Akron/Family, pictured above, were one of the many buzz bands at SXSW.
The Denver Post asked various people throughout Colorado’s music scene to write about their experiences at the music festival. This is the first in that series.
Matthew Fecher is one of the promoters behind the at As Monolith is an indie rock extravaganza, SXSW is an annual must for Fecher and his colleagues.
By Matthew Fecher
Back from SXSW, and while I didn’t get to see all the artists I wanted to, here are some bands that I liked a lot. No silly posts about meeting Thurston Moore or Lou Reed or any of that silly name-dropping you’ll see in everyone else’s SXSW blog.
In this one, all you get is good music.
The lineup Friday night at Emo’s was so good I couldn’t have scripted it better myself — the Cool Kids, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Akron/Family, Does it Offend You, Yeah?, Flosstradamus, Crystal Castles and Clipse all under the same roof?!
I managed to get a black eye and a bloody nose at the Flosstradamus/Cool Kids sets. I’ve seen Floss 3 times previously, but this was different -– stage diving, crowd surfing, mosh pit. Flosstradamus threw down like it was their last show on Earth. Then the unstoppable Cool Kids rocked it old school/new school. Wow.
Believe the hype.
Akron/Family started out the set slow, but they ended strong with 30 people on stage. And when the venue cut them off for last call, they took the people out to the street and continued playing outside!
Here’s a video from the show.
Does it Offend You, Yeah? is getting played everywhere in Denver now, and they’re one of those bands that is better live than their recorded stuff.
The Spank Rock closing out the Fader party was electric. While 2 Live Crew’s follow-up was cliche and tired, their shtick was still fun. Spank Rock brought it, though, no question.
Seriously, watch the video from the Spank Rock show. There are like 50 people on stage!
The unexpected band that brought the R-O-C-K: Sisters. Live they reminded me of Black Lips & Bright Channel, but with Aaron Collins (of Machine Gun Blues) as the frontman.
One of the hypest shows of the festival was the Chromeo-Digitalism double-bill. All in all, I love Digitalism, but it didn’t translate well at 2 p.m. in the Texas heat and sun. But they had the quote of the week. Imagine this in a German accent, a la Sprockets: “Give us your biggest party! We make big, sexy, Texas party, yea! We make big, sexy party in Texas!”
Then, Chromeo headlined the big Scion party by bringing the ’80s dance-funk back and making a couple thousand people bounce in the middle of the afternoon. How can anybody top that off? They came back and encored with a Journey medley. Fantastic!
I was really looking to seeing the Bloody Beetroots, as I really love their mixes, but you never know what to expect from remix artists live. But these guys more than delivered! This was easily the best electro set at SXSW this year. (That I saw, at least.)
I was hoping they’d have their trademark “F**ked From Above 1985? T-shirts for sale, but apparently bands dont sell merch at SXSW.
Fresh off his MTV performance last week, Cadence Weapon rocked the Monolith/Hot Freaks party in Austin. I still have their song “Real Estate” stuck in my head.
I got turned onto the Whip from the fantastic Bloody Beetroots remix of their “Trash.”
Live, with a full band of bass, guitar, keyboard and drums set up, the Whip sounds miles ahead of their MySpace tracks.
Check out this video for “Trash” (the original version), which is more representative of what they sound like live:
