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

for some reason, I remembered this band as sounding like The Slits but they don’t and they didn’t so I can get over that disappointment – they’re pop punk at best and 90s pop alt-rock at their worst – they’re from Australia – they’re not bad but get tiresome, especially with the lead singer’s need to constantly promote her personal image of a life-embracing free-spirit hippie-punk – although I did enjoy her description of having to clench her vagina to hold on while sitting on the shoulders of one of the audience members – is Australia more sexually liberal than the US? – she rode the shoulders of this white Mr. T in order to swirl her ribbon in the middle of the crowd in burner fashion – the awkward Mr. T was forthwith smitten and the most engaged member of the audience and the first to the merch table after the show – otherwise she was all pretty smiles and engaging friendly banter – of the same school as all of the bands that have “clap” in their titles and the joyous-thrash neo-new-wave bands – her jumpy performance made it clear why they opened for The Go! Team the first time I saw them – the more moderately happy guitarist did an impressive and thorough job with the soundcheck, I thought – there was a bearded keyboardist – my favorite though is the drummer: she’s a little awkward curly haired school girl with round eyes and when she gets going on the drums, her eyes glaze over and she smiles vaguely at nothing like a bobblehead

totally chanced upon this show and were surprised it wasn’t more hyped and more crowded – I had a clear vision of the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys since I was a girl and Jello was not that man – he is a middle-aged tubby slightly flamboyant (although straight per google) loud opinionated man – this is his new band and I don’t know how extensively they tour or if they even put out CDs – they were great – I heard punk-metal but Rockboy insists just hardcore punk – although he leapt around the stage like an angry fairy, he was backed by two scary-and-mean-looking metalhead-type guitarists, 1 stoner boy guitarist, and a drummer – the songs were prefaced and followed by political ranting from Jello – most of the songs were also explicit references to political issues close to Jello’s heart or residence, such as working in the dot.com industry in northern California – I don’t like songs that deal with such specific political issues, not timeless and kind of cheesy for some reason – Jello came out in a weird pinkish sack of a jacket but removed it to reveal a shirt made from an upside-down American flag and removed that to reveal a black t-shirt and removed that to reveal his 50-year-old belly – he’s an astonishing performer – in addition to bounding around the stage and singing ferociously in his unmistakable theatrical voice, his face was constantly contorting to further get his message across and he was a remarkably good mime – I wasn’t always sure what he was acting out but it was precise – a unique performance – when they finally played “California Uber Alles” and “Holiday in Cambodia,” it was very very exciting

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

complex and sophisticated music that was possibly based in Afro-pop or new wave but verged into prog rock – absolutely inventive – lead vocalist/guitarist communicated musical genius to me and I fancy he wrote the songs and what with his crazy guitar skills he couldn’t help but throw a little prog into the music – his voice was also very good something between Antony and the Johnsons and Elvis Costello and Paul Simon – he was usually accompanied by three female backing vocalists who created a fabric of sweet noises that went from an ethereal drone to a’cappella to screaming – sometimes they would juxtapose their harmonizing almost in a beat boxing fashion so that it created a synthy sound which was amazing – departures from the general sound included the beginning of the set in which the lead guy used an electric guitar in a singer/songwriter style, when he accompanied the black-haired female vocalist in a very pretty jazz vocal, when the entire band would bend over at the waist and incongruously thrash to finish a song (just made me giggle), when the bass guitarist brought out an upright bass which added a jazz feel again to the music, and when the blonde female vocalist took over the stage in a liltingly funky M.I.A.-like song – in other amusing sidenotes, the band generally engaged in anti-cool posturing with the lead guy wearing two massive cardigans, the bass guitarist in an old-school sweatshirt that had some witty saying on it that I forget now, the black-haired vocalist in a plain black t-shirt with a little necklace, etc. etc. – there was also a drummer whom I’m sorry to say I could not see at all

WomanInCharge, true to form, didn’t invite me to this show (Dirty Projectors) but told me I was going… this band was darling darling darling – smiles washed over the crowd – had the stage presence of Matt & Kim: happy clean jumping dancepunk – the little girl with the long hair in a barrette and the green eyelashes painted under her right eye was fierce and inflamed with a voice that reminded me of Grand Ole Party and maybe CocoRosie – her compatriot guitarist with the 70s fluffed hair matched her energy – lots of drums, a keyboard, a whaw pedal, occasional trumpet, sometimes a saxophone – a synthy disco rock inferno – maintained hyped up stage presence until it was certain that the audience had been saved – they almost outshone the headiners

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

we were dubbed number one fans without our consent – they were supposed to go on at 9pm, at least in my head – they were supposed to go on at 10:30 or 11pm, at least in their head – they didn\”t go on until 11:30pm but in the meantime they were a little too excited that we were the only non-band-members there at 9pm and the few of about 10 non-band-members by the time they went on – most every band member shook our hand and we were given t-shirts – and it turned out the recommendation I\”d seen for them at Waterloo was posted by a buddy who works there – this all made me suspicious but they were kind of excellent – the first song was so terrible I almost left immediately but the 2nd was a dramatic turn-around into funky short guitar riffs and stiff drum beats a la Gang of Four – I remain most suspect of the lead singer\”s unimpressive quiet complaint of a voice but the sound system was among the worst ever so it\”s hard to say

a motley crue for sure and Austin no-names but I thought they were great – a happy-dad keyboardist, a stringy haired lurching ex-hippie lead singer, a punk kid on bass guitar and a slick-guy drummer (smelled like a “session drummer” to Rockboy) – their music reflected these disparate influences – some blend of a garagey, punky, post-punky rock – lots of energy too

everybody wanted to see them at SXSW and nobody saw them – they were three very young girls from Brooklyn harmonizing in a pleasantly monotonous almost atonal fashion – not what I expected but it was an acoustic set so can\”t really judge – maybe a little pretentious in the Yo La Tengo way with their disregard for hitting the right note – the flatline melodies were intentional and while the FrustratedPhilosopher found it to be obnoxious hipster posturing, I found it comforting – created a pleasant drone – they were described as surfer girls which made me like their sound more – they were also described as having opened for Jay Reatard (awwww) and Sonic Youth which did not at all fit their sweetie sweet vibe