[sxsw phlipcam] Yuck @ Mohawk

There was a moment, standing on line outside the Mohawk in Austin Saturday afternoon, a hahhard but extravagant Day 3 of #SXSW, where I wasn't too sure I'd get inside to see UK gazers YUCK, and well, really didn't care. The place was PACKED, a result of TV On The Radio playing the venue's outside tent, the same spot I think I saw MSTRKRFT several morning hours earlier. I had caught the last two Yuck songs in a drunken haze of pint glass screwdrivers the night before at badge-only Kiss & Fly, so I felt like I scratched the itch well enough and thought maybe time was better spent catching something else instead of waiting around forever.

Fucked if I'm not glad I stuck around. I somehow squeezed into the tiny inside room at Mohawk, slowly wedging my way forward, and caught most of Yuck's set -- a messy, distorted, beautifully orchestrated mess of reverb and sonics that felt like an early-90's alt-rock jackhammer was blasting my dome like the old Maxell cassette mix tapes I once feverishly made in middle school. By now, you've heard the comparisons, with much debt to our city's scene two decades ago -- Dino Jr, Pixies, Dando's mean streak; touches of Sonic Youth, Lush and Pavement -- but until every band trades back in their keyboards for guitars, we'll take it. 

By far my personal "Band of SXSW 2011," sit back and get lost in a dreamy college radio daze with 8 minutes of boulder rock gold, which closed out their set.