[New York (at least now)] Some had their Gillian Welch, others had their Wilco, but Laura was my alt-country artist and possibly the first country that I ever even listened to, unless you count The Eagles (ask a West Coaster what kind of music they like: “Everything but country.” – it wasn’t my fault). I was a closet listener to her Not the Tremblin’ Kind album. Lyrics that painted a story. Sweet wavery voice. She was this whole other world, to me. I busted ass to make it to this show and went straight to the bathroom to unsweat myself and this tidy woman brushed past me – I suspected it was her but she was already past me before I could reach out and touch her. She’s almost a dead ringer for Joan Cusack but more delicate/classy. Porcelain skin. The more interesting thing about her is that despite the sweet little voice, skinniness, and porcelain-ness, she comes across as cynical, smart, and tough. Live, she sounded exactly as she does recorded. She was backed by a guy on lap steel and a guy on an electric bass. The music is easy – kind of traditional – nice. I found out today she was broke and backed by John Peel. He told her to keep writing those narratives – she asked what narratives (or so she told us today) – and he said about those country women – and then she sang a song about Kitty Wells (whom I don’t know – sorry Austin friends). She may live in New York now but she doesn’t talk like a New Yorker and doesn’t have the soul of a New Yorker.

I have too much back info on this band – mostly because a key member is a neighbor and a fellow sociologist. This makes it difficult for me to be objective and to see them as a ‘real’ band, because I know how they formed. Said friend is humble and downplays the situation. And of course all or most bands form in these ways. Well, seeing them all amped up and slick at the Brewery convinced me they are a real band, and they have a real sound. It’s a sound that I believe may have morphed since I saw them last many months ago during the monthly Gunnison art crawl. The young blonde lovely has taken over lead vocals (and guitar), while the brown lovely handles backup vocals and fiddle. The two boys and a man variously manage the banjo, the electric bass, guitar, and lap steel. Their sound flits about enough that it’s hard to pin it down but it’s some combo of alt country, folk, and Americana. All covers, I believe. They did help me pin down the Old Crow Medicine Show origins of the apparently #1 song in Gunnison (as per coffee shops) – the song is ‘Rock Me Baby.’ This band is peaceful, sincere, and … pure.

She was a purty little thing with a sassy little mouth. Her set was littered with hilarious interludes, using her looks and her hillbilly twang to woo the audience. She talked sly shit about everyone she knows, about herself, and about us (“I appreciate you all coming out tonight when you had so many other options.”). Some of the audience members thought she was over the top and putting on a bit of an act, fluffing up the accent, but her background’s legit (rural Florida). I mean her dad went to prison for running moonshine. People couldn’t reconcile her prettiness with her supposed background. With the heavy makeup, the bleached blonde hair, the cute little outfit, and especially, pumping little spurts of throat soother in her mouth on stage, I knew she was the sort of girl who needed to be in control after a childhood that was a bit out of control. I just liked her – she’s done good for herself and she sees through life and people. So they made references to outlaw country through the night, but they were more of a country rock band. The music lacked definition, and she is definitely more of a voice and performer than a guitarist. They were at their best when the lyrics were witty and female [“I slid on my tightest pair of jeans, Combed my hair like it was 1983, Honey I know that I am just your wife, But I wanna be your girlfriend tonight”; “And we were making love in the disco era, And he was Travolta and I was Farrah, I was like man what is happening here, Dude must of put a qualude in my beer, If I wake up married, I’ll have to annul it, Right now my hands are in his mullet”], when they did covers (Johnny Horton, Merle Haggard), when they did old southern gospel, and when the guitarist sang two songs of his own. Unlike Elizabeth, he was a dopey humble hipster, in his misshapen shirt and slightly baggy dress pants, with a curly lock of hair covering his eyes. He maintained a rocker’s cool until he turned to look at Elizabeth and adoration beamed from his humble face, and when he sang, his face was a playground of emotions. His songs were simple but his voice and active face infused them with emotion – decent guitarist too – Tim Carroll is his name. We found out later he and Elizabeth just got married. The third member of the band was an Australian roughneck on upright bass – he was a sidenote, possibly because his guitar wasn’t amped properly.

so Rockboy billed this band as a fantastic garage rock band he’d discovered at a previous SXSW – this didn’t really fit what I found online about them but I had faith – uh, well, not at all – they’re a mix of all of my guilty music pleasures: The Eagles, Tom Petty, The Beach Boys, Cracker, Jackson Browne – his voice was very David Lowery at times, which is definitely a plus for me – they were a tight bundle of country psych, jam rock, and southern rock – they made me intensely homesick for California and for long desert highways and for the 70s (even if all of these are ½ fantasy memories of mine) – they are from San Francisco – so their sound wasn’t necessarily anything new, but their sound was smooth and full and they came off as strikingly professional

starting with the unnecessary apostrophe, this band irritates me – they have a song here or there that sticks in my head (Designs on You – which they did not play) but there’s a general earnest blandness about them that makes me tune out – their show was lively and we did have the good fortune to run into the WittyDrummer – not to mention it was a $20 show for which we’d won free tickets so there really wasn’t a question of whether or not we were going – the peak of my irritation was probably when the song Question came on with all its cutesy pseudo-witticisms: “someday somebody’s gonna ask you, the question that you should say yes to, once in your life, maybe tonight I’ve got a question” – I’m telling you, if anyone ever proposed to me with that sort of a lead-in, I never would have been dating them to start with – I also enjoyed watching the guy in the beret with the wacky face hair who did a drunken interpretive dance to every single song and was eventually shirtless and spinning any nearby female around in the middle of a very packed crowd

sang in X, The Knitters, and The Original Sinners – I know her distinctive voice but walked out of her set at SXSW because it was so dull, I was able to figure out why at this show, the woman writes two-chord trite love songs with unimaginative lyrics and melodies, she frankly doesn\”t have a lot of talent or skill but there is still something about the tinge-of-crazy wail in her voice and her fierce wacky persona (even at 50+)

Those Darlins aren’t so darling anymore – they done went and grew up into proper rock stars and will probably continue on to implode like real rock stars – these three girls and a drummer sing deceptively simple and fun sing-along songs about being slightly trashy and Southern – their music’s actually not so simple though it’s rooted in authentic country, honky tonk, Southern rock and even some blues but performed (especially tonight) with rock ‘n roll and even garage rock swagger and snarl – they confessed midway through their set that they’d performed and drank beers earlier in the evening at another Austin venue and it was pretty clear that they were still feeling the effects – the blonde one with long curls was slit-eyed and repeating herself – her performance was most affected – the resident “bad girl” with the husky sexy voice eventually spewed beer on the crowd and bit pumpkin meat from a jack o lantern on the stage and spewed that too – the smallest one with the short curly black hair and the Janis Joplin maleish voice had changed the most in appearance (more bold) but was the best behaved – they opened with an instrumental surf rock song – they sing about getting drunk and eating a whole chicken, being a “snaggle-toothed mama” in a trailer far away, and warning her boy that he knew she was wild one all along – they made me nostalgic for my 20s, when being a wild one was only fun, but then they made me remember that I’m happy to be in my 30s – I still really like this band but, as their senior, I am worried for them

sported the polish and confidence of a band who has performed for years and years – almost want to write them off as silly party boys but they managed to pull off sunglasses at night, coordinated movements, and holding the guitar up for the audience to worship because they are sincere in their worship of rock and because they can back it up with some really good music – very nearly 3 separate bands within one: they had very tight garage punk songs that were distinguished by short punctuated segments a la The Hellacopters, they had songs that were spot-on expressions of the nichey genre “punk n’ roll,” and they have their country a la Cracker – lots of wah wah pedal too – they’re fun for the whole music family

I have an extreme fondness for this band’s vocal harmonizing and general sound (please see “Shake Our Tree”) quirky fun indie pop with interesting lyrics – very unfortunately, the Mohawk’s sound system totally failed the band and underplayed the voices and highlighted the less interesting instrumentation – additionally, in what I saw (a lot), they did not play my song – I think it’s possible they’re solid song crafters and it’s just a matter of being better on album than live – their physical appearances were interesting enough though that I suspect the Mohawk is to blame

I woke up weary from the second 12-hour day of SXSW but was stirred by the thought of seeing one of my newest favorite bands, The Black Angels – I confuse them with The Black Keys (whom I love too) and The Black Lips and The Black Keylips – it gets complicated – but I had pretty much straightened out that the Keys were garage while the Angels were gorgeous lovely sonic psych metal – anyway, I hustle over to this bookstore at something like 11:30am and am discomforted by the sight of about 8 disheveled young-hipsters, as I’ve taken to calling the femme boys and mottled girls who make up our new generation of “with-it” youth, because this is not the size or the composition of the crowd I would expect for my favorite band. I am patient because this is required at SXSW! especially when you’re groggy and unable to think of a better course of action to take – I am further discomfited by the young goofy look of the young-hipster band themselves, who are five feet from me setting up – I am comforted though by an exchange between two of the disenchanted alienated 21 year olds: “who are they?” “they’re our friends from New York” “are they any good?” “no! no, just kidding” [in a low confidential voice] they’re really good” – anyway anyway, they start and it’s not my band, not even close – they’re alt-country-rockers – in typical band fashion, they throw out their name and I hear something in addition to “The Black Angels” – I wait until the song finishes and hustle out only to arrive home and figure out I had neglected to look at the preceding line of my webpage schedule and thus the beginning of the band name in all of my SXSW fervor – in all fairness, they were a very decent band and it was all my fault

knew them from one song that I really liked on Pandora but was more interested when I found out that Stephen Malkmus of Pavement is a member – turns out they\”ve been around since the late 80s – the lead singer David Berman is very engaging – he\”s thin (a la melancholy drug abuser) with swagger and sunglasses and a speak-singing low voice that alternated between sounding like Lou Reed and David Bowie – they\”re like a lo-fi country or indie rock band with a poet/glam rocker fronting them – Emo\”s was overflowing with random people – the whole band had class and I am a new fan

started by informing the crowd that he\”d started the tour with a band but was with a band no more, generally seemed bitter and Emo\”s is just a venue entirely unsuited to a singer/songwriter, otherwise he did a good job for being a lone guy on a big stage, nice voice and sufficient stage presence, think his purported nuance was lost on a crowd of that size though

really disappointing, bill themselves as NY-style experimental country but it\”s more like average-Joe alt-country with a lot of pretension, some five guys sitting in a row without instruments but with sunglasses provided the vocals, lots of jangle, low-key and uncomplicated, vocals were especially low quality

fantastic, a head-bobbing repetitive drone in keeping with the theme of the night, drone overlaid by alt-country and then could expand into wailing psychedelia, female lead singer in calico sack dress without a bit of makeup (all shiny health) had a marvelous little spooky voice that could comfort and disturb, the shaggy guitarist would add fantastic quirky vocal accompaniment that was strikingly similar to The Pink Mountaintops because come to find out he is their leader!, dark stoner music that is kindred to me and made me want to be a stoner

pure Southern rock: Lynyrd Skynyrd reincarnated, all three of the guitarists had annoying habit of gripping cigarette in lips continuously while playing – too young to act so depraved plus I saw the Christian cross around Jason\”s neck, appealing accent – they\”re all from Alabama, wasn\”t sure I liked them until they proved their guitar mettle, knew Jason was from Drive-By Truckers but was overcome with joy when they did my favorite song from them about staying true to your roots and not singing with a fake British accent, very enjoyable band, have that country singer knack for telling a story

one of my favorite shows ever, I loved this band and love them still, eerie to see the man with the voice I\”ve heard for so many years, incredible variety in their music from slow country dearths to jumpy punk to plain old rock to quirky indie, but always dark, one of the cleanest most professional sounding bands I\”ve ever seen, I want so badly to sit with him on a porch on the California beach, he\”s a wise man, oh and he was wearing a white hoody with rainbow-colored lines across it because he\”s cool like that and doesn\”t care

Hail from New York City and in Austin for SXSW. Lovely deep melodious voice. Country music with mystery. Per Rockboy, lead singer looks like Joe Strummer and Elvis Costello. Sometime noodly, as in My Morning Jacket but with a solemnous sonorious voice. Nice diversity, trippy moments, alt country rockers on acid says Rockboy.

Winsome middle-aged rural Texas girl with all the spunk of her youth — very cute and knows it. Great full throaty voice. Played guitar and used a foot-pedal on a suitcase as the drum set. Creepy guitar partner with yellow hair and a red coat. Lonesome country and then rollicking country. Ended with a Cash Zeppelin medley.

The easiest loveliest voice in creation. Peoples\” chord music from country to croons to lite girl rock. Wise lyrics that made me tear. I just love a good female performer. Purports to be from Las Vegas but web stuff says LA but seems to be from the South. Very tiny and there was something of the annoying precious superstar to her. Watson Twins not worth their weight – couldn\”t keep a beat and one of their voices broke on one of two solos.

Rockboy was all excited about “best show in Seattle” band, she looked rockabilly but sounded as vanilla as Old 97s, the only benefit to this show was that it made me realize how much magic these punk Texans do with their old country, this band just didn’t get it

she\”s from Seattle, WA and her accompanying guitarist may have been from band Whiskeytown, she had long drape of dark hair, would have been annoying drone one-tempo music except her voice was husky and twang-accented and quite gorgeous, her guitaring was rather simple but his was interesting, quite enjoyed despite derision of music store snobs’ table

from Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon-whatever, reminded me of Townes Van Zandt and John Denver, FakeRockGirl said his voice would be like “butta” but the sound in the venue was unfortunately canned-sounding, he sang lyric-heavy crooning songs of despair, they were The People’s type songs but so fucking depressing-I was warned but fresh from my weekend of breakdown I couldn’t cope, it was him too-so obviously fucked up-tic-ing and cringing and shying from the crowd-shadowed eyes-apparently his last show there he freaked out on the crowd, FakeRockGirl’s friend had a “weekend” with him and when he called for requests he turned his head sharply in our direction when he heard her voice say calmly amidst the chorus of calls “Hey, Mark, could you play” and he played her request, the band boys were gorgeous but I wasn’t impressed until I heard they were from my best-name-ever band

the songs I\”ve downloaded cracked me up, they are still appealing (love their homestate of Florida) but are more typical Southern swamp music than I expected, good at it though

MyGirlFriend was bitter and wanted to leave, they’re typical country rockers, sure the lyrics are entertaining, heard three songs

mortifying, they were a watered-down average country bar band, I was jaw-dropped disappointed but they moved me with songs I knew finally, I will still love them but the love will be a private love

had zero fond memories of them but a fun little band, so Cracker, can’t deny their variety, can’t deny the corruptible cuteness of the lead singer, those who like them love them, hated the crowd though, “whatever” I say-quality pop alt country band in basic

good old-fashioned country and soul, made me misty-eyed over Texas and country music’s comfort with hypocritical morality and family values (seriously though), and reminded me oddly that Austin was described as hedonistic (people drinking beer at an early hour like usual)

a singer/songwriter who was purportedly made hard by the addition of Tia Carrera’s guitarists and Butthole Surfers’ drummer, oh my right? And true it was, Tia Carrera sound (“psyche blast”) with lead sounding something like deadpan Rollins or Danzig, appropriate for the music-lead needs to sound a little more comfortable or smooth, lyrics sounded intelligent and audible

Austin’s “finest” of the singer/songwriter overflux, sang song Dixie Chicks made famous, delicate cool earnest woman

love the voice-allow me to call it a whiskey voice, he is my kind of country

GeorgiaPeach pick and it showed, swing country, big bad, very clean, fold-out chairs aplenty, did have a dead-on Roy Orbison voice

really liked her, first variation heard, interesting lyrics, alt-country, attracted the lesbian crowd with her butch haircut, apparently used to be a chef