SXSW Dispatch, Part III
Well, Kansas City, I hope you’re enjoying your weekend. Holy fuck, it’s St. Patrick’s Day! I’d forgotten. You’re probably already out drinking. Pace yourself. Westport revelers should head down to the big blowout at the Record Bar. If you like feel good soul music, get there around 3, for the Diplomats of Solid Sound — they got horns, keys, nice suits, and insanely beautiful female singers. The local U2 tribute band Rattle and Hum takes the stage at 8 p.m. It’s the third time they’ve played the RB, and I’ve heard they sound remarkably like the real deal.
It’s Saturday, about noon, and the “PVOUTDOORS” stage across the parking lot from my hotel has begun allowing bad alternative rock bands to torment everyone on the east side of the downtown Omni. “Let them eat cake!” I say, standing in the window wearing the complimentary bathrobe I found in the closet. I know I must be a freakish site to passers below, this bathrobe having been designed to be so ugly and ill-fitting that no guest would ever want to steal it.
Augie from the Hard Lessons teaches Austin how to rock.
Wait, what is this, a novel? No, this is your connection to SXSW, so I’ll quit fucking around. Yesterday, because I started late, I only saw four bands, but I enjoyed them all: Ad Astra Per Aspera, the High Dials, the Hard Lessons“>Hard Lessons and the River City Tanlines. I didn’t push myself to see any big shows. By this time of the festival — actually, this began happening on Thursday — if you want to see a band with any modicum of popularity/buzz/hype/whatever, you gotta get there an hour or two early and wait in line, even if you have a badge. It’s even hard to get food here, and half or more of the ranks of the service industry here is pissed off by the tourists.
So it was with great relish that I enjoyed the brilliant psychedelic pop band the High Dials from Montreal, in a well-air-conditioned, off-the-way club around 6 p.m. yesterday. The music isn’t obscure or trendy or experimental, like you might expect from a Montreal band you’ve never heard of. It’s just upbeat, pretty and comforting, with great hooks and sweet two-part harmonies between singer/guitarist Trevor Anderson and keyboardist Eric Dougherty. The club looked set up to be a sleek, fancy-cocktails, DJs and blow place, but I had no complaints about the band’s sound. They nailed it, but no one was there to see it besides me and a few appreciative others. That is, except the kids from KC’s Anvil Chorus, who I had bumped into outside and roped into coming to the show. It wasn’t hard, actually, because they heard the band practicing out on some hippie ranch. They were all watching the Stooges’ in-store at Waterloo records or something, which was probably great, but, ah well.
When I get back, I’ll post some audio/video of Ad Astra and the Hard Lessons, who, by the way, are coming to the Brick on Tuesday, April 3 (you’ll have to be there, because, man, they rock like a monkey). Now I must hang up my hideous robe, perform my ablutions and don the raiment of SXSW concertgoer. Unto the breach!
