Friday, March 20, 2009
Posted at
03:00
by
Michael Brodeur
Faraone is still out at that ungodly Red Bull Moon Tower party 10 taxi minutes away (an epic distance in SXSW terms). Whoever was on the mic in the background was hollering state fair style, and a heavy throb beat the fuck out of every other syllable he said. I’ve just returned from an unsuccessful attempt to jockey a cab to hustle over to the suddenly announced (or belatedly realized) 2:30 a.m. Monotonix show at the Ballet across Congress. (That puts CMJ on the board with one point.)
Heart-mincing stuff, guitar-lust-wise—especially considering the last thing I’ll hear before laying my pretty head to rest tonight will be the (admittedly satisfying, but still) wanktastic stylings of Ben Harper, booming from the Stubb’s amphi-tent-thing across the street from PHXxSxSWHQ. (Trans: An apartment we blog and pass out in.)
Until then, this video from an earlier show in Austin will have to do. Oh I just ha-ate myself right now.
(And that’s not even SXSW frenzy happening there. That show was in October. Have you seen this band? Anyways...)
On the more constructive (or how about less destructive) side of the spectrum, one K’Naan thrilled the tote bags off of a caught-unawares roomful of NPR listeners at the soothingly voiced network’s showcase at the Parish this afternoon. A cohort in beer finishing neatly and correctly commented that the first couple of songs were “a little too Arrested Development”—but it was an issue with not nearly the staying power as K’Naan might find. An often rapturous mix of antique Somali jazz, (undistractingly) posi hip-hop, and a successful resin hit of reggae (he recorded his album at Tuff Gong after all). He had moving words on the declining safety and welfare of his hometown of Mogadishu (which of course, all the NPR listeners already understood quite well but thanks anyway K'Naan) and led what felt like the entire room in a singalong of a couple lines about growing up stronger that bloomed into a hot set-closing funky ass climax.
I don’t know why I didn’t expect the Dirty Projectors, who followed K’Naan, to be as astonishly awesome as they were, but they were. It’s been a while since I’ve last seen them perform it seems. As Dave Longstreth’s spindly figures cracked out his amp, and as his voice neighed and hollered, leapt into quivering falsetto, and plunged into croony mutters, his trio of female backup singers laid a thick, even coating of reassuringly present but highly woozy harmonies—somewhere between a group incantation and a chorus of radio girls from the 40s singing their call letters. Check out the trippy alternation of live and recorded vocal hoots that start and end this number—drink-droppingly crazy. Oh: and check Nat Baldwin back there on bass. (We are so in heart with him.)
(Side note. The first day I was here, I wondered why so many dudes were rocking those stingy-brim fedoras and rolled up bandanas around their necks. Durr, I thought to myself. Today, after a second afternoon of practically macing myself with little rivulets of salty sunscreen born of my forehead and rolling downward, I own a stingy brim fedora and a bandana. Let me beat you to the punch: Yes. I know. Gay.)
