[Houston, TX] From the outside, the club was a warehouse without a clear entrance, which I uncomfortably discovered as I walked from one end of the building to the other three times while two small groups of cold and mean hipsters stared on without offering help (possibly an exaggeration). The inside of this place was uncomfortably like the interior of a house, and uncomfortably guarded by a very mild mannered soft spoken ‘‘door man.’ The actual bar (once you got past the ‘scary’ door man) was all backwards and unprofessional too, with only a handful of beers and an old-fashioned cash register (I made that part up but you get the picture). I remain unsure whether this is some weird aspect of Houston (I’ve ran across coffee shops with similar qualities) or if it was due to this night’s gentle lineup – the venue is supposedly a metal club. I’ll believe it when I see it. This place was so straight, there was a girl doing quad stretches at the bar. I except the girl with Janelle Monae hair, which I never get tired of, from all of these criticisms. I was also hugely comforted by the long bearded scruffy sound man, whom I sat next to on a plastic child’s chair against a wall in the back. Anyway, Idyl was comprised of an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, an upright bass, and a violin. The lead singer had a very pleasant voice – so familiar but I couldn’t quite place it – maybe Jerry Garcia or the guy from Hidden Cameras – that generic average-guy good voice. His guitar was familiar like that too – some 60s/70s folk guitar style – clean and breathy – maybe Gordon Lightfoot – I just don’t know which annoys me. There were potentially religious undertones in their music: “the girl who divides water into wine.” In sum, all of the parts of this band were pleasing, but as a whole, they didn’t move me – there was some disconnect in their sound, in that they didn’t have a sound. I think they have potential though.

[Houston, TX] I remained discomfited by the exceedingly genteel crowd, but this band comforted me to a certain extent. Their members pretty much explained the people in the audience who had been of visual interest. They were a spare sort of semi-dark folk, which is a genre I love. Great fiddle, minimalist keyboard, heavy drums, and some echoing backup. The lead singer (of course, one of the mean cold hipsters who had shunned me outside, with his little moustache) was poetic and convincing. It turns out the lead singer was in a dark folk band notorious in Houston: listenlisten – this is him quieted down. I really liked them.

[Portland, OR] We only saw his very last song but we enjoyed him very much. The list of people he has played with is impressive. He is emphatic about not being a one-man band but kind of is, though not in the cheesy way. He reminds me of Nick Cave. He’s gothic folk, maybe punk. One review described him as scary but I liked him right off – with his dark sarcastic air.

[Portland]: I’m not a huge fan of the House of Blues chain, so this was a nice change of pace – small minorly hipster bar that provided me with my first sparkling wine in a can ever, with a straw attached, enchanting – they also had lots of posters for Coathangers shows, which is a band I tried and failed to see at previous SXSWs, and it turns out they’re from San Diego and frequent this place –it turned out that the majority of the audience, at least initially, was the other bands – this band made me nervous at first glance, Oregon oatmeal, very earnest – they were a guy on guitar singing and a redhead on a cello accompanying him with some “woos” – I ended up really liking them – the guy was a soulful crooner (a la Buckley) – they had great melodies, sounding like Iron and Wine or Mumford & Sons sometimes and more plucky at other times – the rhythm and vocals were solid – the redhead cellist was fascinating – she was very youthful with her long red waves and no makeup but I suspect she’s a black-humor feminist under it all – she’s drama personified – her playing was really good, providing bass and slaps – she gave them a Loreena McKennit quality – they reported later in their show that they were usually a five-piece and were having to make up for the missing band members – they were unique, beautiful , sincere and joyful

The Whites are a family band, three sisters, pa and a couple of backing musicians. They played an old folk song and two others that allowed the four to mix and match their harmonies. They bantered joyfully with some folk from the UK in the crowd but it was hard to tell if the family on stage even liked each other. Maybe a long overdue episode of Behind the Music.

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.

hippie extreme setting: barefoot, dreadlocks, doing rope tricks – Rockboy was very bothered by this but I was more bothered by the lackluster music – a woman and a man trying to kill whatever life was left in singer/songwriter music – she whispered along to her dull guitar strums – he livened things up a bit with some nice backwalking riffs – I’d like to say it was because the sound was bad but I’d be lying- we left before their set ended

old school banjo from a very old man – stoic

We were pretty skerred to see our first music in Gunnison but they weren’t too bad – of course, the dobro player is our neighbor and a potential coworker – band consists of him (in his 40s) and four college kids – two sweet girls and two bored-looking (or cool-trying) boys – they played Americana of all sorts – their first song was a cover of a song from an Austin band sigh

The Chapin Sisters can harmonize. They can belt it with the best of them (including Zooey Deschanel). The best of their opening set was Let Me Go which crashed over the crowd like a tidal wave. The worst was their set closer, a creepy song Digging a Hole, which transformed them from Cinderella to the evil step-sisters.

That She & Him (Zooey Deschanel & M. Ward respectively) are darlings of the indie circuit is without a doubt. A sold-out all-ages show at the House of Blues Boston and an audience that was down with the duo’s plush, folky arrangements was all the proof necessary.

The first half of the set was rough. Deschanel seemed to have somewhere else to be and rushed through a dozen tracks in nearly as many minutes. They were pitch perfect, sounding just like the album and it was so disconnected, I might as well have been listening to the album. Great studio tracks like Lingering Still and Black Hole came off lacking any sort of warmth. Deschanel channels Peggy Lee like nobody’s business. Waid played his slide guitar with a bottle of Sam Summer, and just about everyone took turns on the keyboard at one point or another. With the Chapin Sisters providing background vocals – and a stellar backing band – it should have been anything but boring.

To be fair, the sound at the show wasn’t great. The backing vocals were hard to hear except when they shouted and given the talents of the Chapin Sisters, they weren’t given much to do anyway. The energy from the stage was lackluster at first and the audience was attentive the way you would be watching television. But it wasn’t until they sent away the band that the remarkable attraction between Deschanel and Waid was apparent. And then sparks flew.

A three-song solo set just She and Him, including a gorgeous duet on Smokey Robinson’s You Really Got a Hold On Me, changed up the energy of the show and proved why people love this band. After that, even with the band back on stage, the entire template for the night shifted. Deschanel seemed to have warmed up, and the audience warmed up to her. Hearing Waid’s unique, muscular vocals was a treat (shame he waited to the last song of the night to take up a lead vocal on a rollickin’ Roll Over Beethoven). They rocked out once or twice too, notably on their singles – a spastic, thumping version of In the Sun and an enthusiastic run through of This is Not a Test. Everything worked better in the second half, including a playful interlude during Sweet Darlin’ where Waid and Deschanel played the same keyboard simultaneously.

The show ended on a proper high. It was a shame they couldn’t capture that energy from the start, but they got there all the same.

She & Him setlist
Black Hole
Thieves
Over It Over Again
Lingering Still
Take It Back
Home
Sentimental Heart
Change Is Hard
I Thought I Saw Your Face Today
Brand New Shoes
You Really Got a Hold on Me
Would You Like to Take a Walk?
Magic Trick
Gonna Get Along Without You Now
In The Sun
Don’t Look Back
This Is Not a Test
Riding In My Car
I Was Made For You
Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
Sweet Darlin’
Encore
Fools Rush In
Roll Over Beethoven

[San Luis Obispo, CA] no mystery here: boys in plaid shirts and worn jeans from a coastal California town playing party-time jam band country – I would assume, with my own prejudices and on the basis of the row of fancy guitars that outnumbered the people in the band, that they’re well off kids “dropping out” for a bit before they become well-respected businessmen – they were fine musicians but just ordinary, singing songs about 12-pack time instead of 9 to 5 time – amusing part was the guy, who after dozing on the side of the stage before the show, transformed into the band’s showman, jumping into the crowd and then playing from the balcony like a wicked evil badass

[Portland, OR] beautiful, some sort of Irish flavor, complicated and sophisticated indie folk

[Toronto, Canada] singer/songwriter with a piano – her voice is nice but doesn\”t bring a lot else to the music like inventiveness, passion, etc. – like I told her, SingingSociologist is worlds better – Basia\”s got more of a world-folk sound on MySpace and I think she might not have her full band with her for SXSW since she was only (I think?) accompanied by her piano

I loved this show and so did the crowd -I think this band is basically the foundation for slam-grass and the gypsy punk movement – impossible not to dance to a rowdy accordion – and then the old Irish ballads communicate a sense of warmth and companionship – although not always the vocalist, Shane McGowan was the center of the show – the band wouldn’t be half as interesting without his slurred snarling vocals – having just watched the movie biography of his life (Should I Fall From Grace), I was firstly amazed that they were charging so much to see a man who was such a high liability for not showing up or not being able to perform and secondly felt a kinship with him like I kind of knew him – I figured he must have sobered up if they were touring like this – not a bit – his spoken words were so unintelligible (partly because of his accent but mostly because of intoxication) that a band member would translate what he was saying for the audience – funny and horrifying all at the same time – like the irresistible draw of looking at a car wreck – he frequently left the stage between songs and progressively relied more on the microphone to hold him up – despite all of that, his singing was mostly on target-it was disturbing or touching that his band members accommodate him as he is so that he can perform and that his fans almost celebrate his self-destruction – part of his mystique – oh and he’d gotten his first set of false teeth recently but didn’t wear them to perform. someone said the movie about his life should be shown to kids to terrify them into sobriety – “hghgthzzz” as Shawn would say

a lot of prep work went into this show: discussion, watching of the biography, etc. and it made it all the more exciting to see the actual 77-year-old man walking down the little aisle – the charm that won him 5 (plus?) wives is still apparent – he just opens his mouth and amusing folksy tales pour out, that’s his “ramblin’” part – the names of celebrity pals were dropped left and right (Kris Kristofferson, Woody Guthrie, etc.) – he’s a good guitarist, trained by Woody Guthrie and acting as mentor to Bob Dylan eventually, as informed by the movie – he doesn’t write too many of his songs and talked about the person who wrote each song before playing it – style ranged from bluesy to Guthrie-esque to Townes-esque folk-country – overly-delighted fawning middle-aged crowd that is typical to the Cactus Cafe – the downside was that Jack was struck with allergies or a cold and his voice kept getting scruffy to the point that he eventually cut his second set short – his first set wasn’t even that long -RamblinBoy reported that he actually played more songs than what he did in Marfa the weekend before possibly because he didn’t have enough of a voice to chat too much – we got to talk to him on the way out after waiting out a very old hippie who actually had a twig sticking out of his hair

I was annoyed at first with their youthful self-important casual-hipster postering. They were basically gypsy-punk-lite with a folky-campfire bent. If they were being serious, they started the band when they were biking to Mexico and Canada together and “are still friends.” The vocalizing and music was intentionally messy but the 8-band-member choruses were engaging. I was especially charmed that their second song was “Daisy, daisy, give me your answer true.” Some of the band members were of questionable talent (spoon guy), but some had former band geek potential.

The Indigo Girls came to Boston for a brisk two-hour set that covered their career of classic tracks and the full breadth of their new album Poseidon and the Bitter Bug. The Indigo Girls have polished their performance to the point that their songs stand as a testament in their own right, even stripped of all the flash of the full band performance like on the heavenly version of The Wood Song. Backed only by Julie Wolf on keyboards, accordion and vocals, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers scorched the stage with their trademark vocals and gospel harmonies. The crowd embraced old and new songs, lending their voices to Power of Two and an enthusiastic rendition of Closer to Fine (one verse of which was given to opener Lucy Roche who couldn’t compete in personality or stage presence with Ray or Saliers). The highlights included a jam on Shame on You that brought the crowd to their feet, and the live debut of the scorching ballad True Romantic to lead off the encore.

Indigo Girls setlist
Love of Our Lives
Sugar Tongue
Fill It Up Again
Dairy Queen
Power of Two
Driver Education
What Are You Like
Reunion
Run
Yield
Get Out the Map
Shame On You
Fleet of Hope
Moment of Forgiveness
Digging for Your Dream
Ghost of the Gang
The Wood Song
Second Time Around
I’ll Change
Land of Canaan
Closer to Fine (w/Lucy Roche)
Encore
True Romantic
Galileo

I’ve seen her before in The Knitters – suppose I developed an affection for her because of Rockboy’s minor obsession and because I am fascinated by people who traverse from the world of punk (X) to the world of country (The Knitters) – the crowd was a lot of late-middle-aged men with badges. ech – Exene looked ancient – maybe 60? – she had attitude in abundance in demeanor and speech but her music was just blah – singer/songwriter with a slight country-folk twang – we left for hotter waters

I arrived on time to one of my favorite minor music venues in Austin – an excellent little music store that convinces excellent musicians in town for bigger shows to do short acoustic pre-shows at 5pm right in the store. I am a fan, what with the early hour and the free beer. This show didn’t bode well with an anomaly of a line bending literally three blocks around the store – usually it’s me, some normal people, and then the regular sketchy types there for the free beer. I found parking, jogged in high heels optimistically up to the line, and picked an average girl to ask: “Is this line for Andrew Bird!?!” in a tone appropriately laced with disbelief and disdain. She turned and concurred, just as a guy with a camera, documenting the ridiculous crowd, was yelling to the line that they were at capacity and we could all leave… But I was busy recognizing the girl’s face – I know some multiple hundreds of people younger than me (former lives of teaching middle school and TAing undergraduates) and usually can’t place them beyond the face. I briefly considered flight and feigned non-recognition, but some tenets of bonding in our former life together and a sudden welling of her name made me say it… And she looked as mortified as I felt, as I realized that she was a former middle school student of mine (much worse prospect than a former undergraduate), and here we were, at the same place, with the same goal, three years later. We exchanged niceties. I fretted about the damned low-cut shirt I’d found myself in today. Imagined the tales she would have for her-classmates/my-former-students the next day… My point is, if you haven’t heard of Andrew Bird yet, mark my words, you’ll be hearing about him soon enough.

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

Catie Curtis brought her phenomenal singer-songwriter talents to Natick for a homecoming performance of sorts. The Center for Arts in Natick is an intimate stage to play on, where the artists just walk into the room and on to the stage. Accompanied by Kevin Barry, who has played with Paula Cole and Mary Chapin Carpenter, Curtis opened with waggish Slave to My Belly and masterfully ran through a two-hour show that covered many of her most popular songs and new ones from her upcoming release Sweet Life.

In the folk tradition, Curtis peppered every song with commentary, random stories about herself and her family and life as an artist. One story was about a sign on a church bathroom stall door that said “Please flush the toilet behind you.” Sure, it had nothing to do with the song that followed, but nobody in the audience minded even a bit. She explained a name change of the track Are You Ready to Fly? from the new album was because people weren’t taking in the wistful meaning of the original title Teenagers Jumping off the Bridge.

She had her rockin’ moments, notably Kiss That Counted and her softer side, a gorgeous cover of Emmylou Harris’s Red Dirt Girl. Lovely was a track that, as she said, “she wrote in the 20′s” and would have easily fit as a big band tune (or Cole Porter for that matter). Other tracks from the new album, out September 8, The Princess and the Mermaid and Happy were standout moments in an otherwise impressive showcase.

A request from the audience for Dandelion made her react in surprise, “Really?” but she gamely played the song. Towards the end of the night, she played a song for parents of teenagers, Don White’s Be Sixteen with Me. Another request Magnolia Street bookended her main set paired with the doleful Hard Time with Goodbyes.

The encore was two songs. The first, the exquisite Love Takes the Best of You was introduced by Curtis taking requests then concluding “I’ll play a song you’ve never heard.” She finished with Passing Through which ignited a soulful impromptu audience singalong on the chorus.

Chris Trapper strapped on the guitar and launched into a 45 minute warm-up for Catie Curtis with the heartfelt Letter to the Middle of the World. Armed with a raspy, unpolished voice and slight stutter, the lanky performer quickly warmed the crowd to him, wrapping each song in a story. Boston Girl was written after spending a year on the road, about the comforts of coming home. Birthday Song was his answer to singing happy birthday to an audience member. And Wish I Was Cool was every geek’s high school reunion song.

His set transitioned smoothly from folk balladry like Starlight to more uptempo numbers, the best of which Boston Girl left huge smiles around the room. Sure, most of the songs were about that special girl but his awkwardness and utter sincerity made the delivery of each wholly charming.

this is not who played (Carousel Lounge!), was a lone middle-aged cowboy with a posse of three young girls and more of a moody rock aura than country, struck me as a singer/songwriter whose songs you know are good if only he had a band backing him and somebody who could sing except that he could sing, he had an unimposing scruffy whining voice, especially liked him because he incorporated so many sounds: jazz, country, swing, rock, gypsy, surf, his rebel songs were kind of embarrassing because I just didn’t buy it

one of the more recognizable names on the set tonight but they were horrid, one song was too much, mealy-mouthed country rock, maybe it was the lead singer that annoyed me in his teddy bear beardedness and casual-conscious hippie-folk wear – for example on their MySpace page each band member is referred to as “Brother so and so” and “Sister so and so”

the name of the band pretty much sums it up though I wasn’t paying enough attention to give them a fair review, remember a bearded young man and gentle dated music, they describe themselves as “experimental country”

good voice, so typical I was lulled to nap

pill bottles on tables to be used as shakers, self-diagnosing name tag stickers to pick from, sweet and clear sound, unabashedly corny, obvious politics, blah old-school political lesbian act, saccarhine sweet to top it off

Susan wrote Wide Open Spaces for the Dixie Chicks, young-looking middle-aged long-haired gruff blonde, liked Shelly King who left early the best, obnoxious boy accompanying and dominating-standard sensitive singer/songwriter fluff, discovered that MandolinWoman calls s/s “folk,” discovered that I love Americana/country/whatever to the extent that it is driving music, I like the peoples’ chords too, thus there was Tom Petty, I am aware this is despicable

rowdy and sweet Irish music and then blew us away with some kind of prog-rock craziness, astounding violin player hooked up to a whammy pedal, drum and violinist competed for ferocious fastness, a jam band really, many many references to alcohol and rehab

lots of variety but all lame and flat, weird blend of drugs and religion references, obviously a recovering addict who was probably better when he was an addict

love them, Dave Matthews/Police, lead has a man’s voice in this little little boy body, he’s a mainstream philosopher-i.e. he still has hope, refreshing, every song enjoyable, will be amazing as he ages