Pitchfork

There's an enormous banner sporting a bigger-than-life-size Morrissey hanging from the side of a building at the corner of Sixth and Red River. Hipsters pedaling pedi-cabs sponsored by Napster roam the streets. Editors and Ghostface Killah posters have taken up real estate on every telephone pole in site. The sidewalks are littered with fliers, stickers, buttons, keychains, CD-Rs, and asymmetrical haircuts. Gnarls Barkley want you to know that Gnarls Barkley Is Crazy, and they are going to plant that message in front of your eyes so many times you are going to see it in your sleep.

Welcome to Austin, Texas in the middle of March. Welcome to South by Southwest.

If you're the kind of person who likes to complain about how it used to be "all about the music" and now it's "all about marketing," don't come here. Also stay away if you hate publicists, street teamers, A&R reps, label managers, marketers, journalists, bloggers, and Toyota (their Yaris car is being hawked here 'til kingdom come).

But for those of us who revel in the silliness of the pop music business, this is paradise. I've been here less than 24 hours and I've already seen two fantastic bands and spent time with friends I only communicate with through email during the rest of the year. And did I mention the staggering amount of free stuff, not all of it trash?

But enough existential yammering, on to the music.

Field Music were quite disappointing, offering serviceable, if a bit lethargic, takes on their spiky post-punk. Nothing was as sharp as it is on their record--the vocal harmonies didn't sparkle, the hooks sagged. Plus, the Emo's stage was flanked by a pair of mysterious cameramen, who filmed not only every second of Field Music's performance, but every second of the crowd milling about in between acts.

 

Photo: Serena Maneesh

I don't particularly care for Serena Maneesh's album, but then again, I'm not a sucker for anything shoegaze (like so many people I know). So I expected the Norwegian band's live show to be as boring as their album, with lots of staring at the floor. Well, apparently nobody told Serena Maneesh that you're supposed to look like you don't care when you play this kind of music. From frontman Emil Nikolaisen's Hendrix-meets-Stevie Nicks outfit and guitar bashing to the statuesque bassist's awkward pogoing, this was clearly a performance from people who grew up watching metal videos on MTV. Not at all a bad thing! The music was still dull, though, and there was way too much jamming.

 

Photo: Rumble Strips

The Rumble Strips' set at the Blender Balcony was criminally under-attended; maybe everybody was at the "secret" Flaming Lips gig or the Matador showcase. Suckers. What they missed was one of the most exciting new bands in Britain, a twee-ish, post-punk-ish four-piece featuring a trumpet player and a saxophonist and fronted by a guy who yelps like Morrissey gone David Byrne. (It also helps that he's foxy like Travis Morrison.) The Rumble Strips were bouncy and happy and completely unpretentious, and for a half an hour, I loved life and that was that.

The Ark are also bouncy and happy, but they're completely pretentious in the best possible way. Best described as "the Swedish Cheap Trick", these guys dress like hookers and play like they're in a sold-out hockey arena. Smoke machines, choreographed moves, a shirtless frotman in a Scott Weiland hat, a guitar solo played by the guitarist's teeth-why the fuck weren't more people there to see them? When the keyboardist/backup singer hit a particularly low note, the lead singer remarked that the sound "makes the small hairs on my scrotum stretch out to infinity." Could Belle and Sebastian really top that?

Stay tuned for daily updates from SXSW.