Art Fein's SXSW 2008 NOTES Another week blessed with good weather: started kinda chilly, ended kinda hot. I remember two hostile years, with cold and rain, out of the 18 I’ve attended. The lord loves alt.rock. Kevin Smith, former bassist for High Noon, sitting alongside Cornell Hurd at Hurd’s Saturday show, told me he heard that James Intveld was playing with James Burton at “the car show” somewhere in town. What? Where? I never found out. It’s tips like that that drive you nuts at SXSW, but why complain about an embarassment of riches? Many shows are crowded, of course, but if you go to less-attended events it’s Paradise Unlost. The only notable snafu I observed was Wednesday night at the Convention Center, a hundred people awaiting admission credentials stuck in line due to a computer failure. They stood for hours. SXSW is great because everyone wears nametags. Though warned, some people add other badges, which then cover their names. This inhibits communication. The first time they present themselves for admission to a club or SXSW fuction they should have the secondary tags snipped. Second time, snip their buttons and snap their swords. I got a photo pass from press gal Elizabeth Derczo. When I asked for one for my mini-DV she said video was prohibited this year. So, dutiful soldier I’m, I took no moving shots. Only a thousand other people who didn’t ask permission did. The photo-pass is as big as my pocket camera. Town parking lots have solved the tier pricing system by making all $10 during the fest. (The city’s lot, across from the convention center, stayed reasonable at $7 - with two in-and-outs.) Local sourpusses seem to have mistaken the president’s war on terrorism for a war on tourism. “I Live Here’ and “Get Out Of Town” t-shirts and stickers abound. Oddly, the ones I’ve known to proffer these are people originally from other towns. I remember when people with cellphones at SXSW were broadly known as “jerks (the actual word rhymes with El Paso) from L.A. and New York” but now that every Austinite has one they have transmogrified into symbols of - well, corporate slavery. But it’s TEXAS corporate slavery. Yee-ah! (Don’t let me startle you, I’m just doing the old rebel yell here to kinda kick things off, you know what I mean?) The Diary I missed REM, Van Morrison, Ice Cube, Lou Reed, Shelby Lynne, Daniel Lanois and many other big names. Most of the acts I saw were unknown. I saw many of them unintentionally, going at the wrong time or to the wrong club or on my way to another. I barely got to south Congress where all the free parties and street stuff happened. Yet I had, like always, the time of my life. At SXSW, my plan is no plan. TUES MAR 11 Got to Burbank Airport at 6:45 for the 8:15 flight. Got through check-in in 15 minutes, bided my time with a stack of unread New Yorkers brought for that purpose. Phoenix to Austin I sat one over from Whitley, the Australian singer. I am sad that I did not see him at either of his two appearances: just couldn’t fit it in geographically. Why when airlines eliminate meals, pillows and seat space don’t they eliminate tilting seats? Squashed in an area too small to extend my arm forward, I had someone’s head in my lap and sightline. I made sure I lowered the tray and hit it periodically. Reading the band schedule on the plane I saw one club name that I didn’t recognize. It was the live music venue at the airport ! What a town. I got a car from Avis, but the Hyundai’s radio did not have an iPod hole. In the future I’ll demand one. I’ll also demand a brain for myself. I’d not had much sleep the night before, and after registering at the convention center I stumbled to my car to get a lighter shirt and bag and locked the car keys in the trunk. An hour later and $89 poorer I drove to El Cheapo Records and Waterloo, then to Threadgills downtown for dinner. There were no live acts planned there, but at 4:30 I heard one employee tell another that applicants for the 6 pm open mike were already showing up. After that I went to my friend’s house and unexpectedly fell asleep for the night. I missed all kinds of great pre-fest shows, I’m told. WED MAR 12 Had breakfast with my host Kent Benjamin at Maudie’s on Lamar. It’s the greatest restaurant in the world: Pete’s Tacos are ambrosia. At noon I paid ten bucks to park at the open lot at 1st and Red River and embarked on a day of walking: didn’t return to the car til 1 am. Went to the Convention Center and saw Michael Des Barres (like last year the first person I ran into), Kim Fowley, Ed Ward, Andrew Oldham, and a bunch of others. I felt the pain of Wednesday arrivers in the long line to get credentials. I’m sure next year more people will arrive Tuesday. Stayed in the Convention Center all afternoon. By 5:00 the plush seats outside the press room (where I spent time on the computers mid-day) invited me to sleep for a half hour, an activity, or its opposite, shared by others. The nap snapped me back, and I joined Jason Gross and his gf Robin at a place on 6th for dinner, then walked to the Red 7 on 7th to see Scrambled Eggs, a rock band from Beirut, Lebanon, who were fine but did nothing unexpected; but simply being a Lebanese rock band made them special. (The singer’s British accent and the sound system made him hard to understand.) Then I went crosstown to the Austin Music Hall for the awards show and stood in back talking with Ian McLagan, who was getting an award that night. He is very upbeat and energetic, though still surely reeling from the loss of his wife Kim 20 months ago. He said he hasn’t been dating much. Scrambled Eggs, at the Red 7 Onstage were an everchanging blur of people. Though this is an Austin-centric event, everyone would benefit from a lit-up beer display or cardboard sign indicating who the acts are; just announcing names was futile over the roar, not din, of the crowd. I saw Jimmie Dale Gilmore better than I could hear him and got occasional glimpses of a cavalcade of undecipherable people, including a bunch of guys in pirate suits (I first wrote “irate suits”) who peppered the audience with confetti. I knew people who were excited about seeing Roy Head at this event, and got their money’s worth, though they paid nothing. Roy and his talented son (who, I heard, made a splash on American Idol) energetically sang several r& b songs. Rusty Wier also performed and got an award. His press kit notes a 1977 appearance on Austin City Limits with Jimmy Buffett. It’s ... ironic? ... that they both at that time were best known for “risky” songs, Buffett for “Why Don’t We Get Drunk” (“And Screw” omitted from the title) and Wier for “I Hear You Been Laying My Old Lady.” Both subsequently successfully courted respectability. Walking down 6th in the evening is like being in the loudest stereo demonstration store in the world. Ground-shaking music booms from too many bordering clubs, though you can hear each band plainly by walking up to the door. My beef about today’s improved speakers is that the bass boom, when overamped as it often is here, gets up into your head like a small balloon that inflates inside your eardrum and brain. But unlike dipping suddenly in an airplane, no amount of swallowing will clear it. I strode past several bands (6th Street during SXSW is a cacaphonic dog pound, each band begging to be chosen) but the thing that caught my ringing ears was ‘normal’ chords emanating from Nuno’s On 6th, a non-SXSW club. I walked to the open window and to my shock saw 94-year-old Pinetop Perkins playing piano and singing with a sympathetic band. Wow. Way east to the end of 6th I dropped down to the creek path to see an Indianapolis band, Everthus The Deadbeats (because I liked their name) at the Hilton’s Creekside EMC room before going to the top-floor Hilton Garden where Bob Lind was scheduled to play at midnight. Pinetop Perkins But along the creek I was drawn to a surprising ‘commercial’ sound, like the Association or 5th Dimension, and went unknowingly into Habana Calle 6 (like Columbus seeking India, I sought one club but found another) and saw the last two songs by the Russian Futurists from Toronto, Ontario. Their approach to rock & roll is daring in that they’d welcome Neil Diamond in their band. (The first song on their CD, which I purchased, is “Paul Simon.”) Then I went to the Hilton Creekside and learned I had completely missed my target band, but was then flabbergasted by the Harley Poe band, listed in the directory as hailing from Indianapolis but actually from Kokomo. Their lead singer, who reminded me of Chris Kataan, manically sang songs of monsters and frustration surrounded by a brilliant rollicking, delightful band. A grin stayed plastered on my face the whole time I was in the room. Russian Futurists Harley Poe I hated to tear myself away but bolted at 12:25 and crossed the creek and went up the elevator to see Bob Lind. Bob peppered the part of the show I saw, which consisted entirely of new, slow, original tunes, with anecdotes and observations (“most songwriters are assholes”) drawn from his life in and out of show business. (His Jack Nitzsche-produced “Elusive Butterfly ” went to #5 on Billboard in 1966, but he quit music and moved to Florida in the 1980s and worked, among other jobs, as editor of the wacky Weekly World News before resurfacing recently.) He finished off his set of mostly originals with a truncated rendering of the big hit, and I greeted him on the bandstand (he had been on my tv show in 2007) before he dashed off. I remained for the 1 am show by a fine singer, Jeannette Napolitano, but her patter was a bit too caustic for me - she’s from New York - so I split early. But she had good reason to be testy, or I did, about the lit-up bar at the far end of the Hilton’s rooftop ballroom. That outpost of drinking is separate from the performance area, but not blocked off by an invisible plastic shield as they seemed to imagine, so their cloddish hollering and guffawing intruded into the quiet acoustic shows. Couldn’t the hotel close the goddam thing for four days ? I got ‘home’ to Kent’s at 1:15 and slept solidly. THURS MAR 13 Intended to meet Kent for breakfast at Kerbey Lane on Lamar but it was too crowded and we met again at Maudie’s, which was fine by me. Got to the Convention Center at noon, parked in the Red River lot. Missed most of the 11 am screening of “The Wrecking Crew,” Denny Tedesco’s wonderful documentary about 60s L.A. studio musicians, but caught the end and then caught Denny and we went for lunch. At 3:15 I heard Billy Bragg on the Convention Center stage, but I was poring over club listings outside the door so never saw him. Then I got a call from Mark Leviton to meet him at Maggie May’s on 6th to see a band he likes from England. When I got there I spotted two skinny girls on the downstairs stage leading a small band and was drawn to them - uniquely, as I was the only person standing there (a few were sitting). Zambria Getting people’s attention during the SXSW feeding frenzy was very difficult, and in the case of this band, Zambria, from Brooklyn, impossible. I loved them. They sang and played with enormous energy and danced vertically like they had flubber in their shoes. One song after another killed me, but I had no one to share it with - Mark was upstairs, as it turned out bored by another band preceding his favorite, and then THAT band, it turned out, was not the band from England but another with the same name. “There’s too much conFYUsion, I can’t get no reLEEF” someone once sang, eerily anticipating the glorious slippery-slope that is South-by. After that I returned to the Convention Center and reclaimed my sleeping space. Can’t remember if I ate. Met Rich Brenner, who co-owns the two Hugo’s restaurants in L.A. at Antone’s at 9 and saw Mike Farris, an Austinite recommended by Ian McLagan. Farris’s high pleasantly-strained voice is reminiscent of Sam (or is it Dave?) and also Sam Cooke. It took a while to piece together that all his songs were gospel and that’s not bad. With the two backup singers and full band it was, in its way, an echo of Joe Cocker and Mad Dogs and Englishmen. From there I bolted (to where? I can’t remember) and missed Joe Ely playing bandless, then returned at 10 to see Buddy Miller. Miller is like Gary Stewart to me, in significance, not style. I considered Stewart to be the savior of country music in the mid-1970s (I was hopeful, and ultimately wrong) and now I look the same to Miller for his excellent merging of rock and country sounds and sentiments. He played with a small band and made a mighty impression. Then I walked west on 6th to see the midnight set by Gene Delafosse’s zydeco band at Momo’s, but inside heard only Salsa. The only salsa I wanted was on food. I walked then back downtown, to an office bldg at 3rd and San Antonio, looking for a secret party (how do the kids do it? it wasn’t marked) where Michael Leviton, Mark’s son, was deejaying (from his iPod!) and walked up to where a small group stood facing a closed door leading to a 4th floor walkup. I escaped being oldest person in the room when the guy at the door said the fire marshalls had been there and nobody could be admitted. So I walked back to Opal Divine’s and had supper. The waitress apologetically requested/insisted that I pay for the meal beforehand, as apparently Austin eaters, not known especially for their jogging, turn into sprinters when the bill comes. PHOTO 198 Gene Delafosse At 1 a.m. I went out the restaurant door and onto the back patio where Back Door Slam, the mannish boys (from the Isle of Man) I ‘discovered’ last year, was playing and ran into Mark Leviton again. We stayed most of the set and then I asked him for a ride to my car, but as we walked past Momo’s I heard zydeco music. It was Delafosse, the midnight-listed band, finishing a 1 am set! Damn those club listings (sometimes)! I sprung up the steps and caught their last two songs, which were delightful. I like Gene even better than his father John, whom I saw several times at Verbum Dei High School in L.A. in the 1980s. (I guess I saw Gene then, too, as he played washboard and other things in his dad’s band.) Took a photo, went to the car with Mark, and got home around 2:30 after missing a freeway exit and ending up on Onion Field Road, or something like that, far afield (and in a field) from Kent’s home in South Austin. It was spooky heading down a dark country road at night, but I gained confidence that I’d reach Manchaca Road when I drove through the actual town of Manchaca. (That’s pronounced man-shack, Yankee.) FRI MAR 14 Arrived at 11:15 a.m. at the Four Seasons to see Charlie Feldman of BMI - New York who was hosting the huge brunch there. Charlie is a phantom figure like Elijah at the Jewish seder: a place at the table is set for him but he’s never shown up (yet,) just as I’ve planned to meet with Charlie (a fine fellow, a soul-music nut) in Austin for the past 3 years and he’s been unfindable. If he exists at all. I talked to Dave Marsh a while, and when he split I ran into Gary Kalamar from KCRW and handed him a Heaters CD. From there I went to the Çonvention Center to meet singin’ Suzanne Sherwin, a girl I knew in L.A. She moved to Austin three years ago (and sang at Guero’s on South Congress on Sunday night - video on youtube at http://crackle.com/c/SXSW_2008/X__Devil_Doll/2216480/#ml=fc%3D53%26fk%3DDevil%2520Doll%26fx%3D%26o%3D7). Susanne Sherwin I got her a Convention Center day pass so she could see the SXSW engine work, and we walked through the trade show and took a gander at the Slits on the Convention Center stage, then went to Threadgills to see Dale Hawkins, who was terrific. There I ran into Austin friend, bassist Vic Gerard, and his son Vic, who snapped a photo of me with Hawkins and some other guys. Earl Poole Ball, keyboardist for Johnny Cash, Byrds’ “Sweeeheart Of The Rodeo”; guitarist John X. Reed; AF; Dale Hawkins. Outside the Convention Center I was pacing in the same direction as Keith Morris and he handed me a leaflet for a large free punk-rock concert featuring the Breeders on Saturday. Inside, I went to the Baby Boomer panel, which seemed to offer more mystification than answers, and met with Kate Taylor, who is running the Hotel Cafe road tour and a music service aimed at Baby Boomers. Also there I received a really good CD (heard it a week later, to my delight!) from singer Anna Laube, from the SF area, who was standing at the back watching the panel. Then aat 5:15 I got a massage, given free in the press room by appointment. This was a major move, as I’ve never had one formally done, only on occasion, and briefly (my stipulation), by girlfriends. It was a 15-minute sesh which involved some little pain and vertebrum-definition like I’d never known. After that I was exhausted, and stumbled to my reclining chair (it wasn’t reclined, I was) for my evening empowerment. That lapse didn’t last as at last I got a call from Jason Gross saying Ed Ward knew a good Mexican restaurant and he’d drive. We went to Azul Tequila by Ben White Road and dined with the Jon Hardy band from St. Louis, who’d come to Austin spurred by Ward’s enthusiasm for their CD. Afterwards, I went with Ed to South Congress where we pingponged between the San Jose Hotel parking lot show and the Continental Club. The latter had the Ponderosa Stomp revue, at that moment featuring Ralph Soul Jackson. It was startling to hear this soul band do “Sunshine Of Your Love,” but the Flamingos “I Only Have Eyes For You,” Fats Domino’s “Blueberry Hill” and Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness were soul interpretations of old popular songs, so what was my problem? -it’s an R&B tradition. They sounded great. Ralph Soul Jackson Barbara Mason Next up was Barbara Mason. She did a potpourri of her own songs and others’. After “Yes I’m Ready” I went to Amy’s Ice Cream down the block. Behind me in line was a boy about 13, and his mother holding two Jerry Lee Lewis albums. I asked why she had them. “We just bought them up the street. My son is the biggest Jerry Lee Lewis fan in the world.” Those were not fighting words but certainly an invitation to a conversation. “I’m sorry young man, but you cannot be the biggest Jerry Lee fan in the world because I beat you to it.” The boy, Kyle Davis, was identical to me at his age only with talent: his mother said he recently began playing Killer-style piano and is amazing everyone. We spoke for a long time. When I told him I’d seen Jerry Lee four weeks earlier he reacted “I didn’t know he was still alive.” He asked me what my favorite JLL record was and I stumbled; Lewis’s Boogie maybe? It was a serendipity that we got in line together and I hope we keep in contact as he travels down the pumping-piano trail. After that, Ward and me somehow lost our spiritual way, unable to think of anything compelling to see, so he dropped me off at the Convention Center at 10 and I hovered outside X’s DirecTV taping -- too loud inside -- til some friends came out. (Suzanne Sherwin, mentioned earlier, has unique X credentials. As a teenager she attended every X show in L.A., standing audience-left in front of Billy Zoom, who always winked hello. When X played Nashville in 2002, Suze, then a Nashville resident, resumed her regular spot and Billy winked hello, then did a double-take realizing it was the girl from 1982. They met afterwards and are now good friends.) From there I followed a flock to Opal’s to see The Memphis show, which featured the Bo-Keys, a fine Bar-Kays type show band (girls come and dance onstage, party time!), and to Antone’s, which Vampire Weekend had just vacated, to see DeVotchKa, a soup-to-nuts instrument group from Denver, and then to the 90 Proof Lounge to see Kitty, Daisy & Lewis, a very-young UK rockabilly band who should be very good in a couple years, but left because of the crowding. Kitty, Daisy & Lewis SAT MAR 15 Slept late, at 11:30 got to Cornell Hurd’s parking lot show at Torchy’s Tacos on South 1st. His annual gathering of country singers with his western swing band has been a magnet for locals and visitors every mid-March, but in 2007 the traditional site, the Texacali Grill on Oltorf, closed. Though attendance was fine at this non-SXSW show, in a couple of years it will once again fill to overflow. Well, there’s no other show like this one. Hurd’s joyful and numerous band played heartily to a grateful crowd, and I also caught Bill Kirchen, spikey-haired keyboard player Austinite Hans Frank (whose guitarist Pete Mitchell is a veteran of Ernest Tubb’s band), and folksinger Sally Spring before springing to the Convention Center for its final day of activities. Hans Frank at keyboard, Pete Thomas of Elvis Costello’s band briskly walking by. Bill Kirchen band At 1:30 went to the trade room and bought a copy of Andrew Oldham’s first book, Stoned, which I owned before someone borrowed it, and had him sign it at the book-signing table. That table, over its four days, offered book sale and autograph opportunities with Daniel Lanois, Tift Merritt, Who roadie Tom Wright, Joe Nick Patoski, Ann Powers, Oldham, Dave Marsh, Joe Ely and others. Oldham’s signing was coupled with Judy Davids, whose Rock Star Mommy book was overwhelmed by the swell of Oldham enthusiasts. Resigned to her fate, amiable Davids helped manage the hubbub. Magic Christian At 2:00 I raced to the Dog &Duck on north Lavaca to see the Pop Culture Press party organized by my host Kent Benjamin. It was the best rock show I saw SXSW week. I walked in on a sizzling set by Magic Christian, a pop-rock superband featuring guitarist Cyril Jordan of the Flaming Groovies, bassist Eddie Munoz of the Plimsouls, drummer Clem Burke of Blondie and SF singer Paul Kopf. They rocked the outdoor tent and nearby buildings. Next were the Stems, from Australia, who were also stupendous, but just beyond my volume threshhold. I got a good taste of Antietam, the powerful, exuberant Louisville-to-Gotham band formed in the 1980s, then left for Jovita’s. There I met Ed Ward and others for Twangfest, which featured Jon Hardy’s band at 3:30. The patio was quite full for Hardy’s pop set, and more so for the next performer, Sarah Borges. Jon Hardy Band Sarah Borges Like many performers, Hardy paid his band’s way and drove 720 miles twice to play for free at an off-’book’ event. Though the festival boasts 1400 official bands, there’s hundreds more vying to be noticed during the 4-day musical ant-hill called SXSW. Went back to the Convention Center, mulled around a while, and then joined Jason Gross and Tim Broun from NY in Ed Ward’s car for a ride out to El Chile on Manor. (That’s ‘mainer,’ Visitor.) Had a great meal, got back to Congress at 8:00 and realized I left my shoulder bag at the restaurant. “Well, I’ll get it tomorrow” I figured til I remembered my car keys were in it. I flagged a cab and took a trip up the freeway from 2nd street to Manor (26th or so) and then east to the restaurant, in to get the bag, and then to Antone’s, west of where I was picked up. It took 20 minutes. Cost: $14. Austin ain’t New York! Ian McLagan and band member Mark Andes