SXSW 2013: Friday (Part 1)

Colleen Green @ The North Door



Colleen Green's set was a case of a good artist playing at the wrong time at the wrong venue. The North Door stage was just big enough to make a solo artist like Green look small with just her guitar and drum machine. Not to mention the semi-indifference and chatter of the crowd, along with the pizza the venue kept bringing out for everyone didn't help with the atmosphere at all. Still, Green powered through as much as she could, playing her garage-pop to view people, which in fact was catchy as hell. Beachy, sleepy, and stoner vibes all persisted through the songs, with just enough of a nostalgic bubblegum-punk flair to them to make them stick in your head. Green is probably what would have happened if Dum Dum Girls had stayed a solo project and moved to California. I just wish I had seen it on better terms.

Nü Sensae @ The North Door



There is no other way to say it other than Nü Sensae's set at The North Door was nothing short of absolutely ferocious. They were an 18 minute blast of catchy but crushing post-hardcore fury that never let up and got better with each passing song. They were smart with their ruckus, knowing just the right moments to let up before proceeding to burst ear drums again. Frontwomen Andrea Lukić jumped between an icy monotone and nails on chalkboard screeches within the same songs, with both styles silenced anyone in the crowd and made them stare at the stage, if her thick as mud bass riffs weren't doing that already. Despite the noise they were creating Nü Sensae's six years as a band shined throughout the set, with them playing tight as hell, despite Lukić saying she had caught the SXSW bug (not that you could possibly tell). And it was that combination, fury matched with focus, that made them so great.

Jacuzzi Boys @ The North Door



Hearing Jacuzzi Boys play on Friday, it struck me that they hadn't changed at all since I caught them a little more than a year ago when they opened for King Khan and the Shrines. And that isn't really a bad thing. They still play a very awesome brand of garage rock, touched with bits of sunshine and surf from their native Florida. They debuted a bunch of new songs, which sounded just as good and catchy as their older catalog. And they still rocked on stage, just like they did a year ago. Jacuzzi Boys were just a nice, fun, non-life changing set at SXSW. Sometimes, amid all the chaos of the event, that's OK.

Divine Fits @ Auditorium Shores



I don't know if it was because of all the touring, or the five shows they had played before this one, but the Divine Fits did one of the impossibles and sounded better then when I saw them live at Stubb's. Britt Daniel's and Dan Boeckner's interplay has been updated from tight as hell to flat out impeccable. Sam Brown's drumming, and the band's secret weapon, was just bombast, crashing and ringing through out the dusty fields of Auditorium Shores. The band didn't show an ounce of exhaustion, instead beaming and practically jumping around the stage during every song. As unindie as it is to say, Divine Fits were meant to play gigantic stages like this, and they owned this one. The one possible slight against the set was it being too short due to time constrictions, but that didn't stop closer "Shivers" from still sounding as goosebump inducing as ever.

Top 40 Songs of 2012

Looking at this incredibly long list, it sort of makes me happy. As generically "indie" and standard it probably will appear to most people, this is probably the most diverse amount of music I have ever listened to. There are tracks on here that two years ago I would not have been caught dead listening to. And the fact I can fully enjoy them now is something I'm glad about. However, if there is something I missed (and trust me, I know I missed quite a lot), or I gave too much credit to some songs, let me know. I want to learn, I want to discover. Really.

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40. King Tuff-Bad Thing: Garage infused power pop perfection is the name of the game with “Bad Thing”, but how many people haven’t already said that about King Tuff in some fashion? But so many people saying something doesn’t make it any less true. In less than two and a half minutes, King Tuff makes one of the most additive guitar rockers of the year, an ear worm of the most evil and enjoyable form. It’s right there in the title and lyrics, but I doubt Tuffy was struggling with guilt when he made something this good.



39. Thee Oh Sees-Flood’s New Light: Thee Oh Sees doing straight up normal and catchy together is a rare thing, but that doesn’t mean they can’t do it. See “Flood’s New Light” for proof. Still filled with the same weird flourishes (John Dwyer’s falsetoo, off-kilter instrumentation), but the band manages to conform their sound in such a way that with “Flood’s New Light” that the song is a lot more straightforwardly approachable. The bouncy, tambourine filled drum work, the “bah bah bahs” that form the song’s chorus, the magnetic horn work; all work together to make one twisted garage gem.



38. Born Gold-Sky Bicycle: A complete flip on the aggressive, full body, intensive work Cecil Frena had been making for a while, “Sky Bicycle” showed Born Gold in a completely reconstructed, much more cerebral light. Good thing he pulled it off so well, otherwise there might have been problems. “Sky Bicycle” invokes its name; airy and bouncy, yet very tactile, with the production of the track feeling very real. Frena’s vocals have been twisted several octaves into the stratosphere, yet with his new sound it fits snuggly with everything to creative an off-kilter, but cohesive tune.



37. Electrician-All is Lost in the Light: Despite a year where we got two Mount Eerie albums, one of the best post-Mount Eerie tracks came from a solo project called Electrician. Simple strumming begets simple, pulsating percussion which begets powerful but pained paired together vocals which begets soft, subtle brass. All of which begets one very amazingly powerful song.



37. Royal Headache-Psychotic Episode: The manic, soulful wonder of Royal Headache’s debut album was no more prominent than on “Psychotic Episode”. The tormented content of the song is amplified by front man Shogun’s increasingly strained vocals, but at the same time nearly masked by the seam-bursting rhyme section and punk jangle of the guitar. Never claiming to reinvent the wheel, but making a damn fine wheel none the less.



35. Andrew Bird-Eyeoneye: Mr. Bird can do introspective, detached folk very well, but he can craft his own version of an indie rock bashers on occasion. That is exactly what “Eyeoneye” is and it is lovely. From the excellently piercing violin that plays throughout, to elegant, loose guitar chords, and extended science metaphor for relations, it is a distilled form everything that makes Andrew Bird’s music so captivating. All cobbled together and rising before exploding in the song’s final moments.



34. Cloud Nothings-Stay Useless: Cloud Nothing’s shift to grunge filled aggression is still something I am processing and will probably continue to process. However, if there was something to help show me that Cloud Nothings could dive into a more aggressive sound while still embracing their hooky past, it was “Stay Useless”. More powerful than anything Cloud Nothings wrote in the past, from the thick hooks that play in both the verse and chorus, and front man Dylan Baldi’s vocals which in their own scrappy way are in full force in “Stay Useless”. Not bad for a track about unabashedly collapsing into apathy.



34. Lambchop-Gone Tomorrow: Pained nostalgia and sadness are nothing new for Lambchop, but that doesn’t mean they can’t weave magic from those emotions still. See “Gone Tomorrow” for key proof. Simple acoustics coupled with lovely strings as Kurt Wagner recounts an abstract story of parting people. It’s the song’s outro, a looping, electronic gazed, quiet instrumental free-for-all ambiance that winds up being longer than the “traditional” part of the track, which not only cements the emotions of the track, but the wonder of the track itself.



32. Eternal Summers-Millions: It’s hard to conflate the Eternal Summers of the past with the Eternal Summers who made “Millions”. The chasm between the two on the indie pop spectrum is huge; one crafted simple, post C86 pop to hyper energetic, buzzing guitar pop being made now. But thank god it happened because the world deserves indie pop as great as “Millions”. From the top notch production that improves the track, front women Nicole Yun’s gorgeous and sharp vocals, and the hefty guitar jangle, “Millions” just comes together to form one of the best pop songs of the year.



31. Butter the Children- Lupus: “Lupus” feels brand new and classic at the same time. It feels like you’re hearing this music for the first time, even though the blurred together indie rock and shoegaze sounds are clearly there. All those factors just show how excellent of a track “Lupus” is. Jagged yet shimmering guitars over the crashing drums and front women’s Inna Mkrtycheva just soaring vocals come together to form something that is just refreshingly awesome.

Live: Divine Fits/Cold Cave @ Stubb's 10.31.12

It was an Austin sort of Halloween. A batch of mostly twenty-somethings, dressed in various pop-culture referencing costumes for the night, were not spending Halloween inside someone’s house or at a party. They were standing on dusty gravel at Stubb’s to see some bands perform instead. To be fair, they might have been making the right call on how to spend the night. These were not the standard “dress up and play goof covers” Halloween bands, but the driving, noisy synth pop of Cold Cave, and calculated, cool indie rock of indie supergroup Divine Fits. Both bands were nothing short of great, playing off the night and atmosphere to produce two wildly different, but superb sets.

Cold Cave



Cold Cave took the stage early at 8:00 p.m. to a relatively, and unfortunately, small crowd. However, that did not stop them from blasting out  their material to any and everyone who would listen. With all five members clad head to toe in various articles of black clothes, and front man Wesley Eisold never removing his shades during the entire set, the band set the tone merely by their presence. The band then produced played 45 minutes of loud and distorted synth-pop, drawing from their return to noisy form that they showed off on Cherish the Light Years rather than the cleaner sound of Love Comes Close. Everything got a layer of intensity from the band, which is unsurprising due to Cold Cave now mostly consisting of underground punk and hardcore alumni to back Eisold. While this occasionally lead to a blurring of songs, the high points were many and constant, especially the finale, a blistering version of “The Great Pan is Dead” which someone managed to be more intense than the already powerful studio version.

Divine Fits



As good as Cold Cave were though, the night belonged to Divine Fits. There was no flash or fluff to their set; it was just four, well-tuned, indie rock veterans blasting songs they liked to play with the precision of a well-oiled clock. Opening slowly with “Neopoliticans”, the set just built from there as the band notched up the intensity so slowly that it was almost unnoticeable until co-frontman Dan Boeckner was in the crowd while singing “My Love is Real”. The whole night was tradeoffs between Boeckner and fellow front man Britt Daniel, as the band jumped from tense, slinky indie rock to trance like synth jams, the seamlessnes of the band jumping from one style to the next a testament to their quality. Even their choice of covers emphasized this, with the band being able to throw in covers of both a Frank Ocean song and a Tom Petty song without either sounding out of place. The band closed the night with an exceptional cover of “Shivers” that the band poured so much energy into it felt like their amps would explode. Instead, the band pulled off a perfect rock star move of leaping into the air with the finale note and leaving the crowd with gaping mouths.

Divine Fits-Would That Not Be Nice

Divine Fits must be the most casual indie supergroup ever. There is no bombast with them, from their press release to their music, despite the band being made of members of Spoon, Wolf Parade, and New Bomb Turks. They announced themselves to the world three weeks ago, and dropped the minimalist and bleak single "My Love is Real" last week. However, it is "Would That Not Be Nice" that really shows off the band's potential. With Britt Daniel up front, the band gains a Spoon-y feel to it. In fact "Would That Not Be Nice" wouldn't be out of place on Transference. With a can only be descriped as funky bass line, the song grooves along as Daniel's echoed voice cuts in and out along with simple and beyond excellent guitar riff. Add some peppy syths from Dan Boeckner through out the song, and "Would That Not Be Nice" is tied together perfectly into the sublime rocker that it is.

Links:

Divine Fits' Website

Pre-order A Thing Called Divine Fits here, from Merge Records