SXSW Day 3: Someday You Will Ache Like I Ache

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SXSW Day 3: Someday You Will Ache Like I Ache

POSTED: Monday, March 22, 2010, 6:15 PM

Filed Under: Music Show

photos | Patrick Rapa

Best Coast

Got behind in posting these, but... Friday was the day I realized I just couldn't stand there listening to any old thing just cause the singer's up their pouring his heart out or the drummer in sweating herself silly. Time to get discriminating. So I stopped by some outdoor tent where the food was free (pulled pork on untoasted Texas toast) and the music was ignorable (an r&b dude from Barbados, I think). Soon as I was done I bolted for Sixth Street. Hesta Prynn — formerly of Northern State — was kinda fun. She didn't sound like a Beastie Girl, just good kinda soully rock pop hip-hop. A little more wandering and I found a showcase of Danish bands at a Mexican restaurant. If you have the chance to see Asteroids Galaxy Tour in a nice breezy outdoor patio with plastic Danish flags flapping and everybody else there is pretty and sunburnt in the Scandinavian tradition, I highly suggestion you do so. They played a little Miles Davis and a lot of party soul music. Yes.

Matt Pond

Next I caught Philly ex-pat Matt Pond and the band currently going by Matt Pond PA. His voice is as strong as ever. If you haven't been keeping up with him/them in a while, check out the new, cinematic The Dark Leaves. The audience sang along with the ones they knew and danced to the ones they didn't.

Needing a break from the sun and trudging, I headed over to the Convention Center, the SXSW hub, to recharge the phone. The map/Google Latitude app is neat but it's a Droid vampire and kind of unnecessary in Austin. Once you grasp that there are East streets and West streets, you can feel your way from one club to another pretty easily. While I flipped through the program — do I really wanna sit through a Jakob Dylan show just because Neko Case is in his band? No. — Gwar came stomping by, preceded by cameras and pursued by a small gaggle of gawkers. "They're doing a panel in Room 18ABC," somebody told me as I snapped a photo. I'm not sure if she works for Gwar or just wants to.

Okay, who was next? Some crappy pop stuff and then Drunkdriver who did a crazy 20-minute jackhammering punk show. Just really intense, seamless rock. Dancing was attempted, but it soon mutated into headbanging and pushing. After the last note, a fellow reveler emrged from the mini-pit, retrieved her photo and camera from atop a monitor and muttered "Fucking big ass pussies." I am not sure what that was about.

Drunkdriver

I think this is when I saw Best Coast. A couple journalist types I ran into, SXSW veterans, have noted to me that there's no it-band or buzz band or whatever barf term. Fine, but if you missed Best Coast, you missed out. Really delivered. Ida Maria fans will like them. Or, this one did, anyway. Brash catchy, rock and roll.

A couple more bands and I stumbled into a comedy club to see Scott Aukerman host of the Comedy Death Ray podcast. I find the thing both funny and bafflingly straight-ahead. Andi Smith and Eugene Mirman came on a little later. These 10-15 minute sets seem to be a little rough on the comedians but Mirman hit the ground running and so made the most of his time.

Okay, enough funny business. I pushed my way into the Pocahaunted show. They are a kinda of a L.A. post-freak-folk thing — funny to think Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast in this band, but she was — with painted faces and swirling drones and a little psychedelic noodling. Well, the guitar and drum dudes were really holding down the back end while the three female singers abandoned their instruments to writhe and moan all over the place. Intense stuff in a packed house.

Pocahaunted

More intense in a house more packed was the Hole "comeback" show at a North Star-sized place called Dirty Dog. Before them was Foxy Shazam, one of those bands with awful facial hair and yappy between-song banter that is basically daring you to hate them. But then they rock out and it's good enough to put up with them. Quoth the Sonny Bono-looking lead singer: "If Foxy Shazam was an animal at the zoo, we'd be the one most likely to bite your head off without thinking about it." And: "Let's slow this last part down for all the ladies and the gay guys." I am not sure what that was about. Dude was a hilarious idiot.

Okay, so Hole. Back with an all new band (hi, Axl) Courtney Love's between-song asides could be divided thusly: A) Who she is doing this for. (Not you. This is for her. Except "Doll Parts" — that was for you, you were told.) B) What is wrong with her voice. (It is extra raspy from smoking/hotel air conditioning/guitarists playing too loud.) Oh, there was also C) Perez Hilton's my BFF and I'll never cross him again. Oh while we're on the topic sort of, Nardwuar the Human Serviette was there, as was Matthew McConaughey who I first recognized by hearing him tap me on the shoulder and say "Can I get through, brother?" I think he said brother. He did stumble over my backpack.

"It's one fucking a.m. I'm an elderly person. Time to get my fucking blowjob on and go to sleep." That's a lot of what Love had to say. Somebody told me later she ended the show by collapsing, and had to be carried off the stage. Did that happen? How could I have missed that?

Courtney Love

But the music, I'll tell you, Courtney/they sounded good. Like, she could stand there and complain like some dumpster diva but I really dug her sandpaper voice. It sounded raw and agonizing. Somehow it was a really good time. It's not 1995, and this wasn't Hole, and on and on, but it was a fun rock show. I'll give Courtney the last word: "Worst show of my life. Good night. Go see a good blues band."

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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