|
Wednesday
 So
I began my official SXSW with the Zookeeper showcase at the
Central Presbyterian Church. The shake up for this year's SXSW was
that Zookeeper would be without their regular drummer for the week,
and filling in was old friend Jeremy Gomez, the bass player
for Chris Simpson's past bands Mineral and The
Gloria Record. Having never heard Gomez play drums I was pleasantly
surprised by his apparent adeptness at pounding the skins. The more
regular members of the band seem to be coalescing nicely and what
began as a loose collective has taken a more substantial turn with
semi-regular practice. The band is tighter with less side-nonsense,
but the songs are loose like they need to be to exist in their Band-like
form. Perhaps next time we could get Levon Helm to sit in
on drums. The band played songs from their two releases on Belle
City Pop! records, including a stellar version of "Becoming
All Things", featuring last minute guest Cullen on trumpet…
this sonic addition made the song transcendent, as if hailing the
coming of something holy and fantastic… and at church, even!
"Meet The Kid" was another highlight, with guitar player
Ben Lance wailing away on the guitar and noise, nicely offsetting
the delicate strength of the song. Alex Dupree's guitar playing
has become less erratic and more rhythmic, contributing nicely to
the songs and even gaining a bit of a country edge on the kicking
"I Live In The Mess That You Are." It was good, and I
could hardly wait for the week's coming shows.
 After
Zookeeper I stuck around to hear Austin buzz band Peter And The
Wolf. This band has a very untraditional set up, including the
main singer who plays guitar and kick drum, backed by a guitar player,
bass player, and six-person choir/percussion ensemble (seemingly
hastily thrown together for the performance). PATW plays a quiet
folk music that draws from the Dylan tradition, but lacks
a maturity and strength… of course, dude looks to be pretty
young, so he has plenty of time to develop that. There is no time
to be bored as the songs tend to be short and rather abrupt with
captivating melodies and adequate harmonies. Nothing in the music
is obtrusive, sounding more like John Denver than, say, Iron
& Wine. There is some silliness in a few of the songs, but
the choir and the sheer kitsch factor overcome the rudimentariness
of some of the songs. I'd also like him more, or maybe less, if
he'd stop referring to the crowd as dude.
 Raleigh,
NC's Bowerbirds was my next stop… The set up showed great
promise, but again was very non-traditional. The frontman was the
singer and played nylon stringed guitar, while the gal on accordion
sang backup and played autoharp and the third man played fiddle, bass
drum, and foot organ alternately and sometimes together. Their music
would best be described as indie folk, I believe. The songs are darkness-filled
stories with a nice cadence, made better with the squeezebox and some
gypsy rhythms thrown in for measure. The accordion touches on Klezmer
occasionally, but remains dark and cool, lifting the band to an almost
gypsy-Decemberists height. The lead singer has a beautiful,
rich voice, which somehow offsets the unique and slightly disturbing
warble of the girl's vocals very well. This is not popular music though;
it is much too soft… it is much more like front porch or living
room style music. Central Presbyterian was a great venue for this
band, and the band kept backing off the microphones and letting the
room naturally amplify their voices. For the final song of the set,
the band actually left stage and brought instruments down into the
congregation and played un-amplified. It was stupendous, the band
blending beautiful on their own with their tight harmonies and pleasing
melodies. This just proves the simple point that beautiful music can
be very simply made. Bowerbirds are more minstrels that musicians,
and I'd like to request that this music be played at my funeral…
when that day arrives.
 David
Karsten Daniels was next up… and though he began his set
with a low-beat style rock like James William Hindle, it wasn't
long before he was getting super-sonic with his guitar playing. It
is of interest to note that everyone on stage with him was family.
His little sister was playing bass and he had brothers on drums and
bass guitar. I really liked what he had going initially before the
drums kicked in, disrupting the mellow cool of the music… but
as soon as I adjusted to the additional sounds I came to love the
drumming as well. Daniel's music is very, very dynamic, never allowing
the audience's attention to stray, but keeping them rapt in his sonic
explorations. The songs, as they developed, reminded me more and more
of Red House Painters and Mark Kozelek's later work
- before he went a bit crazy. The songs are laced with beautiful vocal
melodies (maybe the family has sung together once or twice… you
think?) and his amazing fingerpicking style on - of all things - a
Gibson SG. It is a weird combination, very untraditional, but very
good for his sound. Daniel's lyrics are very poetic, sometimes very
circular and beautifully redundant. His lyrics remind me somewhat
of Steve Scott in the approach they take to uncommon everyday
occurrences.
 The
night finished out with Brooklyn's Ola Podrida - a band that
a few of my friends had been touting to me as being great alt.country
fare. To me, the band sounded more like 70's Glen Campbell
without the strings and absolutely no baritone twang… a bit disappointing,
that lack of twang. I believe that Ola Podrida has made me coin a
new genre, though. Mumble folk. The band is unassuming, and the frontman
is even more so. They are nice to listen to - lovely, really - but
nothing stands out as being anything out of the ordinary… except
his voice; very low-key and mellow with absolutely no articulation.
I may as well have been listening to older shoegaze, which is pretty
much what the band has going for itself - some sort of acoustic shoegaze.
The songs are sleepy, melancholy, nice… there were a couple of
tunes that really took off nicely, adding some dynamics into the set…
to much switching of guitars really slowed the set back down, though.
The band is good, and in the right mood I think I would really enjoy
their records… they probably sound a lot like a slower, more
folky version of Spain… maybe a bit more nasally, too.
-David DeVoe
 Talk
Back
e-mail the
chief
Like this article?
e-mail
it to a friend!
|
