SXSW 2008 has officially come to a close and I'm without a voice and barely alive but smiling BIG.Great bands, great parties and great company. Since I left LA in summer for Music City, USA, I haven't seen any of my friends and old co-workers from LA. Maaaaaan I missed my people.
Friday was my best day. One of my favorite annual events is the BMI Accoustic Brunch at the Four Seasons. Almost at delirious from the few nights before, but yet just getting started, you trek over to the Four Seasons for great acoustic performances (this year was Brooke Waggoner, Eldar, Kaki King, James Yuill, Rachel Goodrich, Cecil Batista, Pricilla Ahh, Laura Marling, Jacol Jeffries) for a full breakfast, fresh juice, and bottomless mimosas and bloody marys! Need I say More? Plus nearly everyone goes to this so it's a great way to get with everyone at one place (when it's usually impossible to hook up with people). When we had a good mimosa buzz going and saw a few great performances, we walked out to Stubbs for the annual SPIN day party for more free drinks and great performances. We stayed for most of the party to see The Whigs, The Raveonettes and Vampire Weekend.
I had the treat of seeing a bunch of friends from my Geffen days at the Suretone Party where one of my favorite indie bands The Black Angels played along with Meriwether, Eastern Conference Champions and Shwayze. I also caught the Deadly Syndrome at the Dim Mak party and popped into the ASCAP Rock Showcase. There was a Perry Farrell sighting at Bank of America and a long conversation about our hometown and all the annoying yuppies that have chosen to reside there with Hermosa Beach punk rocker/American Punk Hardcore founder Keith Morris (Black Flag, Circle Jerks) at the Little Radio showase at Red Eyed Fly. Pretty awesome to talk about my hometown in Austin with him. Of course as a founder of the hardcore scene in the south bay he had a lot to say about how much our little beach town that could has drastically changed with acquiring people from all over the country and turning it into an upscale conservative beach community. Yuck. The Alternative Press party is always a good place to get good swag (skateboard deck, Vans wallet, headphones, I needed a new deck so this was perfect), and see some tattooed, peirced punk rockers. I got to chat with my good friend Mike of MXPX and met some people from the South Bay punk scene.
I also made sure to be in attendance at one of my favorite bands from my current neck of the woods: Cage the Elephant. I knew when I looked out into the crowd that there were people who had never experienced their show and were about to witness something beyond what they would expect in the least bit, which is exactly the point, you never know what to expect at a Cage the Elephant show. Halfway through their first song Soil to The Sun the band realized Matt's vocal mic cable was out and rather than making a fuss about it, he said "fuck it" and kept singing. He proceeded to walk through the crowd over to the bar, it begins. He climbs the bar and up the balcony, facing the crowd and holding on from behind. He mouths "will you catch me" to those below and jumps and starts crowd surfing. Now imagine that this place is smaller than The End with about 10 feet between the end of the stage and the bar. Whenever Matt starts to feel his music run through his veins he is unstoppable and purely AMAZING. He even stepped outside to sing for the people outside looking in who seemed to love it. You always leave satisfied at a Cage the Elephant show.
Another party I enjoyed was the Chop Shop Records party sponsored by Atlantic Records. Since I had spent some time at Universal Music Publishing Group in the Film/TV Department, this was a reunion party for me. Got hooked up with my old colleagues and boss from UMPG and back in touch with some great music supervisors (including the amazing one who founded Chop Shop). I stayed for The Republic Tigers and Yael Naim and waited for everyone to cheer at the sound of the song from the current Apple Air campaign, had a few beverages before leaving for the Filter Magazine Cedar St. Courtyard to see Sea Wolf and Levi's Fort Fader House to see Birdmonster. By the end of the night I even got to hang with Rolling Stone Editor Joe Levy who is now the Editor-in Chief for Blender Magazine. My week ended at the Vice Party where my friend DJ Dan of LA Riots opening for MSTRKRFT which was grrrreat.
Most interesting performance was from electro-dub Santogold based out of Brooklyn, NY. They played at the Levi's Fort FADER Magazine house (click here for a photo gallery from the Fader house) around 6 pm on Saturday. There were three girls up front, one singing, one on each side of her dancings, with one white guy in the back line spinning. The two girls on each side of Santagold's Santi White alternated between standing completely still like soldiers (see video below) to breaking into little dances to the alternating beats of the DJ. Santi White was wearing purple velvet pants with a multicolored and purple top, short hair and big sunglasses. The Two girls up front were wearing sailor style outfits with berets and collared shirt suits. There was everything from reggae, dub, new wave, hip hop, jamaican and electronic incorporated into their performance. Electronic spinning with hip/hop beats mixed in. This was the most unique and entertaining show of the whole week. The Fader House was over capacity at this point and I had to get in especially since my friend DJ Dan of LA RIOTS was spinning in between sets so I walked over to exit area and the dude let me in.
Santogold - Video for "L.E.S. Artistes"
mp3 - Creator
mp3 - Shuv It feat. Spankrock
From myspace-
Santogold is a survivor of a half-century worth of living along musical evolution’s most cutting edges. The only live act that can boast of having out-aged Barbara Bush, having outlived Mr. Miyagi and out-styled Liberace, Santogold is here with future flavor. Already receiving weighty club rotation and airplay in urban Afghanistan and downtown Beirut, Santogold is the first act of the century to boast a post-war following on the International Space Station Mir. Following a live performance broadcast from three thousand miles off the Cape of Good Hope last June, inmates at Leavenworth Penitentiary received Santogold with a celebratory confetti parade. Just another first for the modern super group that knows no bound. Composed of absolutely no members, Santogold is also the first musical outfit capable of claiming the planet’s broiling collective consciousness as their front woman. Longtime collaborator, singer and songwriter Santi White says of her work with Santogold, “We began trying to write pop songs to sell, which made us depressed, so we started writing songs for ourselves instead.” The results of that self-centered conceit is the songwriting work heard for the first time on the full length Santogold album, as yet untitled, to be released in 2007 on the Lizard King label. As unmastered tracks leaked over the internet this past November, the request lines of radio stations from Miami to Hanoi began freezing with a flood of calls from listeners eager to hear the new Santogold sound over their frequencies. From his radio show in the United Arab Emirates capital city of Abu Dhabi, Michael Jackson (the King of Pop) played what Santogold snippets he had been able to pirate from a bootleg MySpace page dedicated to the group. Days later, BBC Radio One reported that the unreleased Santogold debut was heard blasting from the iPod shuffle of Libyan ruler Moammar Qaddafi as he entered an international summit in the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Recognizing the urgent need to address the uproarious buzz, Santogold released the following statement through their label reps at Lizard King: “The response to our unmastered songs has been both premature and phenomenal! We were happy to hear that the children of Darfur have found hope in our melodic interpretation of life on the battlefield of love! We’re hoping that each and every 20-something from downtown San Francisco to central Mumbai will also learn something from our work! And to the people dropping no-knock fire on old ladies in Atlanta: shame on you! Santogold ain’t with that shit!” The trajectory of such early successes leading to newfound political clout is nothing new for Santogold, whose debut album, though half a century in the making, is sure to rock glass pipes from the Lincoln Memorial to Buckingham palace. The flavor of the gold is guaranteed: Santogold!
Most of the bands I saw at SXSW '08
The Deadly Syndrome
The Wombats
Color Revolt
Birdmonster
Franki Chan
Steve Aoki
Spindrift
Working For A Nuclear Free City
Gliss
The Black Angels
Meriwether
Eastern Conference Champions
Swayze
Grand Ole Party
Brooke Waggoner
Nada Surf
Vampire Weekend
The Raveonettes
The Whigs
American Bang
Cage the Elephant
Castledoor
Republic Tigers
Yael Naim
Sia
Santagold
Sea Wolf
Spankrock
LA Riots
Liam And Me
Action! Action!
Mstrkrft
DJ Z Trip
The Little Ones
Henry Clay People
Until next year.....
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