AUSTIN--After three nights of well-choreographed cab-hopping, Saturday night
I took
a Zen approach to SXSW, putting aside my schedule and my yellow highlighter
and going with the flow.
Fate brought me first back to the Broken Spoke, where Joe Ely had rocked so
successfully the night before. At 8pm, the club was just starting to fill up
with two-steppers as Texas honky-tonker Ed Burleson and his six-piece band
hit the stage. What they played was unregenerate country music, Texas style.
Nothing fancy, just a nonstop supply of shuffles and two-steps to keep the
dance floor going. Burleson's got a fine band, with a great pedal steel
player and twin fiddles. He mostly performed his own material, along with one
song by his late mentor, Doug Sahm. Nice stuff, although I can't see it
getting on the radio unless 1958 comes back, so check him out at a Texas
dance club near you.
Burleson was a pleasant surprise, but the next surprise wasn't so pleasant.
My friends had heard a tip that Patricia Vonne was a tall, sexy siren with a
strong voice. So we headed to the Continental Club to check her out. Her
outfit was more interesting than her music--a black wraparound skirt with
fringe, the kind Roger Daltrey might wear if he were a transvestite, a sort
of beaded Native American codpiece and a Stevie Nicks-style shawl. Her
backing band was competent, and loud, but Vonne herself was not ready for
prime time. She didn't seem quite to know what to do with her powerful voice
and was visibly nervous. Plus, she accompanied her lyrics with goofily
literal hand gestures. We left after two songs.
Next up was Seattle's Neko Case, who was everything Vonne wasn't: confident,
savvy and sassy as hell. "This is a song about fucking," she announced to the
packed Antone's crowd. "We'd like to fuck all of you. And we've got the
manpower to do it." Kelly Hogan of the Pine Valley Cosmonauts joined her on
harmony for one song, and the whole thing ended with a cover of the Everly
Brothers' "Bowling Green."
I had hoped to see the Continental Drifters next, but their show was
completely packed, so I went across the street to check out Ron Flynt and the
Bluehearts. Flynt, for those of you who don't wear skinny ties, was the
leader of 20/20 of "Yellow Pills" fame. The band was better than competent,
but not much better. The songs were well-crafted and the band obviously had
practiced hard, constructing tight arrangements full of nice details. But the
band's decidedly unhip cross between new wave and "anthemic heartland rock"
made them sound like a really good band from a 1982 senior prom. They closed
with a version of the old 20/20 hit, "Nuclear Boy." I'm sure they'd sound
great at a bar in Tulsa, but here at hipster central they sounded a
bit corny.
Next up was one of the most charming and inventive pop groups around, Papas
Fritas from Somerville, Massachusetts. The band has a new album on Minty
Fresh ("Buildings and Grounds") and the basic trio has expanded into a
five-piece lineup. They opened with a new, slower arrangement of "We've Got
All Night," which didn't measure up to the original Helioself version. But
they soon hit their stride with exuberant back-to-back performances of two of
the best tunes from the new album, "Vertical Lives" and "What Am I Supposed
to Do?" "Only geodesic domes can save us now," sings bassist Keith Gendel on
the former. Yes indeed. By the time the band finished an encore of
"Possibilities," the entire crowd at Waterloo Brewing Company was grinning.
On the way back to the hotel, I ducked back into Antone's to catch the last
few left-wing British punk-folk-country-reggae songs by the one-and-only
Mekons. A cover of the Kinks' "Fancy" was an ill-advised idea, poorly
executed. The band left the stage and soon returned for a gruff a cappella
number and a final punky encore featuring their dreadlocked roadie on lead
vocals. "This is our last gig ever," they announced from the stage as the
song ended. "Thanks for all the pleasure you've given us over the years."
Hmmm... We'll see about that.
A few random memories from SXSW 2000: Ray Wylie Hubbard performing his
wonderful "Conversation with the Devil" at the Austin Music Awards, in which
our hero sucks up to Satan by praising his fiddle solo in "The Devil Went
Down to Georgia"; The one irreverent woman in the adoring Patti Smith crowd,
who continually screamed "We love Patty Smyth!" and "Patti, show us your
titties--Austin loves titties!" during the quiet parts. The Birds--I didn't
hear Roger McGuinn play, but I sure as hell heard the birds sing. Austin is
the chirpiest damn place I've ever been. Even on a downtown street corner, it
sounds like you're in the middle of some tropical rain forest. Crazy.
Finally, a few words from the eminently quotable Jim Dickinson, who was the
star of Saturday's producers panel: "Misery sticks to the tape. The longer
you spend making a record, the more misery you get." And, "Part of the job is
to point to the speaker like a monkey and say 'No, that's fucked up.'" And,
"The strangest people come up with the best ideas."
HONKY-TONK
CRUISE