[sxsw] A great 8 from Wild Flag

In the better late than never department, this is the first of what I hope will be several posts highlighting some of my favorite moments at SXSW.

First up: Wild Flag, ubiquitous at this year's festival, playing 8 (eight!) shows over four days. Here's what I love about this band: It's not simply the Sleater-Kinney/Helium/Minders pedigree. It's that they manage to combine the best parts of those former bands. There's the punky riffs & energy of S-K combined with the off kilter song structures and guitar parts of Timony's projects combined with the poppy backing vocals of the Elephant 6 affiliated Minders. It's hard to imagine the whole being greater than the some of its parts when the parts are so damned talented, but Wild Flag achieve that. They're scheduled to record an an album shortly for release later this year. Having now seen them three times (once in Boston and twice here), I can say with some confidence that it will be a contender for record of the year. Their songs are that good.