SXSW DAY 3

You probably can tell by reading these posts that I really enjoy South by Southwest and love coming here.

But sometimes it's not hard to get cynical about the monstrosity the whole shebang has become.

My big SXSW moment of the day was when I was outside of the Yard Dog Gallery, taking a break from the Bloodshot Party and calling my girlfriend on my cell phone. As I was talking with Helen, some wide-eyed kid comes up to me and hands me a CD in a paper envelope. I smile and nod, assuming he'll buzz off.

But no.

He starts giving me the song and dance about the band whose CD I now held in my hand, where I can catch them playing, and so on. I look at the little dunderhead and snap, "I'm trying to talk on the phone!"

The stupid kid is lucky I wasn't the man with the big cigar who could make him a star. Maybe I did him a favor so he won't bother someone who actually could help him. Of course, I thought of that kid later Friday walking down Sixth Street and ever so often seeing a bunch of scruffed up CDs lying among the paper pizza plates and plastic cups.

Oh well, on to the music.


The entourage and I spent most of the daylight hours at the annual Bloodshot Party. We got to see Bobby Bare again, who sang a couple of tunes -- "Detroit City" and one called "The Stranger," which is about a cowboy who has sex with cows. No joke. Bobby also sang an unfinished original concerning adultry.

Other highlights of the party:

The Bottle Rockets did a spirited set, despite the fact that the bass player blew an amp.

Cordero, a new Bloodshot band, was my surprise favorite discovery of the day. I know nothing about this band except they have a talented female singer, a trumpet player, and play a Latin-flavored rock that reminds me of Calexico.

Speaking of big surprises, during The Meat Purveyors' set, a guy standing behind me hopped up for a second on the stage with Cherilyn DiMond, the stand-up bass player. At the end of the song, Cherilyn said, "Oh my God, my boyfriend just proposed to me!

I think her answer was "yes."



As always though, the highlight of the Bloodshot party was those rascally Waco Brothers. They didn't play the last year I was here (2004), so I hadn't seen them since 2002.


This was the best Waco set I've seen in years. It was obvious that magic would be made as many began singing along with "Nothing at All," one of Deano Waco's best angry political songs.

Raw, inspired chaos seemed to be the order of the day. This is due in part to Tracey Waco's drunken highjinx. I'd never seen him this way. Usually he seems like a nice quiet guy. Not last night. He literally was falling-down drunk. At the end of the night Jon Langford said, "Tracey's going straight back to the hotel without his supper."

After the Wacos, almost anything would seem like a letdown. But it truly was a letdown when I learned that soul singer Bettye LaVette cancelled her performance. I'm not sure what her reasons were, but I was disappointed. She was one of the main acts I wanted to see here.


But someone who didn't disappoint was Big Al Anderson. I had assumed that his SXSW showcase would be on the mellow side, which was to support his newly released After Hours, a relatively mellow, sometimes jazzy album.

Instead, Al was rocking, reminding people why he was such an asset to NRBQ. My favorite songs he did were "All You Ever Do is Let Me Down" (a hit for The Mavericks, which he co-wrote with Raul Malo), "It Comes to Me Naturally" and Johnny Cash's "Get Rhythm"(both from his NRBQ days)

The next show I caught was a guy named P.W. Long. He's a fomer frontman for the band Mule, and a favorite of most the guys in the entourage.

He's got a raspy voice, a beat-up guitar and a pissed-off attitude. He's backed only by a drummer -- the basic White Stripes/Black Keys/Moaners/Doo Rag arrangement.

P.W. was fun. But for good rocking rage, the Wacos were still ringing in my ears and Mr. Long didn't quite measure up to that standard.

I ended the evening at the Stan Ridgway showcase. He played with his acoustic trio feature his wife Pietra Wexstun on keyboards and Rick King on guitar. I knew it was going to be good when they opened with a slow spooky version of "Police Call," one of my favorite songs from the first Drywall album.

There was a Tex-Mex version of "Mexican Radio" a crazy romp on "Come on Down to The Barbecue," a strong "Call of the West" (from Stan's Wall of Voodoo days) and a good classic spookhouse rendition of "Ring of Fire."

I'd better get some sleep now or I'll be in worse shape than Tracy Waco Saturday.

SXSW DAY 2

If you were hoping for a thoughtful analysis of Neil Young's keynote speech -- sorry! For the first time in my SXSW history I overslept and missed the keynote speech. Blame it on my blogging.

It was another strong night of music. So strong, after the triple assault of The Fiery Furnaces, The Twilight Singers and The Drive-By Truckers, my delicate ears are still ringing.

The day started off nice and mellow at the party at The Gingerman hosted by singer/songwriter/producer Ed Pettersen and his lovely wife Jane. Truly a class affair with good music, tasty food (including fresh pineapples, blueberries and mango slices) and good friends. (You folks know who you are.)

My new musical discovery there was Andy Hersey, an Arizona cowboy singer (whose music you'll soon be hearing on The Santa Fe Opry.)


Ed played the strongest set I've ever seen him perform, backed by ex Dictator/Del Lord and longtime Pettersen crony Scott Kempner, who also played a solo set.

A funny note: during Kempner's set, a band at the bar next door, began doing a sound check on the outdoor stage -- a loud and insane ruckus that sounded like New Year's Eve in the nuthouse. Scott growled, "I guess it's revenge. I think when when I was a kid growing up, all my records sounded like that to my parents."

The first official SXSW showcase I caught Thursday night was Bobby Bare, making a rare appearance to promote his latest album The Moon Was Blue. His son Bobby Jr. sang background and played some guitar, harmonica and keyboards.

Bare's friendly voice still is in fine form. He played most of his greatest hits -- "Detroit City," "Streets of Baltimore," "Marie Laveau" -- but the stunner was "Are You Sincere" from the new album.


For my next musical treat I chose a jolter -- The Fiery Furnaces.

This brother-and-sister-led band made one of my very favorite albums last year, Rehearsing My Choir, much of it narrated by and centering around stories told by their grandmother.

I had wondered how the group would handle this. I imagined them using the taped voice of Granny Olga. I was secretly hoping for a guest appearance by the lady.

Instead, the Furnances did radically different versions of the Choir songs. In fact, live, they sound much different than their records. The synth-sounds are gone, replaced by a full guitar attack. The results are quite pleasing.


Speaking of favorite albums, Greg Dulli routinely makes my yearly Top 10 lists -- with his former group The Afghan Whigs and his latest one, The Twilight Singers.

He was in excellent form Thursday, playing his dark, intense music. He played some familiar Twilight tunes -- "Teenage Wrist Band," "Martin Eden" -- but much of his set was new material, presumedly from his upcoming album "Powder Burns."

It sounds promising. There was a slow, slinky, almost voodooistic song that I loved,

My only complaint -- nothing from the Whigs songbook.


And then there was The Drive By Truckers, who didn't play any of my very favorite songs -- "Sink Hole," ""Lookout Mountain," "Putting People on the Moon," "Steve McQueen" -- but still managed to pull off a terrific show.

This is the first time I've seen them with their current line-up, which includes singer/guitarist Jason Isbell and bassist Shona Tucker. They also had a steel guitarist sitting toward the back of the stage.

They did some new songs from their new album A Blessing and a Curse but the one that impressed me most tonight was "Cottonseed" from their previous album The Dirty South.

I'm about to pass out. Too bad I don't have any speech to sleep through on Friday morning.

TERRELL'S TUNE-UP: GET YOUR IRISH UP

A version of this was published in The Santa Fe New MexicanMarch 17, 2006


Black 47 first roared back in the early ‘90s, about the time that The Pogues began to falter. It’s always been tempting to assume that this New York band, led by Irish expatriate Larry Kirwin was just running with the torch that The Pogues passed on to them.

But nothing’s that simple, especially when you’re dealing with Irish musicians. While both bands mix traditional Irish music with crazy rock ‘n’ roll, Black 47 can’t be dismissed as a “Pogues Jr.” group.

While not the poet that The Pogues’ former frontman Shane McGowan is, Kirwin is a strange visionary in his own right. In the Black 47 cosmos, elements of reggae, Dixieland and even hip hop are as natural as uilleann pipes and penny whistles.

And Black 47, taking its name from the worst year of the potato famine, has a pronounced political bent. Many of Kirwin’s songs celebrate Irish revolutionary heroes — James Connolly, Michael Collins, Bobby Sands — while many more deal with Irish immigrants and the generations they spawned in America.

Their latest album Bittersweet Sixteen, is both a treat for old fans as well as a good starting place for newcomers. It’s an odds ‘n’ sods (in this case, maybe an “odds and Old Sod”) retrospective including rarities, live radio cuts, a stray soundtrack number from a movie you probably never saw, and a couple of new tunes.

Larry and the boys tackle the issue of war. There’s a funky version of the Vietnam-era Buffalo Springfield hit, “For What It’s Worth,” which plays just before a trilogy of anti-war anthems. “One thing holds true in all wars, working class kids do the fightin’, rich white men in Washington do the sendin’ ” Kirwin tells the audience before the live version of “My Love is in New York,” which is about Vietnam.

The next two tracks, “Downtown Baghdad Blues” and “South Chicago Waltz” both are from the perspectives of American troops in Iraq wishing they were back home.

“Downtown Baghdad” is almost jaunty, with Kirwin rapping in his sing-songy style: “Me, I don’t care much about Jesus or Mohammad/They don’t stop bullets to the best of my knowledge.”
“Southside Chicago Waltz,” is slower, sadder, with uilleann pipes playing a heartbreaking air.
“Sometimes you gotta be bigger than you are stretch upon your stars, reach out for the stars/I hope to God what we’re doing here is right/’Cause I can’t take anymore of these bloody, God-awful nights.”

Later in the album there’s a version of the Irish Republican classic “Patriot Game,” from which Bob Dylan borrowed the melody for “With God on Our Side.”

But just because Kirwin’s against the war doesn’t make him a tofu-munching, aura-balancing peacenik.

Bittersweet Sixteen contains a version of what probably is my favorite Black 47 song, “Forty Deuce,” a sweeping tale of the life of an Irish gangster in Hell’s Kitchen, New York, full of sex, crime, betrayal and revenge.

This take is radically different from the familiar one on Green Suede Shoes. Here it starts out with a crazy wailing bebop sax. Kirwin comes in with a raspy spoken introduction. The sax part evolves into the melody of the instrumental break of the song before the whole band comes in.
The climax of the song has a line that ranks up there with Johnny Cash’s famous words about shooting that guy in Reno.

“I followed Spider Murphy into a church down by Times Square/I blew him to sweet Jesus while he was kneelin’ at his prayers.”

Perhaps the most moving song here is none other than “Danny Boy.” But this is not your father’s “Danny Boy.” Kirwin turns this into an ode to a wild, gay Irish immigrant who in his prime gave homophobes good reason to be phobic of homos. (”...whenever the weather turns damp at least one homophobe has an aching jaw,” Kirwin says of the song in the liner notes.)

But Danny Boy ends up dying of AIDS, After Danny’s last words from his hospital bed, (”Life’s a bitch and then you die,”) Kirwin sings the original lyrics, about a parent bidding farewell to a son who is leaving — off to war? Sailing to America? It’s hard to imagine the original “Danny Boy” being any sadder, but Kirwin and Black 47 somehow pull it off.

(Check out www.black47.com)

Another new Irish treat:

The Essential Chieftains: This two-disc set is a much more honest effort than the single disc compilation from 2002 that was questionably named The Best of The Chieftains. That collection drew from only three Chieftains album (all on Columbia in the late 1970s).

Granted, it would be hard to compile a career-spanning retrospect of Paddy Maloney and his traditional-based Irish ensemble, whose first album was released more than 40 years ago. And judging from what’s missing from Essential, apparently the group’s first several albums were unavailable — assumedly for legal, contractual, why-I-hate-the-music-industry reasons.

(A little Chieftains trivia: The first albums were numbered, Chieftains 1, Chieftains 2, etc. However, between Chieftains 6 -- subtitled Bonapart’s Retreat and Chieftains 7 -- there was another album, Chieftains Live! )

I’ve got a few minor qualms with this new collection. Did the entire second disc have to be guest-vocalist cuts? And if so, why did they leave out “St. Stephen’s Day Murders” (with Elvis Costello) and, if you’re going to have only one with Van Morrison, why use the plodding “Shenandoah,” instead of the celestial “Cerrickfergus” or the sublime “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” ? (Again, I suspect contractual issues.)

Still, I admire the compiler for finding versions of early Chieftains songs “The Women of Ireland” and “Tabhair Dom Do Lamh (Give Me Your Hand).” Both the versions her are part of medleys, and neither are as good as the mid ‘70s originals, but they’re both wonderful pieces of music.

And I was happy that at least one track from The Chieftains in China showed up here. That was an early ‘80s album where Paddy and the lads teams up with Chinese folk musicians to produce some delightfully exotic sounds.

(Check out www.legacy recordings.)

SXSW DAY 1

AUSTIN, TEXAS --What am I still doing up this late?????

It was a long, long day of rock 'n' roll. If this were Sesame Street, the letter sponsoring tonight would be "P" -- in honor of The Plimsouls and the Pornographers -- New Pornographers, that is. Those two bands made what has to be one of the best Wednesday nights at SXSW I've ever seen -- at least since 1996 and Lou Reed played in Austin on a Wednesday. Usually the first night is rather tame. Not this year.

As usual, the entourage and I started the evening at the Guitartown party, which this year was at Mother Eagan's on West 6th Street. Got there just in time to see the last of Tres Chica's set. Tanya Lamm formerly of Hazeldine is in this group.


I was determined to make it to the Frogville portion of the New Mexico showcase over at Las Manitas restaurant on Congress (and determined to get the fajitas and tamales and various other goodies there), so I trotted over there just before Hundred Year Flood started playing.

HYF has a new album coming out in April, and apparently some of the songs they played Wednesday are from it. They all sounded strong. It's been months since I've seen these guys -- they've been wintering in Austin -- so it was a treat.

My only complaint is that the set was way too short. I think they scheduled eight bands in four hours, so you do the math. Good thing most the New Mexico acts -- including some that didn't play Wednesday like Goshen and Boris McCutcheon --are playing Thursday night at Schoal Creek Saloon.


Unfortunately I had to make one of those horrible SXSW choices. Joe West was going on, but if I was going to catch The Gourds over at Mother Eagan's, I was going to have to make a quick hoof back. Sorry, Joe, but I'm sure I'll get to see you before I get to see The Gourds again. I did however snap Joe's picture right as he was going to the Men's Room.

The Gourds didn't disappoint. Unlike their recent show in Santa Fe opening for Ralph Stanley, they got nice asnd rowdy, with Kev Russell playing mostly on his electric guitar. They did a lot of the more rocked out stuff from their new album, Heavy Ornamentals and a version of The Rolling Stones' "Miss You."


After this we headed for Stubb's BBQ, where The New Pornographers played.

It's amazing: Ask the regular Joe on the street and chances are he's not aware of The New Pornographers. Say the name and he'll think it's the start of a dirty joke.

But here at South by Southwest -- which not only draws hoards of music bizzers, but even bigger hoards of music geeks -- they're major stars. They packed the massive backyard of Stubb's.

And rightfully so.

Yikes! Sounds this sweet should be illegal. Neko Case, who in this band mainly sings harmonies behind Carl Newman (and plays the best tambourine this side of Betty of The Archies), but she's indispensible.

On the way out we were all humming "Sing Me Spanish Techno."

We headed down to Sixth Street to B.D. Riley's, apparently a sports bar in real life, to hear one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Ronny Elliott of Tampa, Fla. He played a a solo acoustic set including some of my favorite songs -- "Tell The King The Killer's Here," "Burn, Burn, Burn," "Mr. Edison's Electric Chair" and "South by So What," a sardonic song he wrote after the first time he played the festival in the early '90s.

Afterwards we squeezed into the crowded 6th Street bar called Exodus to see The Plimsouls reunion show. I never got to see this band during their early '80s heyday (I understand they played the late great Golden Inn once back then) But I did see their previous reunion gig back in 1996, also at SXSW.

If anything, they've gotten better. For some reason they started late, so the set was short. But they rocked like kids half their age. Peter Case has gone on to become a respected acoustic singer-songwriter/folkie. But the man's a natural rocker.

I wish The Plimsouls would have played at Stubb's -- a nice big outdoor venue. The Exodus not only was sweating room only, but apparently there's no ventilation there. It was extremely uncomfortable, but The Plimsouls helped me transcend such trivial concerns.

Gotta get to bed ...Neil Young is tomorrow's keynote speaker.

OFF FOR TEXAS

The bad news: No Roundhouse Round-up or radio play lists from me this week.

The good news: I'll be blogging from the South by Southwest music festival this week.

I'm flying to Austin tomorrow morning. Looking forward to some loud music and BBQ.

And I'm going to try this newfangled digital camera to see if i can't bring some exciting fresh rock 'n' roll photography to this blog. (And unlike my btrip to Boston a couple of years ago, I'll try hard not to lose the camera.)

Watch this space! (I'll probably post in the insanely wee hours.)