[Lake Charles, LA]: 2 guitars, accordion, drum, and a washboard (that is, a metal vest with ridges hanging from a guy’s neck). They were zydeco with rap and rock stylings. Intent on keeping the crowd hyped. And I guess it worked, because an old white guy near us was doing air-washboard.

[San Antonio] At least ten members – guitars, vibes, fiddle, etc. etc. They were Balmorhea (instrumental rock) but not as engaging, or more benign. They are a high quality, good looking band with a lot of potential. Nowhere to go but up.

[Chicago] The pretty blonde lead singer has that deep voice that somehow squeaks at the same time – reminded me of all those British soulsters that are so popular right now. She carried herself like a proper superstar too, which I mean as a compliment. The backing music (all sorts of people and instruments) was kind of tropical and had elements of ska sometimes. Rich, unusual, high quality. The whole band is also unusually attractive, not that that’s what’s important Listening to their online stuff – there’s a lot more dub than I realized – good band!

[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.

[Austin TX] This band was the reason I was there. I don’t recall if I became interested in them because the WiseOne recommended them, or because they were linked to Godspeed You, or just generally because of their increasing notoriety right before I left Austin. I just know I intended to see them for a full year, never did, and decided their appearance in Houston was a ‘sign.’ The comfort of anonymity was shook by actually running into two of the ten people I know in Houston: the SexyLibrarian and the BeeryPhilosopher. Luckily they’re two I quite like. The opening bands had been a bit of a drag – the venue was just odd – but Balmorhea was everything I’d hoped for and more. Entrancing. I think it is incredibly hard to make instrumental non-vocal music engaging but they do it. They’re not as dark or eerie as Godspeed You, which puts them at a greater disadvantage as far as my ears are concerned. But I stood there waiting to hear what was coming next. There was something of Phillip Glass to them – the same mood. They’re brilliant musicians but it’s more than that – it’s the magical evocative combination of their sounds – I think they’re amazing.

I’m not sure I can adequately describe how much I loved watching Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys perform. The music hints at some kind darkly lit industrial folk tale ala the real Brothers Grimm’ The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids where the wolf eats all but one. But their songs are backlit with a perverse joy and it comes out sparkling and LOUD during their live performance. You have band members weaving through the audience playing their instruments. You have funky costumes – some ironic, some wayward – and as a band, they wander the stage like a traveling circus. Through it all, Walter Sickert anchors the performance pounding out strong melodies and baying these fierce, fuming lyrics and damn if it doesn’t come off as revelry.

The songs during the thirty-minute set were taken from SteamShipKillers released in 2010. Although Sea Song was their ode to love and opposition to hatred and bigotry, it was Feathers, (with the gorgeous vocals of Jaggery’s Mali Sastri) that really struck home to me. It was a haunting and visceral performance. They closed the set with a fantastic call and answer Off With Her Head. Half the audience shouts “Off” and the other half shouts “Head” and behind the cacophony, the band plays on. Utterly brilliant. Utterly captivating.

Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys setlist
No Room
A Friend in Goddamn
Sea Song/Love and Marriage
Feathers (with Mali Sastri)
Off With Her Head

Jaggery, only a trio for tonight’s performance, is fronted by the exquisite vocalist Mali Sastri. Their sound flirts with a lot of musical styles, but there’s an attractive cohesiveness to their music. Sastri is a wailer and her control is phenomenal. A stripped down version of Jaggery, featuring Rachel Jayson on viola and Tony Lava on…well everything, still pulled off an impressive soundscape. The songs are part lullaby, part siren’s call. It really paid to stand back and let the sound wash you clean. Nate Greenslit from Bury Me Standing kept a beat with handclaps on the last song.

[Chicago] This was a clean clubby sort of venue – with framed photos of rockers on the walls. It fit the unusually professional website (which I have to admit I enjoyed very much – clear details on each show’s start time…). Lots of young kids… There was even a mom there to monitor her kid’s moshing. The enthusiasm of the crowd did make up for the sterility of the overall atmosphere. For instance, 40 year old punks do not hop through entire shows. Jackets forecast the quality of the show, and Crass, Subhuman, etc. jackets forecast that I will like the show. And I did. The drummer playfully teased the crowd about their Texas pride, joking that the only thing they need to get rid of is Cici’s because all that pasta holds people down. I’ve never heard of Cici’s. They started with bagpipes. They had an electric mandolin. They played like a well-practiced band – clean and hard. They inspired the crowd into rambunctiousness, and encouraged the audience the mentor the more shy members in punk ways. Mosh pits are a happy thing – everyone rubbing up against each other – communal anarchy – who doesn’t like to see a punk smile? I also enjoyed watching the exploits of a dignified girl in a t-shirt that read “DrinkSmokeFightFuck.”

sigh… I think I’ve had this epiphany before but I re-epiphanized tonight… I can recognize the genius in the music but that doesn’t change that it’s just not ‘my music’ and will never resonate with me like it probably does with todays’ youth – so I report to you as a numbed-adult observer –it’s that dreamy chime-y music that devolves into harder rock every now and again – very Dirty Projectors – a little Paul Simon – the guy had the strut of an avant garde thug but the music was mostly very pretty – Rockboy heard Vampire Weekend with 70s punk which is a pretty apt description

Bitter Ruin is the reason I go to concerts. To have a musical duo blow you off your feet from the first note and keep you suspended in time until the last strum of the guitar is why I go to live shows. To do that as complete unknowns is a minor miracle.

From the heavenly harmonies between Ben Richards and Georgia Train to the haunting melodies, their songs transcend the music two people should seem capable of achieving. Even with a certain amount of theatricality, songs like Relief and Soldier shone in their right. The best of the night was the simple A Brand New Me which had the strength of stirring musical number and kept the audience hushed until Georgia sang the last note.

Referred to somewhat obliquely as just Georgia and Ben, the former has a voice that is out of this world, the latter is a pretty stellar vocalist and guitarist. Together, they make an outstanding duo. Georgia is the kind of person that could sing the ingredients on a shampoo bottle and people would perk up. But the fact is that Ben kept up with his harmonies all the while turning his guitar into a one man serenade. The opening act was a rare one that felt like their time on stage was too short.

Side bar, however Amanda Palmer keeps finding these exquisite musical acts to open her shows, she needs to keep it going forever and ever. In fact, she should start a circus and invite all her former opening acts to take part.

[Dublin, Ireland] average-joe middle-aged guys doing very enjoyable raucous rock that was a mixture of U2 and Irish pub songs

[Lafayette, LA] they made me smile big when I saw them open for The Dirty Projectors with WomanInCharge and they were as delightful this go around – Afro pop hyped up into an organized dance frenzy – talented musicians and so happy and in love with their music – they might be faking it but I\”m a believer

[Los Angeles, CA] this band was at the top of both Rockboy and my\”s list and we were not let down – traditional Cambodian pop vocals backed by psychedelic jazz rock – a great concept well executed by a very appealing band – I was especially a fan of the extremely tall man on bass guitar and the long-bearded man on guitar – the band had a charming air of authenticity and exotic mystery, with the men dressed like shabby serious musicians and the little lead singer in a cheesy but quaint Vegas call girl outfit: short black dress and black stilettos, both of which had diamondy attachments – they even managed to make throwing piles of glitter during key points of songs genuine and naïve rather than contrived

[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

one of the first bands I ever saw in Austin and I never forget them, they played a cheesy club downtown and made it more interesting than it actually was with their eerie and romantic Middle Eastern wailing, they set the crowd to dancing this time

Austin\”s own Man Man. I came specifically to see this band, whom I\”d always remembered from a chance sighting at an Eastside art show years ago. And they\”ve grown from a ramshackle three-man band to an organized orchestrated eight-member-band (accordion, washboard, guitar, drums, upright bass, trumpet, clarinet, and violin). A motley crue in a good way. Definitive gypsy punk with some touches of Irish bar ballads. Irresistibly danceable. Their energy and showmanship is coupled with genuine musical talent – the music was accompanied by yells, yodels and jigs from the band members. The best moments were the clarinet player tooting an upswung clarinet with left hand while pumping his right hand, the washboard solo, covering a The Bike Band song when half of the members of The Bike Band were in this band, and the accordion player calling out some scientific word to describe them playing a new song they hadn\”t played before. They have the potential to be an Austin favorite for me if they don\”t disband because of other interests.

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.

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.

this band was my favorite from a wealth of SXSW fantastics and I was even more impressed this time, some bands strike the personal chord and this band is one of them for me, the singer\”s voice is a tremendous creening wail and the fiddler fiddles like a mad genius and the whole band has the fierce energy that sets a crowd to dancing without their full consent, the drummer was on top of his drumset several times, they paint traditional bluegrass/country-type-songs black and then hype them up with a gypsy punk undertone, inspiring as recordings and even moreso live

the favorite show of the year the first time we saw them but they were a little messy today, instead of white suits they had on white t-shirts because it was hot, they know how to put on a show: they started off with a drum circle of their band members, then it all got kind of crazy and our accompaniers wanted to move on, still think they\”re better punk-gypsters than Gogol Bordello

the fantasmous band, all hoppy and Charlestony with the 7 foot man in short pants as their lead singer, they\”re not meant to play outside – better in an old bar with wooden floors!

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

Luminescent Orchestrii gypsy rock music with international influences. Four performers guitar, violins and bass that rocked out to mostly foreign-language tunes that ranged from a Yiddish waltz to old French folktale. Sxip Shirey, who jammed a variety of guitar parts, also acted as the MC for the night. Their performance was part jam band, part Bar Mitzvah band, a touch of tango, beat boxing and a heck of a punk attitude. All four took vocal duties at various times. The two ladies, Rima Fand and Sarah Alden, handled most of the harmonies and bassist Benjy Fox Rosen only lead on the mic was on in Yiddish. The energy level was otherworldly.

The band brought out Dresden Doll Brian Viglione for two numbers, and Meow Meow and Lance Horne could be seen waltzing in the background.

Meow Meow opened the show in the audience, making her way in full winter gear (with luggage) to the front of the stage, taking an assist from the house crew to get on to stage. She then proceeded to introduce herself and undress, one piece at a time, with the help of men from the front row. Sitting almost dead center, I was asked first to help her out of her winter coat while she talked to the audience holding her mic. It was challenging because she was wearing mittens and I was trying a) to not touch her inappropriately and b) not pull her mittens off with her coat.

After depositing her jacket on the stage, she asked me to help her out of her pants. Yeah, I admit, I thought she was kidding. She bent over in front of me and then turned and asked, “Have you ever undressed a woman before?” Then she bent over with her head around her ankles. I grabbed the zipper, without ever touching her body, and then was urged to pull down on both sides of her pants to bring them down around her ankles.

At which point, she continued to struggle out of items of clothing with other people in the front row. “The male dancers usually do this,” she told the crowd while wrestling out of a vest.

She asked on lady to be her mic stand. Then, she got not one, but two members of the audience to snuggle with her on stage while she performed. She later corralled a third person out of the audience after he shouted at her about something. She said something to the effect of “It’s really easy to be shouting out when you’re in the dark” before she got them to raise the house lights. So three people draped around her (and she continually moved their hands around so they were touching her rather intimately.)

Her entire set was only one song. She was accompanied by keyboard player Lance Horne (an accomplished musician in his own right.) It was cabaret and opera, mostly in French. She wailed and belted and crowed and engaged the audience without ever missing a beat. When she wanted the help of someone in the audience, she would admonish them “Quickly!” and even once switched to German, “Schnell!”

Finally, calling out to Horne, she asked how much time she had left. “I have to get through one song. It’s on my contract.” After determining there was 5 minutes left in her set, she decided she had enough time to crowd surf. She started out on the other side of the stage but decided that half the audience wasn’t a good bet and came over to our side.

I’ll admit, I still thought she was joking. Even after helping her out of her knickers, I guess I should have known better. She made a grand show of it, even asking to young men in the third row to fill in a gap so that she could make it passed the first few rows. Then she leaned out and “floated” (term used loosely) her way to the back of the house, all the while, gabbing with the audience and finishing the tune.

As remarkable as that fact was alone, even more unbelievable was that for most of her crowd surfing, she was sitting straight up with her legs split. The crowd supported her (mostly) all the way back to the stage where she collected her things and departed.

a fantastic polka-infused band in the style of Gogol Bordello and Man Man, frankly the sound is too unique to be occurring in so many bands without sounding like another rip-off, but still enjoyable, don\”t know if they were actually immigrants from the poor country or no-style punks

Supposedly keeping southern Indian traditions alive. Supposedly gypsy. Lots of really tiny musician guys. Obvious romantics, good musicians, didn’t move me too much.

from Philly, insane geniuses, in style of gypsy punk Gogol Bordello but better

dull middle-aged man parrothead rock

pregnant and soon returning to Europe to live with German lover she met in Prague, can she be any more exciting and vibrant?, her music is more world/Mediterranean now, excellent chello player, she’s too actress for me

another CD I should have bought years ago as recommended, they are amazing, from indie to mariachi, will have to suffer and be a latecomer

made me long for my beloved mambo CD