Blog Post

This site requires JavaScript!
	It is Day Three and I have a big day ahead. You may wonder how I manage to keep track of all the bands, venues, parties, times and so on. Well I have perfected my own app to do this. I like to call it my paper and pencil app. Here is a screen save of it. The circled bands are the ones I saw. I find that printer paper is the best to use as it conveniently folds three times to fit my pocket perfectly. And that is how it works. Late start today as I wandered around Flatstock, the poster and t-shirt exhibition first, so did not get to see any bands till 1pm!!!! Lazy. First up the obligatory daily Glasgow band, Paws. They played in a room which had zero lighting apart from the bright sunlight coming in the windows behind the stage, thereby making it impossible to see them without bringing on a migraine headache. Failed to keep me beyond three songs. PAWS We headed to Hotel Vegas over on East Austin to see what was going on First band on was Deeper who had been listening to a lot of Pere Ubu albums and were not bad at reproducing their sound. Next door on the main stage came The Mystery Lights. Now this was a fuzz-fueled hopped-up 21st Century take on 60s garage pebbles and artful punk, so says their own website. Not sure about that but they were one of the liveliest bands of the week with a hyperactive rock posing front man. Great show. THE MYSTERY JETS Time for another SXSW moment. I went inside to little bar where they was a tiny stage. The printed flyers all over the venue had bands listed across all four stages except for the 2pm show on this inside stage, instead it said Mystery Guest. So we went to see if it was anyone of interest. When I entered the empty room I recognized the band setting up. It was another of my must sees,Warmduscher, a mad as hatters crowd from London and an offshoot from the Fat White Family band. Too good to be true. Word got around the large crowd outside and by the time they kicked off their set the place was heaving. Impossible to describe their music, but how about acid punk country and western shouty dance music? Special!! Despite Clams Baker Jr having almost lost his voice, they put on a hell of a show. Here is but a sample of this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5OJ43lV7s0 WARMDUSCHER Over to the new Fader Fort venue. Only a shadow of its previous sel,f it is now about a third of the size it used to be and lacked the big name bands that they used to get to their parties. I did see one of the most hyped acts of the week though, Charly Bliss. One of many acts trying to be the new Lady Gaga/Lorde, the proximity of my position vis a vis the stage gives away somewhat my overall impression of the show. The shade was welcome though. CHARLY BLISS Jumped in a cab to go out to Lazarus Brewery who had a great little line up. Got there early and had a very pleasant couple of hours. Great garden, tables and chairs, fine cider and great pub snacks. The bands were great too. I saw three in a row, one either side of the band I came to see. First was whenyoung a great Irish pop rock outfit. Then it was one of the highlights of The Great Escape festival last year, Bristol’s Bad Sounds. They took the stage and said that this was not only their first ever gig in the USA but also their first live show of 2019, so it was quite special. The band is basically two brothers and their pals and they have a built in Monkees madcap sense of humor and great funk pop rap stuff. The stage show is infectious and they were in top form. Here is the first song they played - so first time ever heard live in the USA!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4zi0a_fsC8 BAD SOUNDS We settled down to have some food only to learn that the final band of the day would be Pip Blom, a great act from Holland and also on my list to see. Your archetype SXSW indie band in many ways. A perfect end to the afternoon. Check out their song Come Home, the link also shows the SXSW way of introducing bands to you, some blurb and a song. https://schedule.sxsw.com/2019/artists/2006021 PIP BLOM And we are now at the official halfway stage of SXSW 2019, end of the afternoon day three. After some food it was off int the night and more rule breaking. The legendary Amanda Palmer was playing a solo show at the Central Presbyterian Church. I had to go, even though I have seen her a few times, I felt this would be special. She delivered. Started her set by walking up and down the central aisle of the packed church with just her ukulele and no mike. Spectacular. Took a very bad quality video of it but it will give you a feel for how different she is in general and this show in particular. The rest of the time she played at her piano. An event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ews7rn3vUfo AMANDA PALMER To my favorite venue at SXSW next, Esther’s Follies, to see another Must See band, and another all girl group. This was The Pantones from LA whose song Corruption was the most played song on my playlist of unknown bands playing at SXSW. It is brilliant and is probably my Song of SXSW 2019. They have an amazing early New Order guitar sound. Loved them. You can listen to the song here - Corruption https://soundcloud.com/thepantones THE PANTONES Easily the prettiest venue is the Victorian Room at The Driskill Hotel. Very ornate, the venue always gets some great gigs. Tonight I saw Bror Gunnar Jannsen, all the way from Sweden but with a Delta Swamp Blues one man band show. Different and compelling. BROR GUNNAR JANNSEN Back into Valhalla to see Thee Idyls, who had perhaps the best self description of their sound, saying it "falls somewhere between the pastoral and melancholy gothic south, Brit inspired post punk, and the ethos of LA punk and surf.” So they have all the bases covered then. Decent show. A day to break rules, I had to go see Broken Social Scene, one of my favourite bands, play Bungalow Bar. Seeing them play a little outdoor stage in the bar’s back garden was too good to miss. The crowd was jammed in and fired up and the band were in top form. A classic. I had not taken too many mis steps on this day with my choices but I did now as I headed to the Iron Bear to see Holiday Sidewinder, the “cocky glossy blur of hedonistic glam" (Rolling Stone) but turned out to be one woman singing (sort of) to backing tracks and trying to be Madonna around Like A Virgin time. Not a highlight. So I went back to tried and tested and headed to Swan Dive another favorite venue to see the midnight set from Pip Blom and the 1am set from Bad Sounds. Yes, the same two bands I had seen only a few hours previously. What about the rules? Well as Groucho Marx said: “These are my principles, if you don’t like them - I have others”. Two super shows to round off a great SXSW day. PIP BLOM from my seat at the edge of the stage. (Long day) Bad Sounds video again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbqJnNJeok0 BAD SOUNDS Day Three is over. Best of the day, well it was a day of five star shows: Warmduscher, Pip Blom. Broken Social Scene, Amanda Palmer, but it would have to be the debut show by Bad Sounds just ahead of their 1am end of day show!!

It is Day Three and I have a big day ahead. You may wonder how I manage to keep track of all the bands, venues, parties, times and so on. Well I have perfected my own app to do this. I like to call it my paper and pencil app. Here is a screen save of it.

The circled bands are the ones I saw. I find that printer paper is the best to use as it conveniently folds three times to fit my pocket perfectly. And that is how it works.

Late start today as I wandered around Flatstock, the poster and t-shirt exhibition first, so did not get to see any bands till 1pm!!!! Lazy. First up the obligatory daily Glasgow band, Paws. They played in a room which had zero lighting apart from the bright sunlight coming in the windows behind the stage, thereby making it impossible to see them without bringing on a migraine headache. Failed to keep me beyond three songs.

PAWS

We headed to Hotel Vegas over on East Austin to see what was going on First band on was Deeper who had been listening to a lot of Pere Ubu albums and were not bad at reproducing their sound. Next door on the main stage came The Mystery Lights. Now this was a fuzz-fueled hopped-up 21st Century take on 60s garage pebbles and artful punk, so says their own website. Not sure about that but they were one of the liveliest bands of the week with a hyperactive rock posing front man. Great show.

THE MYSTERY JETS

Time for another SXSW moment. I went inside to little bar where they was a tiny stage. The printed flyers all over the venue had bands listed across all four stages except for the 2pm show on this inside stage, instead it said Mystery Guest. So we went to see if it was anyone of interest. When I entered the empty room I recognized the band setting up. It was another of my must sees,Warmduscher, a mad as hatters crowd from London and an offshoot from the Fat White Family band. Too good to be true. Word got around the large crowd outside and by the time they kicked off their set the place was heaving. Impossible to describe their music, but how about acid punk country and western shouty dance music? Special!! Despite Clams Baker Jr having almost lost his voice, they put on a hell of a show.

Here is but a sample of this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5OJ43lV7s0

WARMDUSCHER

Over to the new Fader Fort venue. Only a shadow of its previous sel,f it is now about a third of the size it used to be and lacked the big name bands that they used to get to their parties. I did see one of the most hyped acts of the week though, Charly Bliss. One of many acts trying to be the new Lady Gaga/Lorde, the proximity of my position vis a vis the stage gives away somewhat my overall impression of the show. The shade was welcome though.

CHARLY BLISS

Jumped in a cab to go out to Lazarus Brewery who had a great little line up. Got there early and had a very pleasant couple of hours. Great garden, tables and chairs, fine cider and great pub snacks. The bands were great too. I saw three in a row, one either side of the band I came to see. First was whenyoung a great Irish pop rock outfit. Then it was one of the highlights of The Great Escape festival last year, Bristol’s Bad Sounds. They took the stage and said that this was not only their first ever gig in the USA but also their first live show of 2019, so it was quite special. The band is basically two brothers and their pals and they have a built in Monkees madcap sense of humor and great funk pop rap stuff. The stage show is infectious and they were in top form.

Here is the first song they played - so first time ever heard live in the USA!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4zi0a_fsC8

BAD SOUNDS

We settled down to have some food only to learn that the final band of the day would be Pip Blom, a great act from Holland and also on my list to see. Your archetype SXSW indie band in many ways. A perfect end to the afternoon.

Check out their song Come Home, the link also shows the SXSW way of introducing bands to you, some blurb and a song. https://schedule.sxsw.com/2019/artists/2006021

PIP BLOM

And we are now at the official halfway stage of SXSW 2019, end of the afternoon day three. After some food it was off int the night and more rule breaking. The legendary Amanda Palmer was playing a solo show at the Central Presbyterian Church. I had to go, even though I have seen her a few times, I felt this would be special. She delivered. Started her set by walking up and down the central aisle of the packed church with just her ukulele and no mike. Spectacular. Took a very bad quality video of it but it will give you a feel for how different she is in general and this show in particular. The rest of the time she played at her piano. An event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ews7rn3vUfo

AMANDA PALMER

To my favorite venue at SXSW next, Esther’s Follies, to see another Must See band, and another all girl group. This was The Pantones from LA whose song Corruption was the most played song on my playlist of unknown bands playing at SXSW. It is brilliant and is probably my Song of SXSW 2019. They have an amazing early New Order guitar sound. Loved them.

You can listen to the song here - Corruption https://soundcloud.com/thepantones

THE PANTONES

Easily the prettiest venue is the Victorian Room at The Driskill Hotel. Very ornate, the venue always gets some great gigs. Tonight I saw Bror Gunnar Jannsen, all the way from Sweden but with a Delta Swamp Blues one man band show. Different and compelling.

BROR GUNNAR JANNSEN

Back into Valhalla to see Thee Idyls, who had perhaps the best self description of their sound, saying it "falls somewhere between the pastoral and melancholy gothic south, Brit inspired post punk, and the ethos of LA punk and surf.” So they have all the bases covered then. Decent show.

A day to break rules, I had to go see Broken Social Scene, one of my favourite bands, play Bungalow Bar. Seeing them play a little outdoor stage in the bar’s back garden was too good to miss. The crowd was jammed in and fired up and the band were in top form. A classic.

I had not taken too many mis steps on this day with my choices but I did now as I headed to the Iron Bear to see Holiday Sidewinder, the “cocky glossy blur of hedonistic glam" (Rolling Stone) but turned out to be one woman singing (sort of) to backing tracks and trying to be Madonna around Like A Virgin time. Not a highlight.

So I went back to tried and tested and headed to Swan Dive another favorite venue to see the midnight set from Pip Blom and the 1am set from Bad Sounds. Yes, the same two bands I had seen only a few hours previously. What about the rules? Well as Groucho Marx said: “These are my principles, if you don’t like them - I have others”.

Two super shows to round off a great SXSW day.

PIP BLOM

from my seat at the edge of the stage. (Long day)

Bad Sounds video again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbqJnNJeok0

BAD SOUNDS

Day Three is over.

Best of the day, well it was a day of five star shows: Warmduscher, Pip Blom. Broken Social Scene, Amanda Palmer, but it would have to be the debut show by Bad Sounds just ahead of their 1am end of day show!!