Austinites have a love/hate relationship
with South By Southwest, and I am no exception. The
extra out-of-town traffic, nowhere to park, obnoxious record company reps, and hugely
inflated covers for the entire festival make Cara go crazy.
However, the trade-off of daytime shows
with free beer and bar-b-que, friends from across the country, and hundreds of bands
playing all day and night for almost a full week sometimes make it worth all the trouble.
This year, I was joined by four house
guests from Kansas (all with Manhattan ties...go Cats!) affectionately dubbed the
"four on the floor," who were in for the proverbial rides of their lives over
the five days of musical mayhem that was about to ensue.
Since I didn't spend every waking moment
inside Emo's this year; I got to see a wider variety of bands. My South By' started out at a new club called Room
710. I caught one song by local boys The
Spiders. I'd never seen them
before, but my favorite bartenders from The Red Eyed Fly refused to fetch me another Lone
Star if I didn't see at least one Spiders song before leaving
town. They were an entertaining 70's-style
pop band with a sound harkening the days of T-Rex. I wanted to stay for more, but a cold Lone Star
and a rockabilly zombie of some sort were awaiting me across the street at Red Eye.
The rockabilly zombie turned out to be
the Hillbilly Werewolf (looking more like the animated skeleton
of skinny Elvis) from Charlottesville, VA. The
'Wolf had some connection to the town of Austin, but I never quite caught what it was. You see, the Hillbilly Werewolf
had thrown back a couple before taking the stage on this, the opening night of SXSW 2001. He still managed to put on a good show, just
himself and a very reverby guitar. His set
consisted of rather mediocre run-of-the-mill rockabilly in the vein of the Reverend
Horton Heat, but I'm a sucker for a guy dressed as the walking dead.
Zulu as Kono
was next on my list, coming on promptly at 10 to deliver an hour of math rock of graduate
trig level. They're loud, dissonant, and
witty and appear to suffer from intense seizures while they play. Zulu has been known to
play the Replay Lounge in Lawrence, so make a point to catch them the next time they're in
town. If you're a fan of Shellac,
June of 44 and/or Mr. Bungle, you
shan't be disappointed. And be sure to pick
up their latest release, II. Pay close attention
to the track "Only Hate Can Make You Happy".
It'll warm your heart.
Then it was off to Atomic Cafe for a
hardcore band called Bloodhag.
Hailing from Seattle, these guys were the smartest looking hardcore act I'd ever
seen. They all wore thick glasses,
button-down shirts and ties. The bassist
sported a beanie embroidered with the message, "Just Read It." They quizzed the audience about sci-fi authors
(getting a rather hearty cheer from the audience upon mentioning Arthur C. Clarke) and
tossed books into the crowd. I walked with a
copy of "Children of the Lens" by E.E. "Doc" Smith (the sixth in the
"famous lensman series" of the 1950's). A
self-proclaimed "edu-core" act, these guys play uber-fast and uber-short
hardcore biographies of sci-fi and fantasy authors. The
'Hag's motto: "The faster you go deaf,
the more time you have to read." It's a
great gimmick. Check out their website for
more info on BloodHag's plan to expand the minds of punks and
hardcore kids through heavy metal.
After the 'Hag, I headed down toward
Maggie Mae's in hope of catching the cosmic-dance rock of Austin's Pong. Many of you would recognize members
of this all-star act from Ed Hall. True local music history buffs would recognize Pong's
drummer Lyman Hardy from his days in the Moving Van Goghs. And although Pong's
sound relies more on groove, less on dissonance than that of Ed Hall,
they lack none of the entertainment value or originality.
Alas, I got a little sidetracked across
the street at the Ritz, and after a couple of Lone Stars with Aaron Sanger, brother of
Erick of Schatzi, I abandoned my plans to fight the crowd at
Maggie Mae's.
Cara Hollandsworth
