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South by Southwest Awards ’09

jake — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 08:49:15 +0000

This is the last SXSW post for a while, I swear, but it’s the only one that really matters. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor to present to you the second annual (last year’s awards are here and here) SXSW awards, which I am hereby affectionately dubbing “The Rutty Swesties.” Get it? Too bad. Let’s begin with…

Best Suprise

Monotonix (Tel Aviv, Israel)

Holy moly. I’m not even sure if I’m that into these guys’ tunes, but you cannot help but be completely hypnotized by their antics. They seriously spent more time crowd surfing or climbing up the walls than standing on the stage, and most of the time they were playing their instruments on top of the crowd. Did I mention the fifteen minute drum solo while they changed an amp that they blew in the middle of the show? I’ve pretty much never seen anything like this, and what a way to close out the trip. If only they did fire tricks… OH WAIT:

The “I Can’t See These Guys Enough” Award

Gil Mantera’s Party Dream (Youngstown, OH)

Two clinically insane geniuses who strip down to their banana hammocks while simultaneously dancing their asses off, playing the shit out of matching Lucite guitars, and blowing everyone’s minds with their incredibly catchy electro-pop (which is drenched in vocoder vocals, brain-crushing hooks, and Stevie Nicks covers). Just go with it.

Runners up: Marnie Stern, Still’ Flyin

Most Overrated

Vivian Girls

My take on the Vivian Girls record was that it was highly mediocre, so I was sure there was a reason these ladies were getting so much attention. I figured the live show was the key, and I really wanted to see what they were all about. Turns out they are all about: being somewhat cute, wearing short shorts, and not being able to play their instruments (or faking as such, which is even worse). I’ll take Marnie Stern’s sick chops any day of the week over this derivative slop.

Worst of the Worst

Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band

THEY ARE CALLED KEVIN DEVINE AND THE GODDAMN BAND.

Best Show of the Festival

Titus Andronicus

The Titus Andronicus debut The Airing of Grievances is an odd and invigorating combination of erudite wordplay and punk rock sensibility; these guys have no problem quoting a few lines from an existentialist philosopher and then closing a song by screaming “Fuck you!” at the top of their lungs. It’s weird, and kinda great. But walking into a show after hearing an album like that, it’s tough to know if you are going to get the punks or the professors. About five seconds into their set, it was clear that the punks had come out to play. The setting was perfect: no stage, just a cleared out corner of a parking lot at a backyard barbecue. The crowd was stocked with uber-hipsters and gutterpunks alike, and everyone in attendance was treated to a simple, unpretentious, and completely furious ass-rocking. Kudos to you, Titus Andronicus. You win SXSW.

Runners up: Mojo Nixon, Monotonix

Technical awards:

Most Likely to Die in a Horrific Stagediving Accident: Ami Shalev of Monotonix (Tel Aviv, Israel)
The “Nastiest Chops” Award: Marnie Stern (New York, NY)
The “Prima Donna” Award for longest and fussiest soundcheck: The Rosebuds (Raleigh, NC)
The “Please Don’t Ever Hang It Up, I Don’t Care HOW Fat You Get” Award: Mojo Nixon (Chapel Hill, NC)
Shortest Shorts: Hutch Harris of The Thermals (Portland, OR)
The “Nice Job Pissing Off The Meatheads In Front of Me” Award: HEALTH (Los Angeles, CA)
Most Judy Garland T-Shirts Per Capita: Abe Vigoda (Los Angeles, CA)
Most Brew Grooves Jammed: Still Flyin’ (San Francisco, CA)

And if you think I am going on about Marnie Stern’s chops too much, suck on this:

SXSW ’09 Band Photos are up!

jake — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:12:53 +0000

I’ve posted all my favorite SXSW artist shots from this year on Flickr. I selected about 130 out of about 6000. I think I did OK; not as good as I’d hoped. I think I need to be more pushy in the front row, but without a camera tag, I feel guilty squeezing in there. I also had to leave my camera at home for most showcases (aka nighttime shows) on the worry that the larger venues wouldn’t let me in with an untagged camera.

I also have some really great shots of friends, food, interesting people, etc, that I will sort through and post shortly. I wanted to get the artist shots up ASAP.

Anyways, here are some of my favorites from the week, in case you don’t want to look through them all, followed by the full slideshow.

SXSW ’09 Band Tally

jake — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:42:14 +0000

Got back late last night, exhausted (although suprisingly chipper) and glad to be back. Had a blast; met some fine folks, drank some cold beverages, ate some delish Tex-Mex, and (of course) saw some great shows. Total count this year is 56 bands and one comedian, not inlcuding five repeat viewings. That’s a tie with last year; I tried to hit 60 but wasn’t able to pull it off.

I’ve got over 6000 photos to sort through, and I’ll get those up soon. I’m also planning on doing a second annual SXSW awards (’08 awards are here and here) within the next few days, but in the meantime here’s my list for SXSW ’09:

Abe Vigoda (x2)
Alberta Cross
All the Saints
Andrew Bird
Au Revoir Simone
Bishop Allen
Crystal Antlers
Deer Tick
Eugene Mirman
fiasco
Gil Mantera’s Party Dream
Graham Coxon
Gringo Starr
HEALTH
Holy Liars
Horse Feathers
Kevin Devine and the Goddamn Band
Little Boots
Loch Lamond
Lookbook
Marnie Stern
Max Tundra
MC Sweet and the Alisons
Mojo Nixon
Monotonix
Mount St. Helens Vietnam Band
NewVillager
Paper Chase
Pelican
Ponytail
Pre
Psychadelic Horseshit
Quiet Hooves
Red Cortez
Rosebuds
Solid Gold
Still Flyin’
Superdrag
Thao Nguyen and The Get Down Stay Down
The Dirty Projectors
The Donkeys (x2)
The Grates
The Intelligence
The Mae Shi (x2, second time w/ Kid Static)
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
The Thermals
The Uglysuit
The Week That Was
The Wheel
Titus Andronicus
Venice is Sinking
Vetiver
Viva Voce (x2)
Vivian Girls (x2)
Wavves
What Laura Says
Winter Sounds

What would wolves do?

jake — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:30:33 +0000

The newest Les Savy Fav video, from their fantastic 2007 record Let’s Stay Friends, as described by Pitchfork.tv:

A pair of intrepid explorers find themselves on a strange planet and wind up in a cave with some fish-scaled cherubs who party like there’s no tomorrow. Then it gets weird.

Good stuff, take a look for yourself:

Listening to: Islands – Creeper

SXSW Pics

jake — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:12:59 +0000

I’ve finished developing and uploading my SXSW pics, so here’s the final set:

Listening to: Rush – Rivendell

Sourdough, Indeed

jake — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 23:04:48 +0000

WFMU‘s annual pledge drive was a couple weeks ago, and as I’m an avid listener of The Best Show on WFMU I decided to show my support for Tom and what he does there. I made a pledge during his show, and this week I finally listened to the podcast of the marathon show, which included guest appearances by Patton Oswalt, Ben Gibbard, and Ted Leo. As Pseu read out the names of people who donated, Patton was handing out nicknames, and to my delight, I’ve been christened anew… take a listen:

I do love sourdough (untoasted, of course), so from now on you dudes can go ahead and call me Sourdough Jake. If you go to the podcast and listen to the whole show you can hear them thank Joe as well, as well as Ben of The Bay Bridged fame. Way to do the right thing, guys.

Also, check out this in-studio video of Ted Leo and Ben Gibbard doing Neil Diamond’s "Porcupine Pie", which Tom has proclaimed to be the worst song in the history of mankind.

Now hop on over to WFMU’s Beware of the Blog to see all the other great vids, or to Pitchfork for some pics.

SXSW Awards 2008: Vol 2

jake — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:32:34 +0000

Danielle came up with a few extra awards in her comment on my last post:

No award for Least Melodic Metal (Torche)? Or Best Incorporation of a Band’s Name into Their Wardrobe (White Shoes and the Couples Company)? And, my personal favorite: Most Charistmatic Lead Singer (Ezra Furman and the Harpoons, of course).

Nice. These inspired me to come up with a few more awards; consider this post the"Technical Achievement" awards ceremony they always do before the real Oscars.

Most Devastated By Loss of a Banana Suit: Coconut Coolouts (Seattle, WA)
Most Likely to Win a Jamie Kennedy Look-a-like Contest: No Age (Los Angeles, CA)
Most Likely to Self-Destruct Before Age 30: Nick Diamond of Islands (Montreal, Canada)
The "Nastiest Chops" Award: Jamie "Hotel" Hince of The Kills (London, UK)
Most Able to Press Play on a Laptop and Dance Around: Dan Deacon (Baltimore, MD)
The "Time to Hang It Up" Award: Roky Erickson (Austin, TX)
Highest Percentage of All-Denim Outfits and Sunglasses: Dr. Dog (Philadelphia, PA)

Also, be sure to check out the SXSW photos I took during the festival at my SXSW 2008 Flickr set. I’ll be adding more photos to that set as I finishing sorting and developing them.

Oh, and by the way… the 2007 winner of the "Most Able to Press Play on a Laptop and Dance Around" Award was Girl Talk, and in 2006, it went to Jason Forrest.

SXSW Awards

jake — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:40:39 +0000

So I’m back from SXSW… I thought this was going to be my last year, but it was (once again) so amazing I’ll probably be booking my hotel for next year as soon as is humanly possible. Here are some of the high and lowlights, followed by the full list of bands we saw this year; 56 in total, a new personal record. Not that anyone is keeping score.

Best Suprise:

Call Me Lightning (Milwaukee, WI)
No doubt, this one goes to Call Me Lightning. I happened to stumble onto these guys at the French Kiss showcase Wednesday night, and they were exactly what I needed: after a day of mediocre and/or boring shows (even The Wedding Present [while still fun] was a bit of a let down, since there were no drums) these guys took the stage and shattered my i’m-getting-old-and-jaded coma by opening with "Billion Eyes". This was my personal turnaround moment of the festival; it put me in a good mood for the rest of the week. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera out with me Wednesday night, so I didn’t get any snaps, but take a listen:

Runners-up: Ra Ra Riot, Teeth

The "I Can’t See These Guys Enough" Award:

Tie: Man Man (Philadelphia, PA) / Jens Lekman (Gothenburg, Sweden)
I’ve seen both these bands three or four times and I still wouldn’t miss a chance to watch either of them again; great stuff. Jens played for a half-hour and I left thinking that the only problem with his set was that it was about two hours too short. Man Man blew away everyone I dragged to the show; they are the most primal band I’ve ever seen.

Most Overrated:

Tapes ‘n’ Tapes (Cambridge, MA)
Say it with me: sophomore slump. These dudes were not on their game; the new tunes were a serious snooze and the only people who looked more bored than the folks in the audience were the guys in the band. Ironically, seeing them at SXSW ’06 was one of the highlights of that trip; evidently it’s been a exhausting couple of years for these boys.

Runner-up: Fleet Foxes

Worst of the Worst:

Chester French (Cambridge, MA)
What a bunch of factory-wrapped douches. Seriously, I missed the first half of Fatal Flying Guillotines for this? I hope you nerds choke on your stupid cumber buns.
Runner-up: Roky Erikson

Best Show of the Festival:

The Pillows (Tokyo, Japan)
Uh, duh. 8 years in the making and the last show of the trip. What can I say, except… can you feel?

Runners-up: Constantines, The Kills

And here’s the full list. Next year, I aim for an even sixty…

Tuesday

White Denim
Oliver Future
Moby (DJ set)

Wednesday

Foreign Born
Bowerbirds
Raveonettes
Jason Collett
Sean Hayes
The Wedding Present
Phil and the Osophers
Call Me Lightning
Chester French
Fatal Flying Guillotines
The Plastic Constellations
The Kills
Dan Deacon
The Black Keys

Thursday

Constantines
Destroyer
The Shout Out Louds
The Stills
The Blacks
Film School
Von Iva
Two Gallants
Islands
The Phosphorescents
Bodies of Water
Throw Me the Statue
Evangelicals
Bon Iver
Jens Lekman
High on Fire

Friday

The Weakerthans
Ra Ra Riot
Billy Bragg
Blitzen Trapper
The Coconut Coolouts
The Fall Outs
The Unnatural Helpers
Dr. Dog
Tapes ‘n’ Tapes
Health
Torche

Saturday

Jay Reatard
No Age
Man Man
Fleet Foxes
Okkervil River
Roky Erickson
TGR Lou
Teeth
Ezra Furman and the Harpoons
White Shoes and the Couples Company
The Emeralds
The Pillows

SXSW Tweetage

jake — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:31:08 +0000

Hey dudes-

Blogging from the Frenchkiss Showcase at the Mohawk club in Austin via phone. Things are going swimmingly so far; the weather is great and the shows are picking up steam.

One thing I wanted to share is that I’m twittering a lot from here, so if you’re interested, take a look at my twitter feed every once in a while or subscribe for updates via text message or IM; that is, if you give a crap. Hopefully I can do a more detailed write-up when I get back, given the time.

Gotta run, the Plastic Constellations are up.

Cheers…