which merely magnifies the eerie sound. Glass bounced around that stage, making a nonsense of having cracked some ribs in a car-smash a few short weeks ago. Their debut album is due in May - mark it out for close scrutiny. www.myspace.com/crystalcastles
White Denim: So good I saw them thrice
A band so good yours truly went to see them three times, Austin homeboys White Denim were the act out-of-towners kept mentioning again and again in the despatches.
Whatever about the handful of low-key digital releases to date, the key to White Denim comes when you see them live. Once you've experienced what they can produce in a packed room, you're hooked and can't wait to go back for more.
Round these parts, freaky garage rock is nothing new. But White Denim give it a new spin. Led by James Petralli, a would-be baseball pro who decided his real mission in life was to become a singer channelling the spirit of James Brown hollering at the Apollo, White Denim always go over the top.
Their songs are all punchy riffs, funky licks, soulful screaming, punky attitude and sheer raw power. The three Denim wearers are superb players, something else which pushes their demonic, scuzzy, sleazy racket to another dimension. People, you're going to love them. www.myspace.com/bopenglish
Health: Kings of The Smell
Health are the Los Angeles band who put blood in the music like no one else around right now. Kingpins in a scene based around a seedy, all-ages LA dive called The Smell, Health's music is rich with avant-garde notions and hugely enjoyable bad-ass menace. Drums pound, guitars ricochet and each of the band members (bar the drummer) freak out like members of an advanced level synchronised swimming team. www.myspace.com/healthmusic
Vampire Weekend: Talking Heads without the suit
This preppy New York band blew into town trailing a buzz as big as Texas itself and left with plenty of new converts. People were talking loud about the geeky, erudite and perky indie-pop coming from a band who have successfully cloned the jerky funk of Talking Heads. Indeed, lead singer Ezra Koenig does a startlingly good David Byrne impersonation, albeit without donning an extra-extra-large white suit. www.myspace.com/vampireweekend
White Shoes & The Couples Company: A star from Jakarta
The only band from Jakarta, Indonesia to make it to SXSW 2008, White Shoes & The Couples Company play sunnyside-up, old-fashioned melodic pop with lots of fancy frills and bounce. It's a real throwback in time and not just in terms of the stage costumes and haircuts. Singer Aprilia Apsari is a star and boy, does she know it. www.myspace.com/whiteshoesandthecouplescompany
The Choir Practice: Polyphonic Spree without the smarm
Many, many bands from Canada came south and many, many of them impressed, yet few were as convincing or as eye-catching as Vancouver's Choir Practice. Nine of them stood on that little stage, each sporting a red sash, before letting loose with a wonderful cacophony of harmonic vocal grandstanding. Think The Polyphonic Spree without the overbearing smarm. www.myspace.com/thechoirpractice
Sea Wolf: Elliott Smith fans, listen up
Alex Church and friends play hipster-friendly indie rock which is big on epic atmospherics, strung-out orchestral melodrama and beautifully beguiling pop hooks. As demonstrated on the Leaves In The River debut album, this is the kind of bittersweet dreamy pop which has you reeling around the fountain and lusting for more. Fans of The Postal Service and Elliott Smith, this Wolf's for you. www.myspace.com/seawolf
The Octopus Project: Putting the theremin into rock'n'roll
Hometown heroes returning to SXSW with bigger things in mind, The Octopus Project are a band who put the theremin into rock'n'roll. Since last year, they've released album number three, Hello, Avalanche. Live, all four members, including synth and theremin queenpin Yvonne Lambert, thrash pop, indie and electronic sounds away to their hearts' content. www.myspace.com/theoctopusproject
Holy Fuck: Making people move all week long
A band who seemed to be playing every gig going at the festival (including celebrity chef Rachael Ray's indie rock cook-out), Toronto's high-velocity punky-electronic troublemakers were making people move all week long. And why not, with an anything-goes mix of wigged-out white noise, psych grooves and intoxicating Krautrock fuzz. No one gave a f*** about the name. www.myspace.com/holyfuck
Destroyer: Blissful songs from Canada
Prolific doesn't quite go far enough to describe Dan Bejar, the New Pornographer and Swan Lake dude who has also pumped out eight albums (the latest is Trouble In Dreams) with Destroyer. A capacity crowd pushed as close as they could to the stage without stepping on each other's toes to feast on the Canadian and his band's pastoral, blissful songs. www.myspace.com/destroyer
Mika Miko: All-girl garage rockers
Like Health, the all-girl Mika Miko are also repping The Smell scene in downtown Los Angeles. This Beth Ditto-tipped gang play giddy, shouty bubblegum garage-punk with sharp edges, thrashy hooks and the kind of nervy riot-grrrl energy which makes kicking out the jams with eight songs in just 18 minutes all the easier to do. They also rock a fine line in red telephone microphones. www.myspace.com/mikamiko
Delorentos: The pick of the Paddies
The pick of the Irish acts in Texas, Delorentos did not let their eventful US and Canadian tour distract them from the business in hand.
Non-stop gigging over the past two years or so means the songs and performances are muscular and well-toned, while the band's stage smarts continue to charm. Lots of positive post-match chatter about them too. www.myspace.com/delorentos
A Place To Bury Strangers: Heavy, loud and dark
It's all about the effects pedals with this New York band. Led by Oliver Ackerman, the man to see if you want some customised effects pedals (Wilco, Serena Maneesh and TV On The Radio are all happy customers), A Place To Bury Strangers create a sound which is heavy, loud, dark and searing. Yet the three musicians also sculpt and shape heaven-sent melodies. www.myspace.com/aplacetoburystrangers
Lykke Li: Sweet pop from Sweden
Lykke Li was a busy bee in Austin, and her endeavours paid off handsomely because all who saw her performances went away converted.
Gorgeous melodies and skyscraper arrangements power this Swedish singer's proper pop songs, elevating her onto the higher ground currently accommodating fellow Scandinavians Annie and Robyn. Her Little Bit tune was one of the songs of the week. www.myspace.com/lykkeli
Santogold: If you stopped believing in Santi ...
Santi White is a 22nd-century pop star. Whatever about those inevitable comparisons to MIA, White is her own woman, though she's certainly taken a few cues from Grace Jones on how to do the out-there pop thing. Accompanied by two backing singers (resembling Public Enemy's Security of the First World) and a DJ, White's sound was more-ish in the extreme. www.myspace.com/santogold
White Williams: Infectious electro-poppers
There's quite a lot going on when Cleveland lad Joe "White" Williams and his band-mates start playing their infectious multi-faceted electro-pop in a packed-to-capacity bar-room out in the wilds of east Austin. From vintage rocky funk and slinky synth grooves to bizarre rubs of balmy palm wine guitar, Williams and friends cover many bases to get the room bopping. www.myspace.com/whitewilliams
Times New Viking: Feedback is their friend
Wild music for wild times. Times New Viking make buzzy, discordant, scuzzy and uneven noise-pop where feedback is your friend, not your enemy. The trio certainly do not overstay their welcome, with each of their spikey tracks weighing in at around the two- or three-minute mark before screeching to a halt. Shoegazing, then, never went out of vogue in Columbus, Ohio. www.myspace.com/timesnewviking
The Victorian English Gentlemens Club: A racket from Wales
They're making some racket in the valleys these days if this outfit are any indicator of current Welsh trends. A boyo and two girls from Cardiff, the Victorian English Gentlemens Club have the blues and they don't care who knows about it. The energy coming from the trio is something else - and you wouldn't mess with that drummer in her shocking pink prom dress. www.myspace.com/thevictorianenglishgentlemensclub
