Jan 29
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+)
Oct 30
Alt-Country, Bluegrass, Rock and Roll No Comments
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 
Jul 21
Alt-Country, College Rock, Hard Rock, Punk No Comments
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
Mar 20
Alt-Country, Indie Rock, Pop No Comments
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
Mar 20
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
Sep 19
Alt-Country, Glam, Indie Rock, Singer/Songwriter No Comments
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
Sep 19
Alt-Country, Indie Rock, Singer/Songwriter No Comments
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
Sep 19
Alt-Country, Americana, Folk No Comments
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
Feb 10
Alt-Country, Hard Rock, Psychedelic, Trance No Comments
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
Nov 02
Alt-Country, Southern Rock No Comments
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
Nov 02
Alt-Country, College Rock, Punk, Rock and Roll No Comments
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
Mar 16
Alt-Country, Prog Rock, Psychedelic No Comments
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.
Mar 15
Alt-Country, Americana No Comments
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.
Oct 24
Alt-Country, Modern Rock No Comments
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.
Aug 24
Rockboy was all excited about “best show in Seatlle” 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
Nov 11
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
Nov 07
Alt-Country, Blues, Outlaw Country No Comments
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
Sep 19
Alt-Country, Southern Rock No Comments
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
Sep 19
Alt-Country, Outlaw Country No Comments
MyGirlFriend was bitter and wanted to leave, they’re typical country rockers, sure the lyrics are entertaining, heard three songs
Aug 19
Alt-Country, Blues, Singer/Songwriter No Comments
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
Jul 23
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
Dec 21
Alt-Country, Country No Comments
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)
Sep 20
Alt-Country, Hard Rock, Singer/Songwriter No Comments
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
Sep 20
Alt-Country, Folk, Singer/Songwriter No Comments
Austin’s “finest” of the singer/songwriter overflux, sang song Dixie Chicks made famous, delicate cool earnest woman
Sep 19
Alt-Country, Outlaw Country No Comments
love the voice—allow me to call it a whiskey voice, he is my kind of country
Sep 19
GeorgiaPeach pick and it showed, swing country, big bad, very clean, fold-out chairs aplenty, did have a dead-on Roy Orbison voice
Apr 19
Alt-Country, Rock and Roll No Comments
really liked her, first variation heard, interesting lyrics, alt-country, attracted the lesbian crowd with her butch haircut, apparently used to be a chef
Apr 18
Alt-Country, Americana, Bluegrass No Comments
jammed at campsite next to us, excellent, fun, young boys of diverse (not bluegrass) backgrounds and it showed, need to see perform or maybe not, maybe saw in their element
Apr 18
Adult Contemporary, Alt-Country, Rock and Roll No Comments
kind of Sheryl Crow and then drifted a little into less colorful music, liked her overall, wild and laidback, relatable
Feb 03
Danielle Howle and the Tantrums was a great find. Their southern rock sensibility were on display with a vibrant energy of the entire band. Howle does most of the song writing, and her lyrics are a weird mix of literal and unconventional poetic images. The band was promoting their new album “Do a Two Sable.” Which is what exactly?
by Andrew Marx and Dara Shifrer
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