SXSW Day One: Zorch, La Migra, Illya Kuryaki and the Valderammas and more
For the full slideshow of SXSW Day One, click here.
I should begin by saying that I have never been to SXSW before. I can’t really contribute to the discussion on whether the weeklong festival has grown beyond its roots, as many veterans like to note. All I can offer are the first impressions of a newbie who did little to prepare.
The night before I left for Austin, I spent an hour or so fumbling around on the (vastly unhelpful) SXSW official website, then a bit more time trying to piece together some kind of agenda from other Internet sources. I downloaded a half-dozen apps, trying to put together all the information. The list of bands is overwhelming, of course, and trying to plan a schedule to see them is even more so. It felt like trying to cram for the final exam in a class that I had been slacking off on all semester (cough, Statistics I, cough). So I decided to cling to one of the many pieces of advice I had heard from SXSW enthusiasts: Don’t plan, just go, you’ll find cool things. I will trust this instinct, I told myself.
After locating the Convention Center, picking up our badges, and being handed a veritable Bible of SXSW information (a thick tome with the complete schedule, map, and pages of advertising, which I assume everyone throws away instantly), we – Pitch photographer Zach Bauman, another SXSW first-timer, and I – began wandering. There were lots of things going on later than we were interested in – Zorch, London Grammar, Chance the Rapper – and we wanted to have our bearings before shit started to get real.
On our way to Mohawk, there was a pop-up hair salon, where dudes with serious hairstyles were giving other dudes very similar-looking cuts. People gathered to watch because, obviously, when you’re at SXSW, this is the thing to see.
At the Vans Village stage at House of Vans, Ferocious Few played to a modest crowd at an uncovered outdoor stage, as the hot midday sun glared down. Shame – San Francisco’s Francisco Fernandez is a force, his scrappy vocals coiling sweetly around the blues-rock guitar notes and heavy drumbeats. And that was all there was for his band: guitar, drums, vocals. Fernandez whistled an impressive melody, his face coated in a sheen of sweat, as bystanders sucked down freeze-pops.
The Mohawk outdoor stage was comfortably full for Illya Kuryaki and the Valderammas, Buenos Aires babes who blend flavors of Latin American rock with hip-hop and funk. They were full of energy. Lots of energy. The seven-piece blasted crowd favorites, including some songs from the group’s early 1990s catalog, and even I found myself thinking that the tight pants of Emmanuel Horvilleur and Dante Spinetta were justified. Appreciative fans shouted the lyrics back.
Austin’s La Migra tore up the inside stage at Cheer Up Charlie’s with a set that was way tighter than I would have expected from the young, longhaired surf rockers. Even in the stuffiness of the venue, La Migra packed in a good fistful of faces that seemed similarly impressed with the foursome’s psychedelic riffs and high-blood-pressure rockness.
After La Migra concluded its set, we headed to Charlie’s outdoor stage for a different kind of psychedelic good time with Austin’s Zorch, an experimental duo that tends to attract a crowd as bizarre and wonderful as the band itself. The shimmering, spacey electronics and angel-alien vocals of Zac Traeger and Shmu were a trippy late-afternoon venture.
There was more wandering. Tacos were eaten. Adult beverages were consumed. I watched two guys lugging instruments down a closed-off East Sixth Street, groaning and laughing. I heard a multitude of accents. I saw girls wearing heels and wondered what kind of special drugs they were taking. We ducked in, and quickly out, of some venues, based on what was on the stage in front of us – just because it’s at South By doesn’t automatically make it good. But the “let it happen” mantra I was trying to accept did result in a few unexpected and delightful discoveries – among them, Kansas City’s own After Nations.
Made up of guitarist Andrew Elliott, bassist Tyler Mehaffey and drummer Trent Utley, After Nations was blaring some thrashy prog-rock from inside the Karma Lounge so loudly, I’m pretty sure the boys will be paying for it later. No matter. I’ve never had my face melted off so completely by a band before. Just annihilated. And for a crowd of fewer than 20 people. This is what people talk about when they talk about the “magic” of SXSW: the surprises, the coincidences, the surreal finds.
On the other hand, the lines and the mess and the overblown aspect of SXSW (the other side of the card that people are quick to agree blows) are also, sadly, very true. High on my list was London Grammar, but after realizing that they were opening for Imagine Dragons and Coldplay (really) at the iTunes-sponsored Moody Theater, and after glimpsing the mass of people waiting for a chance at a forfeited seat, I began to understand the big picture. There are dozens of other acts on my must-see shortlist that I am now reassessing.
Other things I missed last night: Chance the Rapper, whose set at the Red 7 was shut down after the venue went well over its capacity, and Kurt Vile, whom I apparently totally spaced on. No celebrity sightings yet, either, but it’s early in the week.
