Like yesterday with the Coathangers, today with a band I'd never heard or heard of before, Brooklyn, NY's Suckers. The four piece band (drums, bass, guitars, keys), playing on a kind of deck/patio party in the afternoon, summoned vaguely Animal Collective-y vibes—sounds smearing together, choral vocals echoing and indistinct—but with deliberately harder crescendos, the drummer pounding like a machine, the guitarist punching a floor tom with his fist, nearly knocking it over. It was pleasant sounding, and those choruses were fun to watch, but after one listen, nothing sticks in the mind too sharply. Maybe worth checking out again live or on record, though, seeing if anything takes.

The longest line of the day, and of the festival so far: Daniel Johnston's daytime show at Radio Room; that line was crazy long. Commenter rk says the show wasn't even any good:

And biggest disappointment Thursday: Daniel Johnston. Yeah, I know the man's an Austin legend and all that, and yeah the crowd went apeshit, but come on, be serious. Massive pot belly, in stained tshirt and dirty sweatpants, needs the lyrics to his own songs right in front of him the whole set, only played guitar himself on one song and flubbed it badly, pretty serious Parkinson's disease tremor, and kept apologizing for 'not practicing' before the show. If it hadn't been for the decent backing band, it would have been a total mess. Honestly, even legends should know when it's time to retire.

Caught Memphis, TN country rockers Lucero just in time to see them play their country-fried version of Jawbreaker's "Kiss the Bottle," chorus at halftime, singer Ben Nichol's ragged drawl backed by session-smooth guitars, organ, and drums. That song which was just born to be redone in the roadhouse style, being as it is a sad sack lonely man drinking song, about "kiss[ing] the bottle" when the singer "should've been kissing you." After the song, Lucero singer Nichols repeated, "Jawbreaker," to the applauding crowd, giving due just in case the crowd didn't know. Inside, Brother Reade was sporting the Most Stoned Looking Percussionist I have ever seen: a dude playing some maracas or shakers, eyes drooping, mouth fixed in a dazed grin, head lolling around like a bobble-head doll. The many-membered band played an appropriately stoned but ably held together brand of funk, with Spanish vocals, and lots of percussion. Nothing spectacular, but well groovy enough to soundtracking drinking afternoon Tecate. They ended their set marching out through the crowd (to the bar) led by a conga player and chanting a chorus.

Hold Steady were, like the Hold Steady always are, awesome. The festival atmosphere really flatters these guys, and the feeling seemed to go both ways. They played "Sequestered in Memphis," with its chorus of "subpoenaed in Texas" and its closing refrain of "I went there on business," a perfect anthem/alibi for SXSW (we're all down here on business, right). They were playing to a packed patio crowd with lots of folks clapping and singing along as Craig Finn spazzed out, grinning and gesticulating wildly in his usual, adorable way, while the band churned their songs out with seasoned professional ease. They played "Navy Sheets," during which a girl went crowd-surfing in sandals, something you don't see in Seattle too often. They played "Banging Camp," "Cheyenne Sunrise," "One for the Cutters," and "Chips Ahoy" before I decided to duck inside to catch No Age.

No Age were the loudest band of the fest so far. I came in just in time to catch drummer/singer Dean Spunt asking Austin if they were ready to fuck shit up, after which he launched into maybe my favorite song of theirs, the scathing anthem "Teen Creeps." Randy Randalls guitar—echoing, distorted, looped, and clean—sounded great on the big stacks, but Spunt's vocals were clipping all to shit (presumably how he wanted them), and man can cipping sound bad on a big-ass sound system. Despite that, though, I thought they kicked ass. I realized watching them that I know all their songs, and I know all their song titles, but I have a hard time drawing connections between them—because the vocals are so blurred in the mix, I mostly remember melodies and for whatever reason it's harder to connect just a melody to a name. Still, I believe they played (not in this order) "Miner," "Eraser," "Cappo," "Sleeper Hold," and "Brain Burner." They started one song with a loop of distorted guitar stabs sounding out a tango rhythm. Spunt introduced another saying, "Let's live a little. I feel good. I feel great." When the sound guy told them they had time for a couple more songs, Spunt kind of snapped back, "I'm throwing the party later, I think I can run into my own shit," and then proceeded to play like five more songs, including one new one and one in which Randall did a little crowd surf with guitar. That new song really reminded me how much similarity I hear between Spunt's vocals and those of Doug Martsch of Built to Spill (I might be totally off here, but something about the straining tone of his voice just reminds me of Martsch). As always, a great show from these guys.

Next, cut across town to (finally!) see the Pains of Being Pure at Heart for the first time, arriving just in time to hear "This Love is Fucking Right!" floating up the street from the patio stage as I rushed to get inside. I've gushed about the band here before, so I'll spare you any labored introductions, but let me just say they easily lived up to that early appreciation and anticipation. They were every bit as shy and nerdy onstage as you' hope, keeping the banter minimal, saying that they looked up to headliners Matt + Kim as "everything a band should be and everything good in the world" (it's weird to think of any band young/new enough to look up to Matt + Kim like that, but okay). They played library romance "Young Adult Friction," with its coy double-entendre refrain of "don't check me out." They played the swoony, sleepy-head's love song "Come Saturday," with its heartbreaking line about, "who cares if there's a party somewhere/we're gonna stay in" (one of these days, I might dig further into why that line kills me, but let's say for now that sometimes I wish I was/had been better at staying in). They played "The Tenure Itch," their song about a student/professor tryst (collegiate!); they played a new song called "103," which they joked was the number of showcases they were playing at SXSW (they really are playing like a dozen or something). They played "Everything With You" and album closer "Gentle Sons."

It was a short set, but it was so, so sweet. The sound was maybe not great—there was practically no definition to either the guitar or the keys, such that certain notes or melodies that were crystal clear on the album were just a smudge live—but I am enthused enough about their songs to forgive any lackluster mix. And the vocals were perfect, and even the indistinct blurriness had a kind of evasive, feinting charm. A friend of mine, who's seen the band twice at SXSW and who used to work in marketing, doesn't like them at all, and says he thinks it's all just a great marketing campaign. I don't know what kind of marketing campaign they've run—I just got their promo cd like any other, and even stupidly let it sit idle until after the release date—but I think they have a hell of a product that pretty plainly speaks for itself (not that I intend to shut up about it any time soon, though).

Across town again to post up for this year's other hype-darling, Wavves, and Max Tundra, playing a patio/parking lot overlooking the freeway and a gas station. Before them, though, caught a few songs from Danish outfit Casiokids, aka The 5 Next-Whitest Boys Alive. The band apparently has two types of songs: synthy, cowbell-driven dance jams; and fey, choral pop numbers. Both styles are highlighted by their goofy, mugging keyboardist, who looks a bit like a grinning Chris Kattan in a black Prince Valiant wig (it must have taken them all of one show to decide to put that guy up front and center and the lead singer to the side). They played a song called "Darling, Will You Marry Me Twice," by Ivor Cutler; they apologized for a wonky start to another song by saying they hadn't slept for 50 (?) hours and that they were "over-tired." They were cute, and the dance jams were fun (and similar in sound to moments of last night's Shout Out Out Out Out show), but nothing too memorable.

I reviewed Wavves new album Wavvves in this week's issue, so you might wanna read that before moving on here. Wavves mastermind Nathan Williams is short and very young looking, with died black skater bangs flopping out from under a baseball cap; he took the stage and asked the soundguy for "as much reverb and echo on my vocals as you can give me." He asked someone to "use your drink ticket to get me a beer." He played backed by a drummer, guitar running overdriven through a full size guitar cabinet, and their sound was remarkably clean and clear compared to the tape static and clipped fuzz of the album (if he recorded an album that sounded more like his live set and less like farting into a boombox, it'd be worth the hype). The songs are simple fun punk pop numbers, with Williams sliding power chords up and down his guitar and backing up his monotone lead vocals with falsetto backing vocals. He opened with "Beach Demon," with it's downer chorus about "going nowhere." He explained that Wavves was playing "953 showcases, so this might be a short set" (take that, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, with your measly 103). He chugged a beer and burped into the mic, with maxium echo and reverb. (From inside, a hardcore band could be heard growling; I think I caught the word "establishment" spat out with considerable scorn.) People compare Wavves to No Age I guess (and Times New Viking, which makes a little more sense), but something about his adolescent themes and delivery reminded me a little bit of Japanther also. He played a few more songs from his self-titled album, the highlight of which was, live as on record, the rippin', insanely catchy anti-anthem "So Bored" (still stuck in my head this morning).

As much as I love the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the best set of the day easily belonged to British electro pop weirdo Max Tundra. His solo set up included three keyboards (for the nerds: a Juno-D, a Yamaha CS-01, and a Casio VL-1), a glockenspiel, two kinds of melodica, a toy microphone, a real microphone, a guitar, and a thumb piano. He warmed up/sound-checked by dashing off melodies from Foreigner and Van Halen, asking the sound guy multiple times to turn everything down in the monitors and take the echo/reverb off his voice. He launched his set with the pop genius of "Which Song," which was one of my absolute favorites of 2008. He sang and played keyboards, fluidly improvising, over a backing track; and when he had his hands free for even just a beat or two, he would jerk his body and fling his arms about in high spazmodic fashion (did I also mention that Mr. Tundra, who has an erudite British accent, is a tiny, tiny man?). Contrasted with this bad/amazing dancing, was Tundra's pitch-perfect R&B crooning and pretty dazzling keyboard playing. He's also funny. "This is the first concert I've ever played where I've been completely aware of current gasoline prices," he said, looking out over the crowd at the lit-up gas station signs across the street.

He played the stuttering, ebullient micro-sampled pop song "Orphaned." He played the outre R&B ballad "Lights" ("the colors of the lights in my studio are the same ones you conjure in my mind"). He played his "indie pop hit single" "Will Get Fooled Again"; a couple crusty dudes had hopped up on the side of the stage and were doing goofing an Tundra a bit by dancing funny, but Tundra, during an instrumental break out-danced the fuck out them, after which security gingerly removed the guys from stage. On any given song, he cycled from keyboard to keyboard to guitar to melodica and back, always just on time over his own confusing, off-kilter backing beats. He played "The Entertainment," with its cutesy verse about shooting Maya Deren student films in Manchester, it's big trancey synths chorus, and it's climactic declaration, "I was born to entertain." Proof. "Who here remembers old rave?" Tundra asked, before launching into his cover of the KLF classic "What Time is Love?," playing the jacking synth hook on melodica and then keyboard. He instructed the crowd to "turn to page 32 of your hymnals," pulled out and opened a notebook of his own, and then sang and played keyboards to a version of the Sound of Music song "So Long, Farewell," bidding us all goodnight.