Pitchfork

Home Blitz [Blind Pig Rooftop; 8:30 p.m.]

"MOOK CENTRAL," my friend Maria scrawled in my notebook as we stood around the Blind Pig waiting for Home Blitz to play. Yeah, that pretty much summed it up: backwards baseball caps, Red Hot Chili Peppers blasting on the sound system, cargo shorts.

These people are in for a big surprise, I thought. Home Blitz's ramshackle garage rock isn't exactly the best soundtrack for macking on that hottie Tri Delt in the spaghetti strap cocktail dress.

Surprisingly, I was wrong. The space didn't clear out when the New Jersey trio commenced their racket-- in fact, quite a few people seemed to be enjoying themselves, and even attempted to dance. I have underestimated you, mooks of Austin, Texas!

Home Blitz sounded just as goofy and dinky as they do on record, with singer/guitarist Daniel Dimaggio acting extra bored and whiny, in a good way. (Full disclosure: Dimaggio and I worked at the Village Voice at the same time a few years ago.) The drummer had the best drum faces I saw at SXSW, at one point jumping up from his stool to lean over the rooftop venue's railing and yell something at the crowds on Sixth Street below.

Still Going / Holy Ghost! [Pangaea; 11:30 p.m.]

Sometimes, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

At 11 p.m., I was poised in the front row of the Cedar Street Courtyard, ready for Neon Neon's set at the Indie 103.1 FM Los Angeles showcase. I love Neon Neon's debut album Stainless Style, and I was excited to see how Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys and soundscape architect Boom Bip would pull it off live.

But then a bunch of scruffy dudes took the stage, and they most certainly weren't Neon Neon. The girl next to me said that the schedule had gotten mixed up, and Neon Neon had played at 10 p.m. Here now to entertain us were the Deadly Syndrome, a deadly boring L.A. scenester band.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Consulting the handy SXSW guide, I realized that the Cedar Street Courtyard was just around the corner from Pangaea, that douchey bottle service dance club where I'd seen Robyn the night before. The DFA/Metromix/GBH showcase was in full swing, so I thought I'd stop by to check out recent DFA signings Still Going and Holy Ghost! before heading to the Perez Hilton party (more on that shortly).

Despite its previously documented shortcomings, Pangaea has an excellent sound system, perfect for the bottom-heavy mix of diva house and minimal techno that Still Going were spinning when I arrived.

Everything was going just fine-- a good mix, a dance floor that wasn't too crowded-- until Still Going handed the decks over to Holy Ghost!

Then this happened:

And this:

That's right, Pangaea employs its own go-go dancers! And it let a pair loose on the DFA showcase, positioning them on either side of the DJ setup, right next to those enormous DFA banners. The floor filled up real quick. DFA artists aren't particularly known for, um, blatant sexuality, but all of a sudden, well-crafted experimental electronic dance music had a whole bunch of new fans.

A word about the dancers themselves: they were really good! These ladies could move, and in ways I personally have never been able to contort my body. I was mesmerized, and not in a sexually attracted way. These were master craftswomen at work.

So hats off to you, girls. I hope they pay you well.

Chester French [Palm Door; 2 a.m.]

So yeah, the Perez Hilton party. As Tyler Grisham just mentioned, the swag and beverage offerings were pretty swank, and there was a hairstyling station. The crowd was pretty much what you would expect, mostly people who look like you've seen them standing in the background on "The Hills" at some club where Spencer and Heidi are having a fight.

Much has been made of Perez's influence in boosting musicians' careers, and while it remains to be seen if he can translate buzz into significant sales, the dude really does seem to genuinely love the artists that he champions. He stood right next to the stage for every performance at his party, singing along and rocking out. Which is quite a feat of stamina when the performance in question came from one Chester French.

Chester French are a duo of recent Harvard graduates discovered by fellow alum Rivers Cuomo and signed to Pharrell's Interscope imprint Star Trak.

They are beyond terrible.

Playing their third show ever at the Perez party, Chester French sang songs about girls who wear Jimmy Choos and girls who require you to use protection when having sex with them, because their sexual pasts are suspect. The latter song is apparently Chester French's debut single, and it comes in a package shaped like a CD-sized condom. D.A. Wallach, the Napoleon Dynamite-looking frontman pretending to be a sex god, threw a single into the crowd with such alarming force that when it hit me in the arm, it left a bruise.

Seriously, look at these guys! Look at them! Ack!

N.E.R.D. [Palm Door; 3 a.m.]

Providing a nice palate-cleanser after the stank of Chester French, "surprise" celebrity guests N.E.R.D. took the stage at 3 a.m. to the craziest, most packed crowd I experienced at SXSW. (Pardon the lack of good photos, I was fearing for my life.) Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo, and Shay were joined by a fierce live band that tore through "Lapdance", "She Wants to Move", and new single "Everyone Nose".

When I'd last seen a N.E.R.D. performance, back in 2002 when their first album In Search Of… had just been released, it was clear that this was a studio project, and the Neptunes were far more comfortable behind a bank of equipment than in front of an audience. But six years later, these guys are bona fide rock stars.