
Exactly one week ago today was Georgetown Carnival, aka Best Street Fair In The City. I wish it was once a month, 'cause it is fu-uh-uh-un. All photos by Fedora el Morro. More after the jump, and see her whole set here on Flickr!


On Sunday night the Gossip played a totally free show at the Moore with Capital Cities, Twenty One Pilots, and Willy Moon. It was presented by Yahoo! and fans had to RSVP to get into the door. Photographer Heather Schofner was there to capture Beth Ditto in all her greatness.
All photos by Heather Schofner.

In honor of their upcoming album Champions of Breakfast, our friends, the non-stop hiphop, snap crackle pop punks Don't Talk to the Cops are challenging anyone with an Instagram (everybody's getting those, you know) account to a BREAKFAST CONTEST! All you have to do is post a photo of your best, most creative breakfast with @donttalktothecops #ChampionsOfBreakfast.
The winner gets a copy of the new record, DtttC cereal, a T-shirt, and a button pack! Also, have you seen this poster?

This report, from the 2013 Austin Psych Fest, by former Seattleite, Stranger contributor, and photographer Victoria Renard...

Founded by the Reverberation Appreciation Society which include members of the Black Angels, this past weekend's three day festival marked the sixth occasion to bring together psychedelic musicians—both legends and newcomers. This year, APF took it a step further and brought bands from around the world. Tinariwen, from Mali's northern Sahara region, play a guitar-driven style known as assouf which translates roughly into "loneliness," "longing," or "nostalgia," or to paraphrase the words of an unknown nomad "everything that lies in the darkness beyond the light of the campfire."
Coincidentally, this year's Austin Psych Fest choice location, the Carson Creek Ranch, allowed festival goers to camp on-site for the first time ever. Located just three and a half miles from Austin-Bergstrom International, it probably made for little sleep, but having a gargantuan commercial aircraft flying closely overhead every 15 minutes added a unique dimension to the otherwise serene setting alongside the Colorado River. To keep things even more interesting, a central Texas springtime downpour, accompanied by wild flashes of lightning, delayed Brazilian Tropicália musicians Os Mutantes by 45 minutes, and turned the ground to oatmeal on Saturday night.

The use of the word "black" in band names prevailed this year with performances by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Black Mountain,
The Black Ryder, Jennifer Herrema's (Royal Trux) band Black Bananas, and Sunday night headliners and festival organizers the Black Angels...
So much more, after the jump!
...CHASTITY BELT!!!

Chastity Belt play tonight with Street Gnar, Massenger and the Memories (all three are Burger Records bands) tonight at the Rendezvous. Also, Massenger (who share a drummer with La Sera ) make delightfully perfect pop songs and are not to be missed.
Photo tipper submits this photo and says:
I don't think they will protest again tonight as the police moved them along last night...

Holy Ho-Mo! 'Mo-Wave totaled 33 bands, over three days, plus theater and a visual art show (which you can still see, through May 4th.) My head is still spinning. Here are some photos of the mostly musical highlights at Chop Suey. It was an incredible and inspirational weekend, to say the least...



We braved the storm long enough for some essential celeb-watching (teen stars of an ABC Family series that is not Bunheads interpreting James Blake through dance; unlocking the true achievement of walking past Jared Leto and Paris Hilton within the space of 20 minutes), grounds-touring, taco truck-consuming, and band-watching (staying through most of Wu Tang Clan's [Outdoor Theater] headlining set), but when it was time to check in on Red Hot Chili Peppers, our lungs were so filled with dirt that we couldn't bear to do more than pause briefly for a glimpse on the way back to the car. From the perilous traffic situation on the highway, it seemed like we weren't the only ones to throw in the towel early.
While I'm still processing the whole weekend, enjoy too many photos after the jump. Let's chat up our Coachella/Couchchella experiences in the commentary section?

TRENDPIECE: Blame Afghan Whigs. Ever since their duo with Usher at SXSW, surprise R&B guest appearances are the must-have accessory for the touring rock band. Although everyone was secretly hoping that the string of consistent denials about Daft Punk docking their pyramid starship to Phoenix's headlining set were just a convincingly elaborate ruse (Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo were allegedly spotted out-of-costume in the VIP holding pen while their teaser trailer opened for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). Instead of French robots, the encore featured the truly surprising appearance of R. Kelly, who bounded on stage to perform an amazing live remix of "1901" with his own "Ignition." Kids in our immediate vicinity proclaimed it to be "the most random thing they'll see in their whole life."
Twitter reinforced my suspicion that watching them instead of cruelly simultaneously-scheduled New Order condemns me to music hell, but the heart wants what the heart wants. The rest of the exceptional set provided the blend of perfectly-performed high energy, danceable, electro-rock that we've come to know and love from America's sudden French sweethearts. We thought about splitting our time between the two stages, but the combination of the crushing crowds, their ultra-compelling stage presence, and the aforementioned R. Kelly encore that concluded with lead singer Thomas Mars sweetly serenading a dozen or so iPhones before summiting the sound booth (while still tethered to the stage by a glowing microphone cord) and crowd-surfing/swimming back across several dozen yards of fans kept us transfixed until closing time. We can only hope that the webstreams will be archived.

RETRO INDIE HITS: Saturday's mainstage programming was a celebration of indie-electro. Sub Pop all-stars and self-described "imaginary band", the Postal Service brought back almost all of Give Up and then some. With some help from Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley) and Laura Burhenn (the Mynabirds), Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello satisfied a decade's worth of fan longings. It felt like they'd opened a time capsule from 2003; everything sounded just as good as when they sealed it away in carbonite and collective memory.
I'm terrible at estimating crowd sizes, but the densely-packed audience stretched almost the entire depth of the polo grounds appeared to be bigger than the sum of everyone who managed to catch the band playing during their initial club tour. Cex, however, was nowhere to be found.
CELEBWATCH: We arrived a little too late to catch all of the essential public canoodling and/or pre-staged appearances at frozen fruit smoothie stations, but off in the distance, Kristen Stewart was spotted, sprinting across the grounds to the relative safety of the backstage area in order to avoid ravenous paparazzi. This is why it's always a good idea to wear sensible kicks to a music festival, folks.
Earlier/elsewhere/after-the-jump: Hot Chip set the mood with an unrelenting sunset dance party, Yeasayer kept it just a little weird on the Outdoor Stage, Spiritualized spaced out for a small but devoted following in the Gobi Tent, Descendants savaged the Outdoor theater, Franz Ferdinand provided an energetic diversion from the always lovely (but not quite the right speed for my own personal evening mindspace) the xx, and Violent Femmes are still a band that plays shows. At 6:30 pm. On the Coachella Mainstage. To vast numbers of fans. In 2013. It's been six years, after all.
Please enjoy these photos from last Saturday's Alt-J show at Neptune Theater by Beth Crook for The Stranger. Do people enjoy Alt-J? I guess I need to brush up on my British buzz bands?

More photos after the jump...
Last night Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds performed at the Paramount, with Sharon Van Etten opening. Were you there? Was it amazing? Our photographer Beth Crook was there, and was able to capture some lovely photos of the show:


All photos by Beth Crook.
More photos after the jump...
Q: Did I really fall for this Slayer + Anthrax = SLANTHRAX article?!?!
A: Yes (but for only about 37 seconds!) Also, what's with all the crazy-ass chin beards, dudes? I mean, I'll always love me some Slanthrax, but the chin beards are getting to be TOO MUCH. Why not a full beard? And how long is too long?
Vote worst 80's metal chin beard below. And, more photos, by KT Wright, from Anthrax's Seattle Easter Sunday show at the Showbox, after the jump!

Is it true that the lead singer of Phoenix slipped offstage, and into the photo pit?
I swear I read this somewhere about last Friday's Phoenix and Mac Demarco show at the Paramount. Check out more photos, by Beth Crook, after the jump...

Are the Apollos 'too drunk to boogie, on a Monday night? Of course not. These local garage punks play tonight at the Comet with Natural Child, Bad Tats, and Abductee. More photos by Victoria Holt, after the jump...


After four days of braving the hustle of a city under siege by music fans—with their invented economies of meaningless trinkets and oversubscribed RSVP lists, abundant scarcity, and constant crowding—all the while sticking to seeing (mostly) new (to me) bands, I have to admit to (convincing myself of) a sense of relief at not having schemed my way into one of Saturday night's last-minute ultra-mega superstar closing night parties. Instead of seeing three hours of Prince, Justin Timberlake dressing down, the latest iteration of the Smashing Pumpkins, Macklemore, and Fall Out Boy performing at the pleasure of Perez Hilton, keeping an ear to the ground to wherever Kanye West might or might not be parachuting in (allegedly during French Montana's Fader Fort set), I followed my heart to see Vampire Weekend close out SXSW in the big backyard of Stubb's B.B.Q.
Losing the keys to my backyard East Austin rental cottage found me spending the previous night (briefly) replicating Travis Ritter's 2012 adventures in temporary SXSW homelessness—cycling around town to retrace my steps and haunting the wonderful 24 Diner—so I was more than a little excited to hand over my sleep-deprived brain to the comforts of a known commodity with a side of Shiner Bock. I've seen the band maybe a dozen times on stages large and small and have yet to see them put on anything but a great show. Watching them continue this trend, busting out the parade of all the old crowd-pleasing favorites ("Oxford Comma," "Cousins," "California English," "Campus," "Horchata") while trying out three new songs (including "Diane Young," the first single from Modern Vampires of the City, which drops today) on the crowd, it strikes me that just being a really good band of technically exceptional performers who write approximately innovative yet still very pleasant music with short-storylike lyrics that nevertheless often motivate lots of people to dance and sing along is kind of a rare delightful commodity. And bless them for keeping weirdly moody gorgeous "I Think Ur a Contra" right there in the encore along with traditional get-the-eff-out-of-here closer "Walcott."
On the subject of staggering proficiency and sheer stage magnetism: they were well paired with openers HAIM. The Los Angeles sister act unleashed a treasury of great rock and roll faces while (each) singing, drumming, and playing guitar as if performing their own exorcisms. Wild, engaging, and referential without being derivative (as above), they may have been my favorite new band of the week. I knew nothing about them before last night, but can't wait to hear more.
Earlier in the day, I swung by much-beloved now-closed Austin club Emo's, which Brooklyn Vegan had temporarily resurrected for their showcases. Say what you will about the quality of comments on their blog, but the people in attendance, perhaps sated by free nachos and coconut water, were among the best-behaved audiences I encountered: Austra's glorious triple operatic harmonies over double synths and live drums was maybe the first show I saw all week where everyone in my immediate vicinity was too transfixed on the performance to strike up an inane conversation or shove their way through the crowd for a beer, or anything even borderline impolite. (Often during the course of this music marathon I found myself wondering whether there's any other entertainment where blatantly ignoring the show is deemed as apparently socially acceptable.) I stuck around long enough to catch a bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra and eternally-fun Sub Pop act King Tuff. During all three sets, I'm pretty sure that tiny flakes of the building were crumbling loose.
Back at the Fader's railroad-adjacent Converse-presented (contractual obligation) East Austin fortress, Earl Sweatshirt, the once "lost" Odd Future child-prodigy, deftly dispatched lyrics with contained bravado to an always at-capacity crowd while Flying Lotus acted as DJ. Across the dusty alley, Ray Ban teamed with Boiler Room to turn an old warehouse into a sensory overload chamber—video screens covering half the walls and an in-the-round setup that placed performers on a platform in the middle of the cavernous space. I showed up hoping to see a bit of Mount Kimbie, but found Schlomo instead, due to a scheduling shuffle induced by Chief Keef's just not showing up. I sort of wish that the audiovisuals and vast crowds (in great part, refugees seeking the next fix after Fader's apparently surprise-guest-enhanced French Montana finale) hadn't sent me fleeing to Rio Rita's for relief: the Twitternet suggests that before Bauer came to Harlem Shake everyone one more time, Death Grips played a set that included Zach Hill Skyping-in drums from a remote location.
But, I guess that missing two thousand things to see a handful of others, including a band that you love, and— afterwards while grabbing your bike—getting to serendipitously discover that Delorean is a super-fun Spanish dance rock band that inspires crowdsurfing and patio parties, and not a sleepy Northwest outfit, makes the whole nonsense of occasionally loathsome crowds, huge piles of cash thrown into marketing and brand awareness (this morning, I noticed the absurdity of Spotify re-painting the cafe they took over for the week back from glowing green to a more sedate color and realized that's probably among the tinier expenditures of the festival), and over-exhaustion worth the trip? Plus, I've heard that the backlash was better last year anyway. It's definitely enough to make me think that I'll be tempted to return. After several naps.
(Some more photos, after the jump.)

Here's one of many surprisingly great things SXSW gives you that you never thought to want or need: an Afghan Whigs cover of "Climax" complete with "surprise" Usher guest appearance. This, brought to you by the Fader Fort and presented by Converse, closing out an afternoon at a wristband-required wonderland that managed to live almost exactly up to the (good and bad) hype mountain surrounding its manufactured exclusivity: free haircuts, drinks, kicks, and fresh-spun cotton candy showered with edible glitter (may include gluten additives), and a crushing crowd under the tent. It must've been just a little bit weird for Greg Dulli to transition his recently reborn band's headlining gig into an entirely different gear, but the band went on with the show (pausing occasionally to focus the crowd's thoughts and attention on Lil Wayne's dire condition).
As the unstoppable forces of Spring Break, "the weekend", and St. Patrick's Day began to converge on the festival, one got the sense of a manic energy and the beginnings of a fraying at the seams: voices lost to exhaustion, epic twitter rants about the superficiality of it all, and hating yourself for being unable to resist the opportunity to "live mas" via a free Taco Bell bean burrito in the early afternoon.
Venturing outside the carnival-like core provided a brief escape from the intensity (if not the sponsorship) of it all: in the Rainey Street neighborhood Ducktails played a downright chillaxy set at Clive Bar (Filter/Tumblr/Gap) and East Austin felt more like a neighborhood block party than a mega-festival when I biked over to hear lightning-fingered Marnie Stern on the Hotel Vegas patio shredding and commanding her new Not Zach Hill drummer to shed his shirt to entertain the crowd. Eventually, though, I made my way back to Red River to find swamp punks Disclosure, springily assertive rock from Brooklyn's Parquet Courts, and dreamily atmospheric indie rock from DIIV showcasing various flavors of guitar music at the Mohawk.
The festival goes out with a bang tonight with decidedly non-indie behemoths—Prince, Smashing Pumpkins, Justin Timberlake—each headlining last-minute events that have had people selling energy drinks on Twitter, downloading apps, and re-joining the new MySpace for a shot at tickets. That said, if anyone has favors to spare with Samsung, I'd happily sell myself out for a spot at La Zona Rosa tonight.
Some photos from Friday after the jump.

Perhaps my favorite thing that happened yesterday at South by Southwest was when Stevie Nicks spent a good five minutes just recounting, in intricate detail, the major plot points of Joe Wright's film adaptation of Anna Karenina. This was in response to a question from Ann Powers, I think, about her songwriting inspiration and process, and was only one of many fascinating digressions in an hourlong afternoon interview that included a glimpse into her entry into Fleetwood Mac, the role of women in rock music (and her general outrage at a sense of modern-day setbacks for women), and negotiating the dynamics of taking breaks from a band to pursue a solo career. Other fun facts: she really loves Beauty and the Beast both the Jean Cocteau and television version) and always wanted/wants to be a witch for Halloween.
My second favorite thing from yesterday was probably her duet with Dave Grohl at Stubb's as part of the his Sound City Players marathon. The delicate stripped-down acoustic version of "Landslide" almost quieted all of the inane side conversations in the audience for the first time in the evening. The follow-up, "Gold Dust Woman", Nicks fully witching out with the all-star band was a highlights condender, too. The whole event felt like an endurance contest for Grohl, who was onstage throughout the variety show rock lottery that included Alain Johannes, John Fogerty, Chris Goss (Masters of Reality), Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine, drums), Pat Smear, Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters, drums), as well as Fear's Lee Ving (who, earlier in day, Dave credited for his entire music career). By the time I left — nearly three hours into the rockistest event of all time — Rick Springfield had joined the crowd. With three hours left until curfew, they showed no signs of slowing down.


After that, I cycled back to the mess of Sixth Street, dodging bros getting tasered to catch my most favorite Swedish heartthrobs Shout Out Louds who were closing out the Merge showcase at the Parish. Like everyone else here, they seem to be playing a thousand shows, yet I keep finding it difficult to catch more than a few songs in this ongoing citywide treasure hunt.
A few more photos after the jump.