South By Southwest Report (PART 3- The Out of Control Part)

["Chris Owen" <ChrisO@xxxxxxxx>]

-Nerves, Dishes, Deadly Snakes, Titz- Wow, what a great time I had at this fucking show!  And I even left to catch the Mooney Suzuki in the middle and missed Portland's Goddamn Gentlemen, who have the best name in Rock n Roll and are supposedly real good!  The Nerves should be getting all the praise those big babies the Burning Brides are getting.  They seem to be mining the same territory (heavy Stooges meets Nirvana type RAWK) but do it with pure SOUL.  The Nerves are very soulful and about as tight as any band I've ever seen.  Dishes are all girls (except the drummer, who didn't even seem like he was really IN the band) from Chicago who play good garage punk with sass.  Deadly Snakes are the best band on the North American Continent; probably the world and anyone who gets to see them should thank the good lord for sending them to us.  Titz apparently have a record produced by Mike Mariconda and they reformed for this show after having broken up a few weeks ago.  I'm not sure if the dance I was doing could really be considered "moshing" but it came closer than anything else I've done since I was like 19.  At that show I met up with a completely insane guy from Alabama and wound up driving around Austin with him all night looking for crack (or LSD, he didn't care which).  The details of this evening will not be put on the internet, but it was pretty kickass.  I'll tell you about it later.

-Mooney Suzuki- There's a band in San Francisco called The Sermon.  I wish someone could set up a good old-fashioned Battle of the Bands between the Mooney Suzuki and the Sermon.  I'll put all my money on The Sermon.  In the meantime the Mooney Suzuki are still more famous.  That guitar player (the one who doesn't sing) is just totally amazing.  I like them a lot.  

-Baseball Furies, Dirty Sweets, Mistreaters-  This was the instore at Sound Exchange.  I tried to hide my SXSW badge (tourist geek indicator) in my pocket, cuz this was a local thang and immediately upon arrival it appeared that everyone in the room not only knew each other, but were about to unleash some heavy heavy violent appreciation of the music being played.  The Dirty Sweets rocked some early Rip-Off Records sounding punk, the Mistreaters did their rad heavy Oblivians punk and the Baseball Furies jumped 15 feet into the air, had a case of Lone Star tall boys thrown at them, tore the roof off the store...basically this was the best thing I saw all weekend.  The Baseball Furies are the best punk band I think I've ever seen.  Their songs seem to come from another world...I recognize the chords but not the progressions...they get really fast then slow then explode then it seems like they are playing another song, then the drummer destroys his set, then they are covered in beer, then you realize they never stopped playing the same song!  The only thing I can relate this to is like Teengenerate or the King Brothers.  Fucking awesome!!!!!!!! 

-Immortal Lee County Killers-  Great great great.  Usually I would have been bouncing off the walls, but I had already seen like 20 great bands that day by the time I saw these guys so it was almost like watching TV or something.  They rule the school, though and they know it.  They tried to refuse to get off the stage and the hippie soundman had a fit.

-Hard Feelings-  They played at Beerland, a concrete room that one would be well advised to run into in case of a nuclear attack.  Just don't try to play any music while you're in there because their PA is powered by fucking triple AAA batteries or something.  It went out a bunch of times that night.  Hard Feelings were supposed to have their new record released by Gearhead, but when the distributor Valley went bankrupt it fucked with their cashflow.  Gearhead decided to put out the Dukes of Hamburg record instead (saw their last show a few weeks ago...I will really miss seeing those guys) and the Hard Feelings put out their record on Beerland Records.  Schooley had a Beerland shirt on, there was a big Beerland mural behind him...everybody in the bathroom kept interrupting my business asking "Isn't Beerland GREAT???".  It was like a Twilight Zone episode.  They should have called it the Pink Elephant.  Anyway, Mike Mariconda is playing bass for them now, and he's hilarious.  They played their killer rock n roll.  The title of their new album is called "You Won't Like It...Cuz It's Rock N Roll" or something like that and the song of the same name is a perfect compliment to the Dictators "Who Will Save Rock N Roll?".  That would be  the ultimate double sided hit 7" record.  The Hard Feelings are so good, and you can tell they sound EXACTLY like they want to...total control, expert musicianship, etc. etc. you know what I mean.

-Paul "Wine" Jones, T-Model Ford- Amazing blues from the masters.  Too bad they played this place (Antone's), which is kind of a "House of Blues" type place, but it was great.  Paul Jones made every white girl in the room consider abandoning their lives and moving to Mississippi to be his fuck doll.  I even considered it for a minute or two.  T-Model had everyone hypnotized.  When Antone's rudely, abruptly cut him off everyone in the room was in such a trance they didn't know what was going on.  When T-Model was forced to get up and leave the stage I heard the loudest applause of the weekend.  Kick ass. 

-Tearjerkers, Lords of Altamont- Jack Oblivian's new band the Tearjerkers put out a great album and live they were even better.  He did a couple of his Oblivians songs (Blew My Cool) and Compulsive Gamblers songs (I can't remember which) and Tearjerkers songs.  His band was really tight.  Walter Daniels got up and played harmonica with them (He played with the Hard Feelings, too which I forgot to mention.  He also played with his own band Big Foot Chester but it was during T-Model Ford and I missed it).  Anyway, the Tearjerkers were great.  The last band I saw all weekend was the Lords of Altamont, who I never think I really like until I'm watching them.  Another thing about that band...they look like scary gay bikers (Actually the singer looks like Marilyn Manson) but they are really nice teddy bears.  If you see them, go up and give them a hug, they like it.  Anyway, they blew the PA like every 3 or 4 seconds (It was at Beerland, same show as the Hard Feelings).  They have a new light show with a rad 60's acid multi-color freakout behind them.  They invited and got everyone in the club onstage with them.  They did the old Fleshtones stroll to the front of the club while they were playing.  Everyone in Beerland was laughing, drinking as fast as they could (not a lot of after-parties this year), clapping, freaking out...a great ending.  

Chris

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