With my first day at SXSW having gone pretty well (and many thanks to Maura and Joe for letting me crash in their hotel room), I began day two by trekking out to the somewhat-far reaches west of downtown for the Dangerbird/Polyvinyl party. I was trying to time it so that I could see 31 Knots, but due to an apparent schedule change, I missed their set entirely. But I did get to say hi to Ted from BAGeL Radio, who was DJing his first of several parties that week, and catch Division Day playing a great set to maybe ten people. I don’t blame people for still being in bed sleeping off their hangovers, or for not wanting to make the trip out beyond the downtown area, but the turnout was a bit of a bummer. Still, I didn’t feel too bad for Division Day, since they were playing two other parties that same day that were bound to attract bigger crowds.
The Spaceland party was on the same side of town, so I headed over there in time to catch Mando Diao. Although their set was solid and energetic, they didn’t really do anything with the now-fairly-standard Swedes-playing-aggressive-soul-inflected-garage-rock thing that The Hives or The (International) Noise Conspiracy haven’t already done.
Annuals appeared to have some problems with the club’s sound equipment while setting up, though I suppose if your band’s setup included two drum kits, three keyboards, and four singers, getting everything working and sounding right might take a while. And they did sound good when they got going, with their joyous/angsty anthemic clamor sounding like a brightly colored analogue to The Arcade Fire’s steely blues and grays.
Blonde Redhead also struggled with the sound system during their setup, which was a lot simpler than Annuals’, so it was clear that something was either seriously screwed up with the club’s equipment or the sound guys had no idea what they were doing. BR ended up starting forty minutes late, and after Mando Diao’s and Annuals’ hyperactive performances they seemed to be moving in slow motion, although the performance was a good match for the hypnotic, pulsating drone they created.
After Blonde Redhead, I wanted to head across town to say hi to The Dodos, who had just rolled into town and were playing their first of a couple of day shows at another Gorilla vs. Bear party at the Peacock. However, I didn’t realize until after about half an hour of walking how far the Peacock really was from downtown. Then, as if fate were underscoring my mistake, I got stuck about a block from the venue waiting for a very slow train to pass by. By that point, I had pretty much missed the Dodos’ set entirely, but there was some small measure of salvation when the train finally passed by and who was standing on the other side of the tracks but the Bay Bridged guys! They took pity on me and gave me a ride back to downtown.
After dinner, I split my time between the Leafy Green Booking and Asthmatic Kitty showcases, since they were taking place a block away from each other. The Leafy Green showcase was in the basement of a restaurant, which didn’t make for the best ambience, and to make matters worse there was a door behind the stage that led out to the patio out back, where another showcase was taking place. Whenever the door was open, sound from the much louder bands outside would interfere with whoever was playing inside. Such was the case with most of Alela Diane’s set— the foot traffic between the inside and outside unfortunately interfered with her mellow pre-The Greatest Cat Power acoustic-folksiness. On the other hand, Black Fiction’s brand of psych-freak-folk (the kind that somehow manages to be blessedly free of any overt hippie influences) stood up a little better against the external sonic intrusions.
We here at Albondigas have written about the Dodos multiple times already, so let’s just leave it at: yeah, I saw the Dodos, and as usual they rocked it.
Meanwhile, over at the Asthmatic Kitty showcase (in a much nicer venue), Rafter and friends played goofy, funky pop that reminded me a bit of Ween but without the stupid jokiness.
Shapes and Sizes were my pleasant-surprise band of the day, a Montreal foursome who reminded me alternately of volcano!, Islands, Polvo, P.E.E., and probably a dozen other bands with similarly skewed but still strongly melodic sounds.
