Thursday, March 18, 2010
SXSW SXSW: DPR's Day Two [The Morning Benders, Basia Bulat, Warpaint & More]
Posted by D Patrick Rodgers on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 8:01 PM
The plan last night was to catch The Morning Benders, Warpaint and more at Rough Trade's Emo's showcase ... that was the plan. But I broke the first rule of music festival attendance: I got day drunk early on Day One and caught a mid-evening hangover at the very moment I passed some tip-demanding, ragtag-lookin' buskers on my way to Emo's. I made it inside as Canadian folkette Basia Bulat was starting on the main stage and The Dillinger Escape Plan were going strong in the back. As you might guess, post-hardcore and heartfelt, tinny, autoharp-laden folk are not a good combination for one suffering from a premature hangover. And when Bulat's pick-up fell out of the back of her harp -- sending a shrill burst of feedback through the club -- that's when I decided it was time to regroup for the evening.
I woke up with one goal in mind for the day: I was going to see The Morning Benders. They were playing three times today, and I was going to be in attendance for at least one of their sets. After finding Mercy Lounge's Drew Mischke on Neches Street sporting some mysteriously obtained Nashville Scene credentials, I popped into Lovejoy's to catch Turbo Fruits' set. According to the club's posted schedule, the three-piece I found once inside was named The Name -- though confirming this via Google has unsurprisingly proved to be as difficult as finding someone on Sixth Street wearing relaxed-fit jeans.
The Name spoke little English (I think they're from Mexico), and they played a dancey sort of post-punk that sounded a bit like Moving Units with a healthy dose of cowbell a la The Rapture. Remember Moving Units and The Rapture? No? Well, these guys weren't the freshest, but they played well.
Turbo Fruits strolled in at 1 p.m., each of them sporting a handsome and freshly trimmed mustache. The place filled up swiftly as they commenced their eighth performance of the week -- according to the Fruits, they're playing 20 shows at SXSW this week. Twenty! Last year's record for most performances from a band was allegedly 19, and Nashville's favorite blues-punk trio certainly showed no signs of fatigue as they breezed through their set en route to busting said record to pieces. Godspeed, boys! Way to rep Nashville.
After the Fruits, I headed toward Austin's east side -- which apparently is not unlike Nashville's east side in its liquor-store charm -- for an outdoor showcase by the name of Eastbound and Found. Eastbound turned out to be a mini-Bonnaroo-style little fest located in a sparsely populated sort of burnt-out vacant lot. Ume was playing -- best I can recall, they make a Metric-esque style of urgent pop-rock -- and Scene photog Steve Cross and I bumped into The Morning Benders. The Benders were completely cordial, but something told me they'd rather relax for an hour between sets than talking to a scrawny, sun-baked music blogger from Nashville and his four-eyed photographer.
Back across the street at mini-Roo, dream-poppy lady rockers Warpaint were unleashing their skillful, sophisticated brand of mostly instrumental indie rock. Their drummer is most definitely my favorite female rhythmist (word?) since Janet Weiss.
Eastbound featured all of the following: a booth with some befuddled bong salesmen, a totally eco-unfriendly photo booth in which you could sit on and rev a motorcycle and about seven Porta-Potties per attendee. The Tennessean's Dave Paulson and I talked for a bit about the terrors joys of answering to corporate overlords, and then I finally caught them: The Morning Benders. Their set featured tunes from their latest, Big Echo, which is packed with smartly composed, West-Coasty indie pop -- think less-retro Dr. Dog. They closed with "Excuses," a swelling rock waltz that's totally proving to be my anthem for the week.
With that, the misfit crew of Scene/Cream/Mercy Lounge/Tennessean reps headed back to the Driskill Hotel, where I personally staved off my potential evening hangover with a lovely local brew, the name of which currently escapes me. There are great tacos here, but I swear to God, there apparently isn't a single place to buy cigarettes within 10 blocks of my hotel.
So the plan for tonight? Not exactly sure, but Broken Social Scene, Band of Horses and The Soft Pack are at Stubbs, The GZA, Holy Fuck and The xx are at Mohawk. Those sound promising. More promising than the Adam Gold's snoring will prove to be tonight, I'm sure.
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