SXSW Day 2 (Thursday): I Guess I’m Gloating


All Photos by Clint Miller

We started day two with a mad dash through traffic to make it to the I Guess I’m Floating day party in time to catch Oh No Oh My. We made it moments after they began their set, and they went on to play all my favourites off of Dmitrij Dmitrij plus a new one. It was a really good first set of the day.

Next up was a band called Arizona. I have no idea how I have heard of this band, but for some reason the name sticks out to me. They turned out to be great, with some serious guitar jams. The lead singer had a really unique, weird voice that added an interesting dimension to their sound. Check it:


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A Covers Mp3 Trilogy: Elliott Smith, Blastoids, Phosphorescent

An album’s worth of Elliott Smith outtakes and unfinished recordings from From A Basement On The Hill seems to be making its way around the series of tubes. I haven’t exactly dived into it yet because so many noteworthy albums dropped this week, but I have listened to the following Beatles cover and it is very nice. I have been a huge Elliott Smith fan for a long time, but I never realized how many cover songs he had done until doing a little investigation after hearing this.

Elliott Smith : I’ll Be Back (Beatles cover)




One of the southeast’s hottest bands right now, Murfreesboro Tennessee’s Blastoids!, hit up WonderRoot last Friday night. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it, but our new badass photographer got some sweet images we’ll post later this week. Of the many, many students of the school of Animal Collective coming out of the wood work right now, there is something special about these guys that set them apart from the rest. They just posted a very faithful cover of one of my all-time favourite AnCo tunes, giving ode to the masters. It is sure as hell better than the bajiliion terrible “My Girls” remixes floating around right now. Check it out:

Blastoids : Kids On Holiday (Animal Collective cover)

Blastoids myspace





Phosphorescent @ SXSW 2008

Phosphorescent‘s latest release, an album comprised of nothing but Willie Nelson covers, is a difficult album for me to assess. I think Willie Nelson is cool and all, but I would rarely listen to him, and I am extremely unfamiliar with his vast catalog. So I just have to take the record on face value, and while it sounds nice, I’m having what I call “The Cat Power Dilemma”. I love original Phosphorescent songs much more than I enjoy who he is covering, so it is very hard for me to get into this. But I seriously doubt he will abandon his original material like Chan Marshall has, so I’ll just defer to his artistic vision for now. Either way, To Willie is certainly worth checking out.

Phosphorescent : Can I Sleep In Your Arms (Willie Nelson cover)

Buy To Willie

Phosphorescent myspace

What Up In The ATL?

Best Shows In Atlanta (November 3 – 9):

Monday:

Sealions @ 97 Estoria

Tuesday:

Jeffrey Lewis @ Drunken Unicorn (SHOW MOVED TO WONDERROOT!)

Anathallo @ The Loft

The Faceless @ Masquerade

Wednesday:

Chairlift, Untied States, Hollow Stars @ The Earl (Chairlift canceled, but show still on)

Thursday:

Rizzudo, The Forever War, Sonn Av Krusher @ Star Bar

Le Castle Vania @ Drunken Unicorn (Fuck Yesss late night dance party)

AIDS Wolf, Vera Fang, Thy Mighty Contract @ The Earl

Friday:

Phosphorescent @ Drunken Unicorn

Colour Revolt @ Smith’s Olde Bar

Saturday:

Of Montreal @ Tabernacle

Sunday:

Pelican @ Drunken Unicorn

Phosphorescent : Wolves
Anathallo : The River
AIDS Wolf : We Multiply
Chairlift : Bruises
Pelican : City Of Echoes

Friday Free-Style

Deerhunter is opening for a handful of Nine Inch Nails dates including the Atlanta show on August 13th at the Gwinnett Center Arena. That should be a pretty sweet show. Also, it appears that Deerhunter has found a replacement for Colin Mee.

Boris will be at The Earl on July 5th.

Yo La Tengo is scoring a movie for Super Bad director Greg Mottola.

Roger Waters‘ flying pig took off during his performance and never came back. The remains of the pig were found later this week.

Dr. Dog has a new album coming out July 22nd.

Shearwater will be at The Earl on June 13th.

Wolf Parade will be at The Variety Playhouse on July 28th.

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Friday Free-Style

Yes are doing a 40th anniversary tour and will be in Atlanta at the new Verizon Wireless Amphitheater at Encore Park on August 4th. Tickets go on sale today at 10am so go get them.

La Blogotheque is really cool in case you didn’t know, and here’s the Black Lips sessions:


SPLIT BLACK LIPS #1 3 SONGS TIED
by lablogotheque

SPLIT BLACK LIPS #2 EVERYBODY’S DOING IT
by lablogotheque

Outkast‘s tour manager died of a drug overdose. Here’s that new new Outkast:

Big Boi featuring Andre 3000 & Raewkon : Royal Flush
Atlas Sound has another hott track at his blog.

Apple is talking about offering unlimited access to the itunes library for a fee.

Lollapalooza early bird tickets are on sale now, but there is still no official line-up.

This year’s installment of Camp Bisco July 17th-19th includes Disco Biscuits (3 nights), Snoop Dogg, DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist, MSTRKRFT, !!!, Lotus, DB, Amplive, and more.

Outside Lands Fest in San Francisco, Ca August 22nd-24th will include Radiohead, Tom Petty, Beck, Wilco, Primus, Regina Spektor, Devendra Banhart, Broken Social Scene, Andrew Bird, Black Mountain, Bon Iver, and more.

Chris Strawn of Atlanta’s Brass Castle has a solo album, I Left My Hat In Hades, out now.

Andrew Bird is blogging for the New York Times.

Listen to Dirty Projectors cover Bjork‘s “Hyperballad” here.

The Flight Of The Conchords self-titled LP comes out April 22nd and you can see the tracklist here. Jam a track:

Flight Of The Conchords : Ladies Of The World
Stream the new Black Keys album here.

Fleetwood Mac plans to join the reunion club next year, possibly with Sheryl Crow. (?)

Emo kids are getting attacked in Mexico.

You can get the Die! Die! Die! show at The Earl last week from Have You Heard.

Girl Talk has a new album out very soon and will be in Athens, Ga at the Georgia Theater tonight.

Read about the new Of Montreal album here.

I didn’t get any recordings of Bon Iver at SXSW, but others did, so go listen.

Nine Inch Nails will be at the Gwinnett Arena August 13th.

Southern Shelter has a show from Hardy Morris and Brantley Senn of Dead Confederate.

Pearl Jam is finally touring around the south a bit this summer, but not Atlanta.

Creative Loafing has a piece about Silent Kids.

Be Your Own Pet will be at the Variety Playhouse May 23rd. Universal cut three songs from their new album, Get Akward, because they were too violent. This is the same label that has released albums from Eminem, 50 Cent, Marilyn Manson, and Nine inch Nails. Obviously, Jemina Pearl could kick all of their asses. Check their new vid:

More new videos:

Phosphorescent:

WHY?:

Raveonettes:

Photos: SXSW Day 2 – 3-13-08 in Austin, TX

Genghis Tron

Holy Fuck

Phosphorescent

Evangelicals

Bon Iver

Video Of The Day: Phosphorescent “Wolves” Live At SXSW 2008

I’m currently uploading some pics while chilling at the Ecstatic Peace show here in Austin. The folks from Indian Jewelry just sat down next to me and are hanging out. Man I love SXSW. Google video finally allowed one of my vids from yesterday to go through, so here it is:

SXSW 2008 Day 2: Thursday

Yesterday I started my day at Emo’s, but it was so crowded and I wasn’t really digging the bands I heard so, I dipped out across the street to the Brooklyn Vegan party at Emo’s Annex (there are about 700 different Emo’s venues) because the BV party the night before was so much fun. I caught a band called WHY? that was pretty good.

After that, I decided to just walk up and down the main strip and listen to the music coming from each bar and try to discover some bands I hadn’t heard of. Outside some Irish pub I heard a really intriguing band, so I went inside to check them out. It was a band from Dublin, Ireland called Delorentos. They were total dance-rock, like Bloc Party before they started getting all soft and lame. I got a live video, but Google video is acting hella lame today, so I can’t post the plethora of vids i took yesterday until a later date. But I did manage to find their official video(although I don’t think it is their best song):

After some more walking around I heard another band that sounded promising from a dive called Agave. The Brooklyn, New York trio Appomattox rocked really hard, doing loud post-punky rock.

After that it was time to head back to the Annex, where I caught Men, members of Le Tigre doing the laptop DJ thing. The day before, me and Biggie C were discussing this new trend where bands go DJ and how most of the time they aren’t that good at it, but this was an exception as they rocked the dance floor hard.

After that, it was time for Phosphorescent, one of the artists I was most excited about seeing at SXSW. He put on a great performance, doing much heavier versions of his stuff than I would have guessed considering how soft and low-key the album is.

Near the end of the show, I noticed Matthew Houck kept looking at someone in the crowd and cracking up laughing. I finally heard someone screaming stuff at him and turned around. It turned out to be Miles Seaton of Akron/Family acting like he was an obsessed fan. For the Phosphorescent finale, he came down into the audience and sang to the Akron/Family boys:

After that, we stuck around and caught Holy Fuck. I’m not much of a dancer and these days it takes something really special to get me to throw down, but Holy Fuck is just the perfect combination of dance music and noise for me to get really into it. You ATLiens who will be around town on Monday really need to go down to The Drunken Unicorn and catch them playing with A Place To Bury Strangers and Atlanta’s badasses All The Saints.

After a short break in the onslaught of great shows, I went and caught Islands. They played almost nothing but new material, and it sounds great. I took a ton of videos, so expect those to show up here sometime in the next few weeks.

After that, it was on to Mohawk’s patio to catch one of then night’s best line-ups. I got there just in time to catch the end of another Phosphorescent set, where he closed with a 10 minute vocal looping jam. After that, I discovered another great act from California called Bodies Of Water. Really cool stuff with lots of vocal harmonizations. They will be at The Earl Monday night with Sons And Daughters so there is another hot Atlanta St. Patty’s Day show you can catch.

Then it was time for Evangelicals. I have been in total love with their new album, so I had been really hyped up for this show. They did not disappoint. They came out with massive blacklights and a fog machine, dressed in a style that was half goth, half candy-raver, and went through songs off the new record. Again, expect many live videos to pop up around here in the near future.

Next up on the outdoor stage was Bon Iver. They went through a handful of the beautiful songs on For Emma, Forever Ago, and wow did they sound good. If you have yet to pick up this album, you are missing out.

After that, we switched up things entirely by seeing Indian Jewelry. I would describe their sound as Liars meets Atlanta’s Subliminator. It was a spectacle of strobe lights and minimalist percussionists that were there more to dance than to make music. Very interesting show.

We closed out the night at Emo’s Outside stage. I got there just in time for the end of Islands’ set, but this time they closed with the amazing “Swans (Life After Death)”. Unfortunately, the one dark moment of the entire festival came as some sound guy walked out on stage with a few minutes left in the song right and the PA shut off. They actually cut off their last song. Nick Thorburn found a microphone that was still hooked into the PA and yelled “Fuck SXSW!” Everyone started booing, it was a crazy scene.

After that debacle, We ended our night with an awesome set from Austin’s The Octopus Project.

It’s on to more music, so I’ll holla at you later.

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