Texas BBQ at Iron Works: A SXSW tradition

Neil Young came to plug his new Pono player; Lady Gaga gave the keynote address and defended artists who get in bed with corporate sponsors. The music of Lou Reed was feted with a gala concert at which nearly 30 of his best songs were performed by a all-star assembly, curated by Jersey Beat's old friend Richard Barone.

And then there was tragedy.

Shortly after midnight, in the early hours of Thursday, March 13, an allegedly drunk driver lost control of his car during police pursuit and plowed into a crowd of people outside the Mohwak Club on Austin's Red River St. Two people died, 23 others were injured, and the incident reignited the debate over whether SXSW has simply outgrown Austin and become too big, too crowded, too crazy. That's been a raging debate for the last few years - it happened in 2011, when a falling light tower nearly killed several people and Ben Weasel infamously punched out a female heckler at a crowded Austin club - and it's a debate worth having. But this particular tragedy had nothing to do with SXSW; drunk drivers plow into pedestrians all the time in big cities. It seems to happen once a month in New York. There is no way to put this particular genie back in the bottle; Austin can't tell people not to come to their music festival, without just killing the whole thing and potentially crippling the booming city's economy. We mourn the dead and send best wishes to the injured. But this was simply a horrible instance of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and one human being who had too much to drink and reacted the wrong way when he heard a police siren.

The Austin economy seems to be booming; new construction like this resulted in closed streets and detours all over downtown.

Has Austin outgrown SXSW? That's a good question, and the answer - now that SXSW's Interactive and Film Festivals overlap with Music, bringing 300,000 people to town at the same time - is indisputable. Hotel rooms become precious commodities, traffic snarls all of downtown, airline flights must be booked months in advance, and all that corporate money - parts of downtown Austin looked like Las Vegas this year, there was so much brightly-lit branding - is enough to make you gag.

But you can avoid it. You can choose not to stand in line at the Fader Fort to see Julian Casablancas or Damon Albarn, refuse to hashtag "Doritos" in a bid to win a ticket to see Lady Gaga, avoid Subway™ Square, skip Yahoo Hall, and instead find bands based on recommendations, word of mouth, online guides, or the Austin Chronicle's extensive listings. Or you can hang out with some friends from home and see what interesting bands they've hooked up with, which is how I discovered that barn show a few miles from downtown.

The Hold Steady at the Austin Conventino Center's Radio Stage

Of course, destination bands - the kind that might play at festivals like Coachella or Pitchfork Fest - do play a large role in SXSW and have for well over a decade, when the festival first started to outgrow its roots as a celebration of regional Americana. And it's hard to turn down a chance to see bands like X, Blondie, OFF!. Damon Albarn, Temples, Bob Mould, and Lydia Loveless, not to mention Gaga, Jay Z, Kanye, and Coldplay (who all played at tightly controlled corporate events.)

Skaters, everything to hate in a "buzz" band

And then there are the buzz bands, the highly-touted, next-big-things that Pitchfork and Spin.com and Stereogum want you to see. I made the mistake of catching one of these, Warner Bros. signees Skaters, at an afternoon party. While every other band I saw at one of these things rolled with the punches and accepted the informality of the situation, Skaters insisted on a 25 minute soundcheck. Then, finally satisfied, they just had to leave the stage (even though the room was packed and the show was running late) so they could have the crowd applaud when they came back onstage. And then they just started to play and didn't bother to announce their name into well into the set, a personal pet peeve of mine. Hey guys, enjoy your 15 minutes. The clock's running.

I couldn't resist catching the Hold Steady at the Austin Convention Center, a seated show that required an official SXSW badge to attend. (The Hold Steady did perform several more times, at both official showcases and free outdoor parties.)

The Gradients

My personal SXSW always includes trying to catch bands from home, not just to support them in often hostile DIY environments but also to see how they perform (and go over) far from home in front of audiences with little idea of who they are. This year, it became clear that the best answer to the question "how do I get to play SXSW" is "network." I spent time with separate crews from both Brooklyn and New Jersey who combined resources and contacts, and toured out to Texas together. From Brooklyn, the Gradients, Heeney, Bluffing, and Slonk Donkerson turned up together several times, with the Harmonica Lewinskies and Hugh Trimble as well. New Jerseyans the Everymen and Stuyvesant came to town together in their own caravan. Granted, playing SXSW without corporate sponsorship or label supportrequires initiative and sacrifice (one member of the Gradients had a backpack full of homework he had to promise to do on the road.) But here's your proof that it can be done; you just have to want it bad enough.

Neil Young came to Austin not to perform, but to pitch his new Pono music player. The ungainly-shaped $399 device plays hi-quality FLAC files that Young promised would deliver "everything the artist wanted you to hear when they were n the studio." In an insane revisionist rant on the fall of the music industry, Young blamed the poor quality of MP3's for denigrating music itself and costing the jobs of millions in all aspects of the music industry (from musicians, producers, and record label personnel right down to the deliverymen who used to move amps and keyboards around from studio to studio in L.A.) Bizarrely, Young never mentioned file-sharing, Napster, torrents, or piracy in his remarks; he simply proclaimed that Pono was here "to save an art form." We shall see. Maybe you can get Neil to take your old Zune in trade for his new Pono player (and then pay to re-download all your music yet another time from the new online Pono Library.)

I attended several panel discussions with my good and generous friend and SXSW roomie Jim DeRogatis, who not only put up with my snoring but also treated me to a swank belated-birthday dinner. I urge you read his coverage for those details, especially the panel on how online streaming services like Pandora, Googleplay, and Beats "curate" music based on both computer algorithms and human tastemakers.

Brian Sella of the Front Bottoms and unidentified male admirer at the FB's headlining set on Friday night.

On Friday night, Jim DeRogatis and I abandoned SXSW insanity for four hours at a tribute to Lou Reed, curated by the Bongos' Richard Barone and emceed by Barone and Austin legend Alejandro Escovedo. Like Lou Reed's career, the concert was by turns sublime and beautiful, chaotic and messy, inspired and just a little insane: In a word, perfect. The talent ranged from artists who knew Reed as far back as the Sixties and Seventies (Garland Jeffreys, the Bizarros, the Fleshtones, and Spandau Ballet) to young talent clear inspired by the Velvets and Reed, including the Black Lips, Sean Lennon, Jesse Malin, and the Strypes. Highlights? The whole damn thing, really, but a few moments did stand out:

Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3's moving take on "Coney Island Baby," later followed by Steve Wynn and the Baseball Project (featuring REM's Mike Mills on bass) blowing the roof off the theater with an extended ear-shredding rendition of "Sister Ray."

The ageless Fleshtones marching up the down the theater's aisles leading the audience in a singalong to "Real Good Time Together"

Richard Barone's flawless reading of "I'll Be Your Mirror," which he recorded for his breakthrough solo album Cool Blue Halo.

And my personal favorite, drag queen Sharon Needles' picture-perfect take on "Candy Says." I don't believe in heaven or hell, but I do believe Lou Reed was smiling somewhere.

Jim Testa's Top 10 SXSW Performances

1. SUN CLUB, Baltimore (Lucille's Patio)
This young band blew me away with processed vocals, miles of reverb, muscular drums, pumping bass, and a keyboardist who doubled on double-toms pounded with a tambourine and double drumsticks. The songs reminded me of early Los Campesinos, but delivered with the energy of a Gilman Street punk band on a caffeine bender.



2. THE CHRIS GETHARD SHOW with The Front Bottoms, Manhattan (Esther's Follies)

Gethard's usual house band the LLC couldn't make it to Austin, so the former UCBT comic enlisted the Front Bottoms for the road version of his wacky talk show. Titled "Remember The Ala Mode!," the show consisted of a naked Gethard in a metal bucket being smothered with ice cream and condiments as members of his cast (the Human Fish, Bananaman, President Candidate Connor Ratliff, and others) came out to do shtick and interact with the audience. It was not only hysterically funny, but it was pretty cool hearing Brian Sella sing the Human Fish theme.

3. THE HOLD STEADY, Brooklyn (Austin Convention Center Radio Stage)

Since their New York shows tend to sell out almost immediate, I haven't actually seen the Hold Steady in years, so I couldn't pass up this chance to see the band in the comfortable acoustics of the SXSW Radio Stage, as opposed to trying to cram into an overcrowded club or an outdoor venue with sketchy sound. Charming, gracious, and engaged as always, Craig Finn poured out the passion like it was 1 a.m., not 1 p.m., introducing a few songs from the forthcoming Teeth Dreams and reinterpreting "Sequested In Memphis" to make it seem like he was singing about SXSW itself.

4. HIPPY, Brooklyn (a barn in someone's backyard in the middle of nowhere)

There were a lot of good Brooklyn bands at SXSW this year, but I was especially taken with the melodic styles of Hippy, a trio that melds folkie styled songs with a Eighties-inspired guitar sound (think: Modern English.) They manage to sound both intimate and surprisingly commercial at the same time, a rare trick.



5. EZRA FURMAN & THE GIRLFRIENDS, San Franciso (Valhalla)

I became a big of fan of Ezra Furman last year with his two releases on Bar None, especially the poppier and more upbeat Day Of The Dog. Performing in a petite red dress, Furman played the wacky popster, beatifically chatting up his fans like a cross between Jonathan Richman and Daniel Johnston. But his crack band delivered with vinegar and sass. Afterwards, when I introduced myself and told Ezra that one of the two votes that Day Of The Dog received in the Pazz & Jop Poll was mine, he asked, "Who was the other one?"

6. HEENEY, Brooklyn (Blackheart, Gypsy Lounge)

I wish I had a video of Heeney's set on the backyard stage of the tiny Blackheart club in Austin's new Rainey Street neighborhood. I'd show it to bands as a primer on how you make an impression on the road. I've been a fan of Mark Fletcher and his various projects for years but Heeney's been reborn as a fire-breathing great-godson of the Replacements, complete with riveting charisma, ultra-catchy songs, and super tight arrangements. Color me impressed. They weren't quite as on point the next day at another outdoor stage but vindicated themselves by ending the song with Fletcher toppling off the stage in a paroxysm of punk energy, taking the mike stand and stage monitor with him and earning a rebuke from the club owner over the house p.a. ("This is the Minneapolis police, this party is over, please go home...")

7. The MCFK Crew

It's always fun catching up with friends at SXSW but this year, it was a special joy to watch members of the Mama Coco's Funky Kitchen collective hang out together, supporting each other and sometimes even joining each other on stage. This included the Harmonic Lewinskies, Hugh Trimble (who invited me to that off-the-map barn show,) the Gradients, and their NYC friends in Bluffing, Heeney, Slonk Donkerson, Honduras, How Sad, and Dances. Lots of dancing, lots of alcohol, lots of camaraderie, and a few things I won't mention,

8. Stuyvesant, NJ (Cheers Shot Bar)

I joked that they should have called this Half Stuyvesant, since only singer Ralph Malanga and guitarist Brian Musikoff could tour, but the patchwork version of these Hoboken veterans delivered a powerhouse set at a rooftop bar on a beautiful, sunny day in Austin. "Just because we're a part time band now doesn't mean we have a part time love for music," said Ralph. Austin enjoyed hearing them as much as these warhorses relished being there.

9. Spires, Brooklyn (Hotel Vegas)

There are new neighborhoods popping up in Austin all the time, like the little cluster of clubs on Rainey Street and a number of new venues east of I-35 on East Sixth Street. Austin friends tell me that Hotel Vegas here has become the "in" spot to play for Austin regulars, and it was easy to see why. The ramshackle venue featured two indoor stages for SXSW, and large backyard that housed an outdoor stage, merch stands, and food.) On Thurday, Hotel Vegas hosted a "Psych Fest" with a variety of psychedelic bands carry on the tradition of Austin rockers like Roky Erickson. California's Cosmonauts delivered a trippy drone, Blouse from the Portlant, OR referenced British shoegaze, and a crazy Japanese band called Bo Ningen raised distortion to an art form. This was my first time seeing the revamped lineup for NYC's Spires, which recently added Michael Goodman on rhythm guitar and keyboards as well as a new lead guitarist and drummer. The new lineup has less hair but considerably more punch than the old one, using Matt Stevenson's droney vocals as a launching pad for faster, poppier songs that veer more toward Sixties psych-garage than the old band's more British influences.



10. The Official SXSW Tribute to Lou Reed (Paramount Theater)

I talked about this earlier but it needs to be mentioned again. The house band of Lenny Kaye, Tony Shanahan, Ivan Julian, and Clem Burke deserves to be enshrined in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by itself. Other highlights I didn't mention earlier: Spandau Ballet's kitschy, lounge version of "Satellite of Love" (a hokey delivery of a hokey song which worked perfectly,) Sean Lennon's clearly sincere cover of "What Goes On," the young, stylish Strypes rocking the crap out of "Vicious" while author BP Fallon spoke-sang the lyrics, and Rosie Flores' countryfied version of "I Love You Suzanne." Now don't you wish you where there?

For those interested in helping the victims and families of the drunk driver incident, resources are here:

SXSW Cares (#SXSWCares) The SXSW Cares Fund will help people affected by the tragic events of March 13, 2014. The funds will be disbursed to those most affected through a community-based process. Please donate at www.sxswcares.com.

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