SXSW 2009 report: Day two

Au Revoir Simone (Credit: Ryan Muir/Special to Metromix)

Photos:

Line from hell, Radio Room, 2:30 p.m.
The Paste/Brooklyn Vegan/Agency Group day party had a lineup that’s like hipster crack: Au Revoir Simone, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the Avett Brothers, the Wrens, Daniel Johnston, Passion Pit. Our photographer Ryan got in just fine, but I got there a little later than I’d hoped for and was greeted by a line of kids in candy-colored sunglasses snaking two whole blocks down 6th Street. I decided to tough it out, and 45 minutes later was rewarded for my patience with a $4 cup of foamy beer and the dulcet tones of These Arms Are Snakes, a post-hardcore crew from Seattle who really aren’t “post” enough for my taste. Even after I got into the main room, they still weren’t letting anyone out to the patio where folkie cult hero Daniel Johnston was playing, so I downed my foamy beer and moved on. Time well wasted!

Jason Lytle/Jessica Lea Mayfield, Room 710, 4:00 p.m.
Our New York music editor, Matt Rodbard, is a big fan of California indie-poppers Grandaddy, so on his advice I decided to check out a set by the now-defunct band’s former frontman, Jason Lytle, who’s set to release his solo debut later this year. Lytle and his band played a very short, breezy set, heavy on keyboard hooks and surprisingly tight harmonies given how poor the monitor situation at Room 710 clearly was.

Following Lytle was another singer-songwriter I’m not that familiar with named Jessica Lea Mayfield. Apparently fellow Ohioan Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys is a fan and produced her first record, which makes sense—although her songs have a folksier, almost country feel compared to any of Auerbach’s work, they ache with the same bluesy spirit of lonely late nights and love gone wrong. Mayfield has an understated but charismatic stage presence, and her two piece backing band was equally outstanding—a very cute and very in-the-pocket drummer and a guitarist who looked and played like the hayseed cousin of that Eagles of Death Metal guy. After a long, frustrating afternoon of standing in long, frustrating lines, Mayfield and company restored my faith in SXSW, where the best acts often are the ones that don't inspire lemming-like lines, but can still blow away a small but appreciative audience in a little room.

Passion Pit, Radio Room, 5:30 p.m.
Ironically, by the time one of the most overhyped bands on the Paste/Brooklyn Vegan lineup took the stage, there was no longer any line to get in, and even something approaching breathing room in the back of Radio Room’s sweat box of an outdoor tent. Passion Pit might already be the latest victim of the blogosphere boom-and-bust cycle, but the truth is that, while they’re hardly the next great saviors of indie rock, they’re far better than the backlashers are willing to give them credit for. Yes, Michael Angelakos’ strangled-cat falsetto is…well, let’s call it an acquired taste. But he and his band played with a manic, gleeful energy that kept a tired late-afternoon crowd moving, and a lot of those synth-poppy songs are catchy as all get-out. Set highlight: when Angelakos accidentally beaned his bass player upside the head with some over-enthusiastic mic-spinning. Hey, as Angelakos himself noted, they're still a young band—those rock star moves will get a little smoother with practice.

Radio Moscow, Smokin’ Music, 8:10 p.m.
Amidst the Pitchfork-friendly indie bands that crowd the lineup of nearly every SXSW showcase, Iowa’s Radio Moscow were a refreshingly unpretentious change of pace: a power trio that cranked out Hendrix/Cream-inspired blues-rock jams. Some guy in front of me started air-guitaring to one of Parker Griggs' incendiary solos, and he wasn’t being ironic; the early-evening crowd was small but clearly hanging on every note.

Anya Marina, The Parish, 8:35 p.m.
Not to be confused with this year’s SXSW “it” girl, Ida Maria, this San Diego singer-songwriter comes on like a folksy Sheryl Crow for the iPod generation, delivering quietly catchy and vaguely world-weary tunes with just an acoustic guitar and a few programmed beats (played on an iPod Nano, no less). Her between-song banter was hilarious and engaging, her songs less so—although she did manage to silence the chatty crowd with a straight-faced cover of T.I’s “Whatever You Like,” which she improbably transformed into a creepy stalker anthem.

Sam Roberts Band, Cedar Street Courtyard, 9:30 p.m.
I’ve been singing the praises of this Canadian rocker since I first heard his music about five years ago, and I was gratified to see that his American audience is clearly growing. Not only was this fairly large outdoor venue packed for his band’s ferocious set, a lot of folks were singing along to the choruses. The obvious highlight was Roberts’ latest single, “Them Kids,” a gigantic rock anthem that could be SXSW’s unofficial theme song: “The kids don’t know how to dance to rock ‘n’ roll!” Roberts barks on the chorus. Ironically, “Them Kids” got more people dancing than any song I heard all day.

Eyedea & Abilities/P.O.S., Habana Bar Backyard, 11:15 p.m.
The showcase for indie hip-hop label Rhymesayers was at capacity when I arrived, but I seem to have accidentally mastered the art of line-jumping; I just walk up to the front to ask where the line for badge-holders is, and the impatient SXSW organizers wave me on in. I feel like Ben Kenobi mind-tricking his way past the imperial stormtroopers.

I was mainly there to see P.O.S., whose latest album, “Never Better,” is an early candidate for best hip-hop album of 2009. But first, I got treated to a set by rapper Eyedea and his DJ partner-in-crime, Abilities. Like P.O.S. and much of the Rhymesayers roster, they’re from the Twin Cities, whose scene seems to remain happily immune to most of hip-hop’s thug-life clichés. Eyedea is a skinny white dude who raps more like the singer of a hardcore band than a battle MC; Abilities drops beats with a decided rock edge and works his turntables like he’s playing a Brooklyn block party circa 1985.

Eyedea is an engaging MC, but P.O.S. has bona fide star quality; it’s easy to imagine him achieving the same level of mainstream success as Mos Def or Common. He’s also refreshingly free of rap’s usual macho posturings. “I was so nervous before I got up here,” he admitted to the crowd at one point. “I was like, ‘It’s South by Southwest! All the cool people are here.’” His music mixes rock and hip-hop elements (at one point, he strapped on a guitar—and played it quite well, thanks), but in a way that’s both more accessible than the aggro sonics of El-P or Busdriver and way less meathead than, say, Korn. And on tracks like his recession-era rant, “Let It Rattle,” he can let the verses fly with the best of them.

Playboy party, abandoned Safeway, 12:00 a.m.
So there I was, standing in the back of a huge abandoned Safeway supermarket with a plate of brisket in one hand and a Jack and Coke in a non-disposable plastic cup in the other, watching gaggles of Playboy Playmates in bunny ears run around while listening to a Burning Man DJ play electro-Nirvana mashups. Only in America, people!

Seriously, though, the Playboy party really was fantastic, even if it was hard to overlook the irony of throwing a big shindig inside the empty hull of a former supermarket. Maybe we were fiddling while Rome burns, but you had to admit, it was a pretty catchy tune.

Said Burning Man DJ, Bassnectar, did a pretty good job of mixing some familiar tracks (M.I.A., Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim) into his bizarro mishmash of hip-hop, electro, dub, ghettotech and whatever else he happened to have on his laptop. Still, you could tell that most of the crowd was confused and even a little put off by his experimental style. Probably he would have had a better reception if this had been, say, the URB party; as it was, he was playing for a crowd that was clearly most excited about the evening’s “surprise” headliner…

Jane’s Addiction abandoned Safeway, 1:30 a.m.
I was as optimistic as anyone that a reunion of the original Jane’s lineup would produce some fireworks, but holy crap—these guys tore the roof off that old Safeway and kicked their swirling tribal rock jams into the stars. Clearly, they’ve been hitting the gym: Perry Farrell leaped and shimmied like a teenager, the perpetually bare-chested Dave Navarro looked more ripped than usual, and Stephen Perkins was an absolute beast, rattling his kit and every ribcage in the room with an astonishing mix of brute force and skill. Even the band’s most low-key member, bassist Eric Avery, played with a little added vigor and an occasional smile. If you miss these guys opening for Nine Inch Nails this summer, you’re a bigger fool than I was for having that second Jack and Coke. (The next morning, it felt very much like Perkins was pounding the skins inside my skull.)