Recently in SXSW Category

I know, I know. I'm terribly behind on these pix, but I am trying to catch up. This show was on the night of March19-20 at the Playboy Rock The Rabbit party during the SXSW Music, Film and Interactive Festival and conference. It was their first show with their original lineup in, well, a long time! I'm not a big fan of the band, but I have to say, it was a blistering 45-minute set and the crowd left on a serious high! I'm posting a few pix here and after the jump, with 50+ more on Flickr, here: Jane's Addiction Reunion

NB: My apologies for the lack of posts, recently. My computer died and was in the shop for a while. Now, on with the Great Southern Road Trip!

If you haven't already figured it out, a big part of this trip and my life is food. I love to cook for people, introduce them to new things and I love to try new things myself. In fact, I was very close to trying baby eel at Chez Phillippe in the Peabody Hotel in Memphis until I read that they were overfished, often counterfeited and $30 in addition to the already steep prix fixe menu... Anyway, way back near the beginning of the trip were the SXSW Film, Interactive and Music Festivals and Conferences, from which I have a lot of pix and video to come soon. But first, meat!

That's right. On this, my 3rd visit to SXSW, I finally made it out to Lockhart, Texas and Smitty's Market. SXSW Film Conference & Production Manager Jarod Neece was kind enough to put together a little outing of filmmakers, press and SXSW staffers on the last Friday of the fest and chuck us into a van for the 40 minute drive to the cradle of Texas Bar-B-Q. You see, Lockhart has not one, not two, not three but 4 "world-class" BBQ joints, or so they claim. I've only been to Smitty's, and about Smitty's I can swear that if there were a god, she'd eat there. There ain't, so I guess that makes my analogy useless, but whatever. It's some fan-fucking-tastic BBQ. Now, Texas is known for beef BBQ. if pork's your thing, I would suggest you head to Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, etc. I'll be writing plenty about the pork in those places, but for now, concentrate on the beef. Don't get me wrong, they have the pork, but in Texas it seems like the swine is a secondary food source much of the time. I beg to differ, but when in Rome....

One of my favorite new artists from the past couple of years is Nicole Atkins who, both with and without her band, The Sea played several sets at SXSW over the past couple of years and who I've seen live 4 or 5 times in the same time span. Her song "The Way It Is" gives me shivers every time I hear it. The first time I heard her excellent debut CD (which I wrote about back in November of 2007) I compared the sound to long time David Lynch collaborator, Angelo Badalamenti and what do you think I saw when I just perused Nicole's Wikipedia entry?

"Atkins also feels a kinship with Angelo Badalamenti, who has scored many of Lynch's films. She once emailed an mp3 of "The Way It Is" to Badalamenti, who is said to have replied, "I think our Sicilian great-great-great-grandparents must have laid down on a picnic blanket in the park and done something together, if you know what I mean." Atkins subsequently received an invitation to Badalamenti's home in Morristown, New Jersey to talk music."

All I have to say to that is "Ha!" At any rate, I saw Nicole at SXSW 2008 and it was a typically fantastic set and she was wearing an absolutely stunning dress. See?

More pix on my Flickr stream, here.

Last year's Spin Magazine show at Stubb's BBQ was pretty amazing, with the lineup of The Raveonettes, Vampire Weekend and X, among others. Talk about a super bill. Last month I posted some pix from this show and others and now.....X! Here's a few pix of X from the Spin show and the rest can be found on my Flickr stream.

Billy Zoom. Is there anyone cooler?

Exene Cervenka can still bring it!

As I load up hundred of pix onto Flickr, I figure I should post some samples here, too. Below are some pix of the bands mentioned in the title, plus Liverpool's The Rascals. Click on any one of them to get to my SXSW 08 Flickr set, which is still growing.

Soon to come: X, Nicole Atkins, White Rabbits, The Wombats, Tift Merritt, Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong and more We Are Standard!

First off, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend at the Spin Magazine party at Stubb's BBQ

My hero, Billy Bragg, performing at the concert for Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue's Body of War at Stubb's.

To hell with machine guns, these bikini girls got trombones!
This is one of the craziest things I've seen in quite some time, but what are you gonna do? You gotta stand out somehow, right? I give you:

Futomomo Satisfaction and, believe it or not, a cover of the Ramones!! Catch them this March at South by Southwest!

The Scouse trio (one by way of Norway) has a new single on the way and as per usual, it's a bouncy pop tune that belie the rather deeper lyrics within. "Can't wait to wallow in self pity In my circuit board city tonight," goes the catchy refrain and having seen the band live quite a few times, I doubt any of them have a digital alter ego. Doesn't seem their style, really!

Matt @ SXSW, 2008After the jump, some more pix (and even a video) from various Wombats shows at SXSW.