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← back to Blog Archive	SXSW 2016. Tenth time. My eldest son, Elliot turned 21 in February and flew in from Boston to join. It was always going to be great. Would it turn out to be spectacular? The Burning Club crowd had it’s lowest turnout ever. Only three members in town. The SXSW of recent years, of Springsteen, Young, Gaga and Kanye thankfully is no more. A lower key selection of stadium fillers but even more corporate juggernauts: Spotify House, Pandora House, Fader/Converse Fort, MacDonald Loft ( I kid you not), Skoda Stage. OK last one is a joke but might well have been. The SXSW Interactive drew more attendees than the music festival, the SXSW Movie Festival approaches Sundance kudos and this year was the first SXSW Gaming Conference. All gave the naysayers opportunities to mourn the loss of the ideals that SXSW was bourn from. I have heard from many folk that SXSW is not what it was, that it has sold out and that they would not go - but mostly from people who have never went and who would not not know their way to a great new sound unless Pitchfork or the NME told them it as ok. So. Personal choice is all. If you avoid the aforementioned monstrosities, and there was not Doritos stage in the style of a giant vending machine this year, there were still 2000+ acts to delve into and explore. Still a hundred plus venues with no corporate sponsorship. Still acts that had no label, no agent, no manager but loads of talent and great songs looking for a little break. And that is SXSW for me. So. Again. Here. We. Go. (note no mention of the Obamas - do not think they played in a showcase). Day One Tuesday Having arrived the night before and never explored this part of the world beyond where I could either see a band or drink a G&T (Hendricks with a cucumber), I decided to explore a little and headed to San Antonio for a day trip before the music started. Done that will not be back. Music. It is only about the music. The Alamo???? Tuesday is the day when only ten or so venues put on official showcases. The festival was officially launched at Maggie Mays with the Spanish group Capsula playing Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars in its entirety. Had to go. However the biggest queue in living memory ever was trying to get into a venue which could fit maybe 300 folk if you were lucky. First rule of SXSW - nothing is worth queuing for more than ten minutes. Somewhere else there are loads of acts on stage. So I passed. Thereby making the first band of SXSW 2016 at the rightly named Hype Hotel, who only appear to put on the acts that all the buzz blog sites say are the Buzz Bands. To Start 2016 - Diet Cig. A jaunty two person guitar/drum combo with a female lead who is probably still in high school. Pleasant pop which you would not cross the road to see normally. But lots of folk raving about them. Not I. And we are off. I have one night and one afternoon before my son, Elliot, arrives. Just my good music buddy Al, a veteran of over 17 years at SXSW and I. Next to the Barracuda where they have the best Tuesday night line up spread across an inside and outside stage. We see Wray (not bad typical SXSW indie band) Public Memory ( not good typical SXSW Indie band) and Ritual Howls ( very good gothic - ish listening to too much Joy Division, which is not a band thing, but not so original - still pass marks) before seeing Honduras, a Brooklyn outfit with lead singer like Pete Murphy of Bauhaus on steroids. Excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0J9Uqdn6lw Off to The Townsend an upmarket (for Austin) speakeasy to see the all female LA band LEX. A feature of SXSW is that many new bands appear here on the strength of no back catalogue but just one song, one commercial song. I had heard their ”One Song” and went o see them perform it. Very eighties sound, great one off pop song. You will never hear of them again. Back to the Barracuda to see Sextile before one of my top picks for the week, the hottest Israeli band for many years, Vaadat Charigm. Think psychedelia, think War On Drugs, think singing in Hebrew and think floating to a higher plain. Here is their album on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlmNvttoQms On to Cheer Up Charlies for an outdoor stage and the little English supergroup The Moonlandingz. This is an indie dance band who wish the Happy Mondays still existed and is fronted by the oddity that is the lead singer of Fat White Family, resplendent in lipsticked graffiti all over his fairly obviously quite out of it face and I mean right out of it. Fine 30 minutes of madness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-f_yV3N2e8&nohtml5=False Coming clean. All images taken on my phone. No camera carrying around nonsense this year. All images taken from wherever I watched the act. Must feel like you were there I would imagine. Blur is my speciality. Out of focus comes naturally. Into the Sidewinder, which used to be the Red Eyed Fly, to those who have been before. Moving Panoramas, another all female group, lengthy psych prog rock from San Fran. More than acceptable. Now, I trawl through most of the 2000 acts once they are announced and seek sheer brilliance from unknown quarters. This becomes my target list which I do the best to see in person. Sometimes it is a song, sometimes it is a strong recommendation from a journalist or blog site I rate, some times it is a hunch. Not sure why the next band were on my list, perhaps it was just the name, Matt Gilmour’s Patient Wolf, but for whatever reason they found their way to my Hot List, I ended up spending 15 minutes in their company at the Sidewinder. The verdict? Root canal treatment is more fun. And I speak from experience. Ten bands in and hopefully nothing will be as bad as this crowd for the rest of the week. To round the night out I head back to the 1am show at the tent of Barracuda. Autobahn, A Leeds band who are inspired, they say by Kraftwerk and Joy Division ( a recurring theme). Angry not so young men. I like their sound. They played to about twenty folk. Good night day One. Day Two. Wednesday I have all day to kill before Elliot arrives around 8 - right in the middle of the real SXSW start with 100 venues putting on their opening show. :( So midday and the first Scottish band of the week. If I had to give the police a photo fit description of the composite Scottish band lead singer over the years at SXSW it would be: slightly overweight. Short. Big hair or beard (not both). Tight trousers. Boots. Nobody in the audience. I am sure that the police would then have spotted Womps quite comfortably as a result. Great nasally rock voice over a surprisingly good deep south - american style, even though they are from Glasgow. Walking along the street to next show, I hear a spectacular sound. Jump into a big tent and there are Haelos, one of the Buzz Bands the media are touting from England. I see one song, It is special, More on them later. Onwards to Swan Dive a great little venue. New York’s Miya Folick. Part Kate Bush. Part Patti Smith. In the presence of greatness. Already know I am at one of the week’s highlights. Listen here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPIxhms29A It is a beautiful day. So we hand around this venue and see SWIMM, excellent, Portland’s much touted Pure Bathing Culture, quite good and on to Side Bar to see Savak, who are pretty good but you need to be exceptional to stand out here. Three bands who need a break. I am getting warmed up, off to see one of the hottest Australian bands at Sidewinder, Methyl Ethyl. Great name. Their sound did not match expectations. Unlike Public Access TV from New York who were a great three minute pop punk battering sound. Then back to see James Supercut and who should we find but the already great Miya Folick watching from the bar. Afternoon I almost over and now waiting for news of Elliot’s arrival, I head to a tiny indoor venue at Cheer Up Charlies to see Lust For Youth, another inspired by the darker late seventies Uk indie industrial sound. Excellent. Could barely see them though - looked like they were wearing animal hood things. The crowd were going mental. This Swedish band will become something. It is 8pm. Off to the Central Presbyterian Church to see the new band led by the former lead singer of Hooray For The Holidays, Mass Gothic. Spectacular sound. Wholly unappropriate name for a church gig. Made it even better. Go to 19 minutes and 59 seconds of the full album stream to hear their quite spectacular single. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwqVSCAhukI&nohtml5=False Then my son arrived. SXSW really starts NOW. Here we are with his first legal SXSW drink having turned 21 only three weeks earlier. I of course led by example, as you do, and had been doing so for most of the day. First Gig then. Day Wave at Cheer Up Charlies Outdoor. Spectacular sound. Light indie pop. What kids today should probably be listening too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WVvh3IufVI Then we headed to Valhalla, as I had heard about someone who was being described as the Country and Western punky Lana Del Ray. Why not I thought. I give you Pearl Charles. Just quite special. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfg7y8NyFcw&nohtml5=False Off to the best venue in Austin, Esther’s Follies, normally a Comedy Club, to see on of Elliot’s top picks, Alice on the Roof, from Belgium. Great electronica pop. Great Esther’s Follies G&Ts making everything sound a tad better, somehow. Don’t now how that happened. A bit worryingly the two members of her band were the doubles of Right Said Fred of I’m Too Sexy fame. But that could have been the G&T influencing my review notes at the time. This Wednesday night is turning out to be quite special. The pace continued. Off to see the band whose album I gave to Elliot for Christmas. Philadelphia’s Beach Slang. Spectacular. Why we have ears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GjOfB4Lc5Y Back to Barracuda Bar who are monopolizing stuff at this is time. We see Oscar, who people say is a “ a melody-savant emerged from his messy bedroom in North West London holding a MacBook full of songs to save British pop with beautiful words: and notes and chords too” He isn’t, despite his baggy Mickey Mouse tee shirt and cut down shorts which is meant to be a British band being funny when they play the US for the first time, he is quite good, not quite the next Morrissey but better than the last James Blunt. Then after letting twenty precious minutes like by with Liverpool’s Hooten Tennis Club, we see The Crookes. Excellent, only spoiled by the fact that their mum and dads and neighbors from Sheffield, England seemed to be the only ones enjoying them. Great old fashioned power pop with a real pop star lead singer. Smiley thirty minutes. It is late, 1am. Time to go to bed. Elliot just flown in from Boston so was already 3am. BUT THIS IS SXSW. Off to Plam Door on Sabine who were showcasing on of Austin’s all time finest bands Quiet Company. For Elliot he gets his first SXSW moment. The venue is empty. Maybe 15 folk in the audience. Even more surprising when they announce that they have just come from the Austin Music Awards where they were voted Austin Band of the Year. But they also told us that after they had played their two songs there was a big runner of a surprise end of show performance from someone. So all their friends, fan and family stayed at tech other venue just in case. They then went on to play a quite blistering one hour set to the tiny bunch of spectators in from of them. Dazzling. They also told us that the surprise performer had turned up - Robert Plant. Could bot have been better than this though. On top of all this they had what turned out to be my favorite thought of the week painted on one of their monitors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apuPrblPCj0 And Wednesday is over. Only three days left.

← back to Blog Archive

SXSW 2016. Tenth time. My eldest son, Elliot turned 21 in February and flew in from Boston to join. It was always going to be great. Would it turn out to be spectacular?

The Burning Club crowd had it’s lowest turnout ever. Only three members in town. The SXSW of recent years, of Springsteen, Young, Gaga and Kanye thankfully is no more. A lower key selection of stadium fillers but even more corporate juggernauts: Spotify House, Pandora House, Fader/Converse Fort, MacDonald Loft ( I kid you not), Skoda Stage. OK last one is a joke but might well have been. The SXSW Interactive drew more attendees than the music festival, the SXSW Movie Festival approaches Sundance kudos and this year was the first SXSW Gaming Conference. All gave the naysayers opportunities to mourn the loss of the ideals that SXSW was bourn from. I have heard from many folk that SXSW is not what it was, that it has sold out and that they would not go - but mostly from people who have never went and who would not not know their way to a great new sound unless Pitchfork or the NME told them it as ok. So. Personal choice is all. If you avoid the aforementioned monstrosities, and there was not Doritos stage in the style of a giant vending machine this year, there were still 2000+ acts to delve into and explore. Still a hundred plus venues with no corporate sponsorship. Still acts that had no label, no agent, no manager but loads of talent and great songs looking for a little break. And that is SXSW for me. So. Again. Here. We. Go. (note no mention of the Obamas - do not think they played in a showcase).

Day One Tuesday

Having arrived the night before and never explored this part of the world beyond where I could either see a band or drink a G&T (Hendricks with a cucumber), I decided to explore a little and headed to San Antonio for a day trip before the music started. Done that will not be back. Music. It is only about the music. The Alamo???? Tuesday is the day when only ten or so venues put on official showcases. The festival was officially launched at Maggie Mays with the Spanish group Capsula playing Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars in its entirety. Had to go. However the biggest queue in living memory ever was trying to get into a venue which could fit maybe 300 folk if you were lucky. First rule of SXSW - nothing is worth queuing for more than ten minutes. Somewhere else there are loads of acts on stage. So I passed. Thereby making the first band of SXSW 2016 at the rightly named Hype Hotel, who only appear to put on the acts that all the buzz blog sites say are the Buzz Bands. To Start 2016 - Diet Cig. A jaunty two person guitar/drum combo with a female lead who is probably still in high school. Pleasant pop which you would not cross the road to see normally. But lots of folk raving about them. Not I.

And we are off. I have one night and one afternoon before my son, Elliot, arrives. Just my good music buddy Al, a veteran of over 17 years at SXSW and I.

Next to the Barracuda where they have the best Tuesday night line up spread across an inside and outside stage. We see Wray (not bad typical SXSW indie band) Public Memory ( not good typical SXSW Indie band) and Ritual Howls ( very good gothic - ish listening to too much Joy Division, which is not a band thing, but not so original - still pass marks) before seeing Honduras, a Brooklyn outfit with lead singer like Pete Murphy of Bauhaus on steroids. Excellent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0J9Uqdn6lw

Off to The Townsend an upmarket (for Austin) speakeasy to see the all female LA band LEX. A feature of SXSW is that many new bands appear here on the strength of no back catalogue but just one song, one commercial song. I had heard their ”One Song” and went o see them perform it. Very eighties sound, great one off pop song. You will never hear of them again.

Back to the Barracuda to see Sextile before one of my top picks for the week, the hottest Israeli band for many years, Vaadat Charigm. Think psychedelia, think War On Drugs, think singing in Hebrew and think floating to a higher plain. Here is their album on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlmNvttoQms

On to Cheer Up Charlies for an outdoor stage and the little English supergroup The Moonlandingz. This is an indie dance band who wish the Happy Mondays still existed and is fronted by the oddity that is the lead singer of Fat White Family, resplendent in lipsticked graffiti all over his fairly obviously quite out of it face and I mean right out of it. Fine 30 minutes of madness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-f_yV3N2e8&nohtml5=False

Coming clean. All images taken on my phone. No camera carrying around nonsense this year. All images taken from wherever I watched the act. Must feel like you were there I would imagine. Blur is my speciality. Out of focus comes naturally.

Into the Sidewinder, which used to be the Red Eyed Fly, to those who have been before. Moving Panoramas, another all female group, lengthy psych prog rock from San Fran. More than acceptable.

Now, I trawl through most of the 2000 acts once they are announced and seek sheer brilliance from unknown quarters. This becomes my target list which I do the best to see in person. Sometimes it is a song, sometimes it is a strong recommendation from a journalist or blog site I rate, some times it is a hunch. Not sure why the next band were on my list, perhaps it was just the name, Matt Gilmour’s Patient Wolf, but for whatever reason they found their way to my Hot List, I ended up spending 15 minutes in their company at the Sidewinder. The verdict? Root canal treatment is more fun. And I speak from experience. Ten bands in and hopefully nothing will be as bad as this crowd for the rest of the week.

To round the night out I head back to the 1am show at the tent of Barracuda. Autobahn, A Leeds band who are inspired, they say by Kraftwerk and Joy Division ( a recurring theme). Angry not so young men. I like their sound. They played to about twenty folk. Good night day One.

Day Two. Wednesday

I have all day to kill before Elliot arrives around 8 - right in the middle of the real SXSW start with 100 venues putting on their opening show. :(

So midday and the first Scottish band of the week. If I had to give the police a photo fit description of the composite Scottish band lead singer over the years at SXSW it would be: slightly overweight. Short. Big hair or beard (not both). Tight trousers. Boots. Nobody in the audience. I am sure that the police would then have spotted Womps quite comfortably as a result. Great nasally rock voice over a surprisingly good deep south - american style, even though they are from Glasgow.

Walking along the street to next show, I hear a spectacular sound. Jump into a big tent and there are Haelos, one of the Buzz Bands the media are touting from England. I see one song, It is special, More on them later. Onwards to Swan Dive a great little venue. New York’s Miya Folick. Part Kate Bush. Part Patti Smith. In the presence of greatness. Already know I am at one of the week’s highlights. Listen here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koPIxhms29A

It is a beautiful day. So we hand around this venue and see SWIMM, excellent, Portland’s much touted Pure Bathing Culture, quite good and on to Side Bar to see Savak, who are pretty good but you need to be exceptional to stand out here. Three bands who need a break.

I am getting warmed up, off to see one of the hottest Australian bands at Sidewinder, Methyl Ethyl. Great name. Their sound did not match expectations. Unlike Public Access TV from New York who were a great three minute pop punk battering sound. Then back to see James Supercut and who should we find but the already great Miya Folick watching from the bar.

Afternoon I almost over and now waiting for news of Elliot’s arrival, I head to a tiny indoor venue at Cheer Up Charlies to see Lust For Youth, another inspired by the darker late seventies Uk indie industrial sound. Excellent. Could barely see them though - looked like they were wearing animal hood things. The crowd were going mental. This Swedish band will become something.

It is 8pm. Off to the Central Presbyterian Church to see the new band led by the former lead singer of Hooray For The Holidays, Mass Gothic.

Spectacular sound. Wholly unappropriate name for a church gig. Made it even better. Go to 19 minutes and 59 seconds of the full album stream to hear their quite spectacular single. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwqVSCAhukI&nohtml5=False

Then my son arrived. SXSW really starts NOW. Here we are with his first legal SXSW drink having turned 21 only three weeks earlier. I of course led by example, as you do, and had been doing so for most of the day.

First Gig then. Day Wave at Cheer Up Charlies Outdoor. Spectacular sound. Light indie pop. What kids today should probably be listening too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WVvh3IufVI

Then we headed to Valhalla, as I had heard about someone who was being described as the Country and Western punky Lana Del Ray. Why not I thought. I give you Pearl Charles. Just quite special. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfg7y8NyFcw&nohtml5=False

Off to the best venue in Austin, Esther’s Follies, normally a Comedy Club, to see on of Elliot’s top picks, Alice on the Roof, from Belgium. Great electronica pop. Great Esther’s Follies G&Ts making everything sound a tad better, somehow. Don’t now how that happened. A bit worryingly the two members of her band were the doubles of Right Said Fred of I’m Too Sexy fame. But that could have been the G&T influencing my review notes at the time.

This Wednesday night is turning out to be quite special. The pace continued. Off to see the band whose album I gave to Elliot for Christmas. Philadelphia’s Beach Slang. Spectacular. Why we have ears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GjOfB4Lc5Y

Back to Barracuda Bar who are monopolizing stuff at this is time. We see Oscar, who people say is a “ a melody-savant emerged from his messy bedroom in North West London holding a MacBook full of songs to save British pop with beautiful words: and notes and chords too” He isn’t, despite his baggy Mickey Mouse tee shirt and cut down shorts which is meant to be a British band being funny when they play the US for the first time, he is quite good, not quite the next Morrissey but better than the last James Blunt.

Then after letting twenty precious minutes like by with Liverpool’s Hooten Tennis Club, we see The Crookes. Excellent, only spoiled by the fact that their mum and dads and neighbors from Sheffield, England seemed to be the only ones enjoying them. Great old fashioned power pop with a real pop star lead singer. Smiley thirty minutes.

It is late, 1am. Time to go to bed. Elliot just flown in from Boston so was already 3am. BUT THIS IS SXSW. Off to Plam Door on Sabine who were showcasing on of Austin’s all time finest bands Quiet Company. For Elliot he gets his first SXSW moment. The venue is empty. Maybe 15 folk in the audience.

Even more surprising when they announce that they have just come from the Austin Music Awards where they were voted Austin Band of the Year. But they also told us that after they had played their two songs there was a big runner of a surprise end of show performance from someone. So all their friends, fan and family stayed at tech other venue just in case. They then went on to play a quite blistering one hour set to the tiny bunch of spectators in from of them. Dazzling. They also told us that the surprise performer had turned up - Robert Plant. Could bot have been better than this though. On top of all this they had what turned out to be my favorite thought of the week painted on one of their monitors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apuPrblPCj0

And Wednesday is over. Only three days left.