One week Austin, Texas with 2,000 bands and the ears of the world tuned in

PJ Harvey and John Parrish played songs from their upcoming album

Every year I fly to Texas for SXSW, the annual music festival and conference, and have the greatest, most exhausting week of my year. It’s a long, bleary-eyed and ear-blasted week that I am amazed I actually survive. Why do I do it year and out?

I do it for the rock.

Here’s my scorecard for 2009.

News of the new

When originally launched in 1997, SXSW was intended as a showcase for emerging, independent acts well outside of the commercial mainstream. Twenty years later, with millionaire arena acts there to flog the latest version of Guitar Hero—well, not always so much.

That’s not to say there weren’t plenty of great young acts to be found.

Top of my list was London singer/songwriter Frank Turner, who made the rounds of day parties and showcases, including a short set for Billy Bragg’s Jail Guitar Doors charity, which ended with him busking in the street after being cut short. Turner will invariably be compared to Bragg, perhaps for good reason: his punk background; cleverly worded songs about politics global, social, and personal; and his unmistakably English tone in voice and subject. Still, Frank Turner is no mere Bragg copyist. His perspective is current and fresh, his songs crisp with lovelorn angst and portending a loss of youth and he has a conviction where he plays and sings every bit like you can tell he means it.

Proving sometimes you have to leave home only to realize how great your own backyard is, our nearby neighbors in the north, Hamilton, Ontario’s Arkells—who up to this point I’d only heard of—completely set the pace for the Thursday night show at Cedar Street Courtyard with an amazing bill that included Sam Roberts Band, Delta Spirit, Black Lips, and the legendary Primal Scream. On stage, Arkells proved they deserved to be there. I saw a quartet loving every minute up there while running through a clutch of songs from their late 2008 record Jackson Square (Dine Alone). That album showcases an irresistible balance of songs that rock but are rooted with enough deep and keen pop sense to make you remember when you’d hear new stuff this good all over the radio.

Portland, Oregon’s Blind Pilot, led by Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dobrowski, were a band whose name was on many lips following a series of performances that highlighted their uniquely rich acoustic blend of dreamy Americana, swirling psychedelia, and eloquent lyricism. Then there’s Florida boys Fake Problems, who proved to be a real deal of raucous Social D and Against Me! sorta punk with a slight country grit and certain Southern punch.

Bastards, brothers, and hazards

The festival’s opening Wednesday night featured one of the best bills of the week in the backyard venue at BBQ joint Stubbs, when Cincinnati’s buzz-worthy outfit Heartless Bastards tore through a lean and mean 40 minutes of indie-friendly blues rock, with singer/guitarist Erika Wennerstrom proving she has the chops and poise to be an arena rock goddess. Then the string band folk punks the Avett Brothers—readying the release of a Rick Rubin-produced 2009 album, their first for American/Columbia—gave a typically jaw-dropping performance and showed signs of even more growth: an impressive feat for a band already boasting an incredible range. The night was closed out with Portland, Oregon’s the Decemberists premiering their brand new record Hazards of Love (Capitol), a gloriously sprawling concept epic dipped in heavy parts folk, prog, baroque pop, and buzzing rock.

Frank Turner plays in the middle of Sixth Street.

Also in debuts

Polly Jean (PJ if you please) Harvey and John Parrish played an artful, subdued show consisting of their forthcoming record A Woman a Man Walked By (Island), due on March 31.

We’re waiting…

Artvoice-adored Austin singer/songwriter Pink Nasty, a.k.a. Sara Beck, and her band performed a pair of shows early in the week primarily showcasing material from her third album, which she promised me she would finish before 2009 was through. I’m holding you to it…

De-evolution regained

There was a lot of ballyhoo about a “surprise” small venue set from Metallica during SXSW. When it happened, there were at least 3,000 people who simply did not care.

Why? Ask the simple question: “Are we not men?”

When it got out that the legendary art punk vanguards Devo would be bringing their revolutionary music, philosophy, and red energy dome hats to SXSW 2009, spud boys and girls across the globe rejoiced. When it finally came down to Devo’s Friday night headlining slot at Austin Music Hall—across town the same night as Metallica—few were left disappointed. Devo de facto leaders Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald V. Casale—along with their founding member brothers Bob Mothersbaugh and Bob Casale, and joined by new but traditionalist ace drummer Josh Freese—performed a set that included brand new tracks like “Don’t Shoot, I’m a Man” and “What We Do” from their forthcoming record and classics like “Gates of Steel”, “Whip It,” “Mongoloid,” and “Peek-A-Boo!” among others.

With a live show marked by precision and power that almost any younger band could wish for, along with a sharp sense of humor and hipness that doesn’t show any signs of wear after more than 30 years, the band that once proclaimed to be “through with being cool” is cooler than ever.

Even Devo’s elemental man-child mascot Booji Boy (falsetto Mothersbaugh in a rubber mask) was there to close the night out, singing a show-stopping rendition of “Wonderful World,” brandishing a truly unique “guitar,” and then barraging the crowd with smiley-faced super balls. This year will see the ninnies and twits eliminated as we all will all once again be Devo!

Monotonix refigure what "People Crossing Ahead" means

Never too old to be psycho

Yes, they are all as old as my dad, but groundbreaking garage rockers the Sonics, like the aforementioned Devo, have lost nary a beat nor bit of edge over the years. Ripping through “Have Love Will Travel,” “Pyscho,” “The Witch,” and “Strychnine,” these guys from the 1960s are now well into their 60s but still totally awesome. Standing in front of me was Stone Roses/Primal Scream bassist Mani, appropriately rocking out.

Also back from the long gone

File under: “Another band I never thought I’d see.” Postpunk stalwarts the Homosexuals were in action as main Homo Bruno Wizard and a pickup band tore through many of this under-appreciated band’s catalog featured on Astral Glamour (Hyped to Death) the career-spanning three-disc set from 2004.

Buffalo bound: positivity, freak scenes, and more

If I could pick my most surreal moment of the week it had to be a packed floor of Texas minivan moms, clearly high on EVOO-laced hors d’œuvres, shaking their asses to “Banging Camp” not long before Craig Finn was onstage thanking Rachael Ray. Yes, the Hold Steady played the Queen of Yum-O’s SXShindig. This was only one of the three times I caught the Hold Steady—arguably the best band on earth right now—and each show has been better than the next. Your chance to see them in Buffalo is this Wednesday, April 1, at the Tralf. (See also: this week’s See You There.)

Legendary alt.rock trio Dinosaur Jr. tested the sound limits, as they always do, with several festival sets. They come to town April 6 at Town Ballroom.

Other incoming to Western New York who made a showing in Austin are Two Cow Garage, the twangy antecedents of Dinosaur, who play April 3 at Mohawk Place. Memphis, Tennessee rockers Lucero and trippy New Jersey outfit Titus Andronicus play April 14, also at the Mohawk.

How to end it all

No one closes things out like the rock-band-as-riot-makers called Monotonix from Tel Aviv, Israel. Part MC5, part acrobatic troupe, part hair farm, and all anarchy, the trio known for setting their drum kit up in the middle of the crowd climbed, jumped over, and were lifted by their fans through every inch of Austin’s Mohawk Patio in the final hour of the festival. They brought the crowd of hundreds into the street. Singer Ami Shalev climbed onto a street sign and jumped into the crowd before calling it quits. SXSW was indeed over after this.

For more pictures, comments, and rambling about Donny Kutzbach’s trip to SXSW go to his AV music blog, Record Needles in the Camel’s iPod.