We Were Promised Jetlag
Well I am sure that any of you who really give a shit what’s happening at South by Southwest this week will have found out from one of the more dilligent blogs who have been writing daily updates. Honestly though, I doubt anyone who regularly reads this site would have really expected me to be one of those blogs.
I got to Austin at about ten or eleven at night on Wednesday and stumbled into town to find Peej, who kindly offered to put me up, and Vic Galloway, who along with Peej is one of about four people I know in Austin this week, at the Scottish Showcase.
Due to not having bothered with either a badge or a wristband and the place being absolutely jam-packed, Peej had to sneak me in the back door, getting rid of a bouncer with a vague sort of ‘I’m in the band’ response which rather miraculously seemed to work. Peej had a badge which he waved and that did the trick.
I saw the tail end of the Jetpacks show, which people went absolutely mental for. I have never been a big fan of the band, honestly, but Peej loves them and they seem to be going down an absolute storm in the States. They certainly do put on a good show too, so it’s hard not to warm to them. After some quality MCing by Mr. Galloway, with an enormous super jumbo extra helping of cheese, Frightened Rabbit took to the stage and they really were good.
I gave their new album a bit of a savaging, and in the comments section there was a bit of discussion about how the songs would come across in a live setting, free of the smothering production. I also said that a lot of the guitar sound on Winter of Mixed Drinks was really good, or at least what little of it you could hear, and live this really is what dominates the songs. The new stuff fits in perfectly with the older songs, and when they are just played on guitar I enjoyed them miles more than on the record.
On Wednesday night I slept like a fucking corpse, and wandered into town at about three or four o’clock in the afternoon. First port of call was the Hype Machine to meet Dev Sherlock, who has had the unenviable task of editing our hour longs chats down in to concise five minute soundbites for Hype Machine Radio. It turns out that instead of simply being a nice bloke on the internet, he actually has a rather storied history as a music journalist and instead of going to a lot of music stuff we wandered off to the Ironworks to eat burned meat and pickles with a beer on the deck. It was very, very civillised and finally meeting someone who’s been an internet friend for a couple of years now was a rather strange pleasure.
On the subject of internet friends, I finally met a certain Campfires and Battlefields on Thursday evening at the 4AD/Bella Union showcase. I went in with the Broken Records lads to see them, Efterklang and Midlake, and ended up also catching an excellent set by John Grant, whose new album is out on Bella Union in a few weeks. He used to be in a band called Czars, who I also rather liked, and he sounded really good. When he sat down I expected something a bit like Bon Iver, but in fact it was probably closer to Rufus Wainright than anything else. Very promising, in any case.
Efterklang weren’t bad, and I am not going to go on about Broken Records (great idea – travel all the way to Texas just to go and see bands from Edinburgh). The real revelation of the night for me was just how good Midlake were, however. I saw them at the End of the Road Festival a couple of years ago and they were no better than pretty good, and their new album was pretty much like that as well: really enjoyable, but didn’t exactly blow me away. In the rather fantastic surroundings of Buffalo Billiards in Austin, however, they were pretty brilliant. The harmonies were gorgeous, and I have no idea why they needed five bloody guitarists, but the sound they made was so nice that you can’t really question them on that count.
And of course, just before the Midlake set, Jamie Broken Records tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘I think there’s someone here you should meet – a certain Mr. Campfires and Battlefields…’
My jetlag is worser than what your jetlag is.
It must be quite freaky actually meeting all your net people. I’m not sure I could cope if C&B turned out to be, say, a 5’3 cross dresser with cuban heels and a pink handlebar moustache. Or a Steven Seagal pseudonym. I mean, you wouldn’t fucking argue with his musical taste would you?
I really hope C&B is actually Steven Seagal
Just got a letter from Mark Lazarowicz, my local MP, who encloses a letter from the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons stating that the BBC 6 Music decision cannot be made by Mark Thomson and that the Trust has the final say.
First, a big up to Mark Lazarowicz for following up on my email to him so thoroughly. Mark is the Labour MP for Edinburgh North and Leith and has always treated my not infrequent “outraged of Stockbridge” missives with more respect than they probably deserve. Writing to your MP does work people, try it some time.
Second, the BBC Trust consultation is still open till 25 May and what else are you going to do on Sunday with that stinking hangover that you have? Its quite ranging and takes a bit of time but actually when you see some of the proposals that they have for other areas, you are likely to get quite fired up. Especially their strategy bullets which are all MEANINGLESS.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/strategy_review/index.shtml
good to see midlake win you back (with the benefit of the home ground advantage)
SxSW sounds awesome – I’d like to make the trip sometime.
What you say about Midlake chimes with me. My wife is a big fan of the previous album and I bought her The Courage of Others and listened to it quite a bit before going to see them at ABC. They put on a really special performance and I was definitely blown away.
I’m a fairly new convert to this blog and I’ve enjoyed the posts and the insights into the Edinburgh scene.
C&B isn’t actually real – he’s a gigantic man-puppet operated by team of highly trained hamsters.
Hi Donnie – if you do come, I wouldn’t bother splashing out on a badge or even a wristband. You can pay your way into a showcase a night quite easily, and it will only set you back about half the price of a wristband, assuming you don’t want to gig-hop all night. There will be a couple of things you can’t get into, but if you can accept that then you’ll have a fine time.
Mrs. Toad – I am going to write about that again this week actually, because the Beeb already had plans to ride out the storm of the first week and then see what the actual levels of outrage were once it had all calmed down, so keeping the pressure on the fuckers is paramount.
But who trained the hamsters? That’s the genius of it.
And I never wear Cuban heels in the springtime.
I realize this is TPM, but I thought a candid scene from SXSW was in order:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34130403@N07/4454646858/
Is that the precise moment Matthew’s liver exploded?
I am jealous of all 113,000 people who reported attended SXSW, as usual. Glad you could be one of them, Matthew.
The new Midlake album takes a bit of effort to get into; it isn’t one of those instant grabbers. But once I had listened to it four times in a row, I suddenly didn’t want to hear anything else for about two weeks. I am glad to know how well it comes over live.
I feel similarly about Shearwater’s latest. As much as I love them, the new album feels a bit on the cold and distant side. But beautiful, that’s for sure.
Hey man, the pleasure was all mine. To be fair, we did catch Admiral Radley and Liars over the course of the afternoon, at least. And stood around at Broken Records’ gig while their set-time got repeatedly pushed back. It wasn’t all brisket, beers and cynicism…
…even though that was the more enjoyable part.
Linda, I think I like the Shearwater one better than Midlake, if I’m being honest. It’s also a bit more work than their previous one, I agree with you on that, but if I had to pick one to listen to then that would be the one.
Dev, I definitely enjoyed the Admiral Radley stuff, but I think I paid too little attention to Liars, so I went to see them the next day instead, and they were great.
Brisket, beers and cynicism was still the highlight of the day though.