SXSW Dispatch

South by Southwest is massive. It starts early with free day parties hosted by independent labels, magazines, publicity houses, blogs, brothels (not really, but should be) and the like. Music blasts out open windows and doorways and sounds from street corners all around 6th Street, just north of the Colorado River in downtown Austin. The streets are a pageantry of music industry scenesters and tourists and local buskers. Logos plaster everything.

But I don’t have time to dissect the festival; I gotta be at a show in half an hour. I got into town around 5 p.m. yesterday and slid into the torrent of rock and roll and Lone Star beer, starting out at 9 at the Merge Records showcase at Antone’s with Imperial Teen, a biggish-in-the-’90s alternative pop band from San Francisco. Sounded kinda like the Breeders, but with high male lead vocals. Factoid: The band was founded by former Faith No More keyboardist Roddy Bottum. Thanks, Allmusic.com.

I scampered across the festival area, intending to rendezvous with the boys from KC’s Drama Club Records, who were at Stubb’s to see hot British singer Lily Allen, but I ran into our pals Be/Non, partying with Megan Hamilton of OxBlood Records (also KC). The band was originally going to play the Anodyne Records (yep, local) showcase today. But within the past two weeks the band’s relationship with Anodyne fell apart. They were down to play a different show today, but it too got canceled. Fortunately, they played a few cities on the way down, so the trip wasn’t a total loss.

After a few drinks in back of the Jackelope, which was like KC headquarters last year — good burgers and a smoking patio — I parted company to go check out a Scottish band called The Twilight Sad, whom I’d heard online and really dug. When I told Be/Non guitarist Adam Stotts who I was going to see, he laughed in my face. Not because he thought the band was lame, or anything, it’s just that when you’re at an indie music festival and you say “I’m going to see a band called The Twilight Sad. They’re from Scotland,” it’s so perfectly obscure that it sounds like you’re making it up to be satirical.

Seriously, the Twilight Sad is from Scotland.

But this obscure track paid off because the Sad rocked. The singer has the thickest brogue since Malcolm Middleton of Arab Strap but twice the vocal power. Like a minstrel boy come back from war, he keens precise, cutting, sad lyrics while his bandmates (guitar, bass and drums) create tidal surges of noise. It’s almost like the singer and the drummer are from some highland drum regiment — one sings the stories, the other bashes out a marching beat. Meanwhile the bass and guitar, laden to the hilt with effects, bash out undulating, dynamic and melodic sound.

PB&J at the other Zona Rosa.

When they were over, the line into Stubb’s was a block long, so I beat a path southwest to La Zona Rosa for the Swedish pop buzz band Peter, Bjorn & John, authors of Writer’s Block, one of my favorite albums of last year (it just came out in the states, but I got the import ’cause I’m a bitch). They’ve definitely caught on, because the place was packed full of non-hipsters, which is great, but some indie-rock fratboys deemed it appropriate and fun to yell out requests for the band’s two popular songs (“Amsterdam,” and “Young Folks”). It’s like, Dude, you know they’re gonna play ’em when they’re good and ready — shut the hell up. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a pet peeve of mine.

Anyway, the band was great: tight, powerful and majestic. “Majestic” could even describe the quality of their pop songwriting, which makes for great at-home listening and for a wildly dynamic live show. They’re just so fuckin’ good. And I have a feeling I’ll be listening to them years down the road.

Got a full day today and gotta get started on it. Hold things down in KC for me.