This happened last year, too: Saturday, the last full day of music at SXSW, rolled around and the law of diminishing returns began to kick in. You can only fill yourself with so much music, booze, and street food before there's just no more room. Coincidentally, though, the official offerings on this final day of SXSW struck me as pretty lackluster with the exception of the reunited Six Finger Satellite (who—spoiler alert—I didn't manage to see anyway). So I took the day relatively easy, but still caught a few notable shows.

First up was the SXSeattle showcase. I arrived late, after an unusual full night's sleep and the usual morning blog post, to find the place at capacity for Natalie Portman's Shaved Head (and this after the free beer had run out, leaving only the regular cash bar). The door guy was only letting people in as people left, and I got in just as they played the last note of their set. Bummer, because I wanted to see them, as everybody here at the paper seems to think I'm far too hard on this band—although, if they're going to be opening for Lily Allen (?!) they're rather opening themselves to a whole wide world of criticism. Hey Marseilles manager told me the band's early noon set had started with like 30 people in the room but filled up to 300 within the first few songs. New Faces' tour manager told me they'd had a great show and sold out all their CDs, keeping just the last one for themselves as a souvenir. Dave Meinert said the Blue Scholars' shows that week had all been packed, and that they had a really good talk with a marketing company. Barcelona played a set of tepid, watered-down Death Cab mope rock; not a band I would've chosen to rep Seattle. Past Lives played a relatively mellow set to a slightly thinned but receptive crowd.

Common Market and Blue Scholars brought some more people out. Both played solid, short sets, but Blue Scholars's was especially good. Geologic told the crowd he had "a little voice left; I saved it just for you—I don't wanna sound like Screech" (indeed, there were a few folks at this party with no voice left whatsoever). He rapped about turning SXSW into SXNW (he also kept calling the party South by South Seattle). They played a couple new songs, one with a line about how they "used to listen to 2pac" and how some new shit is "cool/it's cool/but it's not what I'm used to." They played another, "808 Love," dedicated to Hawaii, where Geo grew up, whose area code just also happens to be the make of hiphop's favorite old drum machine, making for the chorus about "808 love" and "808 kick/so thick it makes your heartbeat skip." Sabzi programmed a rimshot and woodblock heavy beat on his phone over the sound-system and Geo rapped some bars over it about that "new new people," the beat eventually erupting with some shimmering cymbals.

Caught Olympia trio Gun Outfit, a band who I discovered thanks to Dave Segal's raves for their album Dim Light, but who I maybe should've known, as I used to live with singer/guitarist Dylan Sharp down in Oly. In any case, the band played an abbreviated set at a non-SXSW bar, Sharp's vocals sounding decidedly less Calvin Johnson-y than they do on record (something about his drawling mono/bari-tone just reminds me of Johnson; also, and I may be misremembering this, but I think dude used to do a pretty good Johnson impersonation just for yuks). Their songs are short and driving, with dual guitars sounding alternately sharp and murky, with enough hints of bass to keep a steady groove. The set was abbreviated because after one song the drummer suddenly kicked his kit over and walked off the stage. (Saturday is tough for everybody; earlier that day, according to Sharp, Gun Outfit blew their slot at Todd P's party as Ms Bea's, getting into an argument in which Todd P told them "no one gives a shit about your band" and one of their extended entourage called Todd P some unfortunate names—so much for playing any Brooklyn warehouses, dudes.) Hopefully the band will be playing Seattle soon; they'll be well worth checking out when they do.

Speaking of Ms Bea's, caught a minute of Crystal Stilts over there, just long enough to get the gist—reverb-heavy garage rock with hints of Velvet Underground drone—but not to be too terribly impressed. Of the handful of new bands on Slumberland Records, this one may be the least appealing to my tastes (you know which one I like best). Next up was Wavves, whose voice was also a bit blown-out by Saturday night, a fact done no favors by this PA's lack of reverb or echo, which left his ragged, off-key voice bare and ugly against his insanely catchy punk guitar romps. Still, it was an energetic set. There was enough of a crowd onstage that somebody crowd surfed there, almost knocking over the PA. "So Bored" remains an awesome ear-worm; I could barely stop myself from humming/whistling it all night. After the set, Todd P got on the mic and asked, "Did anyone here go to Yale? A lot of Ivy Leaguers are losing their shit tonight." This was not figurative but literal: A Yale ID card had been found, as well as a wallet belonging to someone from Cornell. For such lowbrow rock and roll, Wavves apparently has some highfalutin academic fans.

Met up with the Pharmacy, who report that they're doing well in New Orleans (except for the time Scottie got a gun pulled on him at his new burrito-rolling gig by a robber), and piled into their party van to hit up a house party where the Intelligence was playing. (Another Seattle band update: Lelah from TacocaT said their van broke down in Phoenix, though they obviously managed to make it to Austin.) I've seen the Intelligence a few times in Seattle, but I've never seen them do a show this fun—possibly I've had the dumb luck to always catch them playing stale bars instead of raucous kitchens. In any case, their bashed-out garage rock sounded perfect in that kitchen, with someone flashing the overhead lights on and off to the beat while the band wailed "woooo woooo." They played one song whose guitar riff seemed lifted straight from Rocket From the Crypt's "On a Rope," although I guess that's just where I personally recognize it from, as it's not a terribly unusual riff. They played "Like Like Like Like Like Like Like," and it sounded great. They said they wouldn't be doing any A-Frames covers nor any new shit for SXSW. I'm not sure how the set ended exactly, and there's nothing more in my notes, so.

(Here's where I feel like I'm supposed to draw some big picture conclusions from this year's SXSW. Well, last year I stayed in a hotel downtown, this year I slept on some incredibly nice folk's couch on the east side of town, and I get the impression that lots of folks have similarly dialed down their expenses for the fest. More bands than ever registered to perform this year, but attendee registration was down, not that you'd get that impression from the lines or the many packed showcases. You might conclude that creativity flourishes no matter what the economy, an essential part of the human condition whether it can make money or not, and that people will still want to see live music even in tough times—but that all seems pretty pat, if not still encouraging. I could also conclude that SXSW is a fucking blast, way different than any festival that Seattle throws down, but again, that seems like pretty conventional wisdom at this point. In any case, I'm excited to head home, as I'm going to sleep like a motherfucking rock tonight.)

Silver Apples' rig—details below; photo by Donte Parks

I caught one song each from Finally Punk, Mika Miko, and the Death Set, playing round-robin style at an outdoor party on the East-side with a small roller rink. Of the three, the Death Set are the band that I'm dying to see again. They played their song where the chorus is just dudes screaming "motherfucking death set!" (they should play with Champagne Champagne some time) over the band's usual mix of drum machine beats, live drumming, and thrashy punk pop guitars, and they totally ripped shit up. The singer climbed a ladder into a tree behind their stage, he stood on the drum kit holding a cymbal over his should that the drummer kept on hitting, he shoved a mic up his shirt and sang into it there. Antics aside, this band, on album Worldwide has some super catchy, sing-along songs ("Moving Forward," "Peak Oil," Selective Memories"); bummer I keep missing them.

Caught a couple indistinct songs from Blue Jungle, playing at the Smell showcase in a big empty studio space with a cool, fuxxed-up video projection in the background (think messed up VHS, vertical hold and pixellated test colors all melting across the screen). Blue Jungle's drummer is Donnie Shoemaker from old Eastside/Seattle band Mikaela's Fiend (whose other member, Chris Ando, now plays in Talbot Tagora). Blue Jungle was much more straight-ahead than either of those bands, though—rock and roll most memorable for the aggressive drumming and their high-heeled and hot-pantsed lead singer's dancing, which at one point had her lassoing three of the seriously on 8 audience members with her mic cable (the vocals were too low in the mix to make out much).

A few blocks away at the Todd P party outside Ms Bea's: Titus Andronicus were playing their Clash-by-way-of-Rancid brand of punk rock—all marbles/glass shards/broken teeth-in-mouth singing over big three chord choruses. They closed with a cover of the Misfit's "Where Eagles Dare," a song made famous by Bratmobile. Ponytail played up on the stage, but because their singer is so tiny (between them, Wavves, and Max Tundra, I think I'm seeing the shortest performers at all of SXSW this year), it was impossible to see what her primal scream-y (like the therapeutic yelping, not the band) singing looked like. What I can tell you is that it sounds like this band listened to a lot of OOIOO and tried to refit that sound for something more like standard pop punk songs—this is not really a bad thing. Abe Vigoda played next, sounding more straight-forward punk and less reverb and ersatz tropicalia (guitars plucked to sound like steel drums) than I remembered. It was their first SXSW, they said, so they played some new songs, but encouraged the crowd to "dance like you know what's gonna happen." Japanther played next, sounding scuzzy and clipped loud as always, dedicating their set to Jamie Hewitt (RIP) of Bent Outta Shape. They started with some new songs, of which I'm not as much a fan as of their older stuff, although "Bumpin' Rap Tapes" sounded good live, as did New Bad Things reversion "the Dirge," with its chorus of "I love you/no matter where you spend the night." Later, they busted out some "classic" jams, like "$100 Cover (Revolution Baby," one I can't make out from my notes, and "Maybe the Gravy's Run Out," closing with a cover of "Do You Wanna Dance." They encouraged the (already pretty punk/DIY disposed) crowd, "You can do it too. Start a band. Don't just listen to us, because we have no idea what the fuck we're doing."

Seattle garage rock legends the Sonics played the opening set at Emo's Friday night, a nice nod to the history behind the evening's headliners Black Lips and King Khan. (The MC belabored this point a bit, talking about these guys being the "the sonic boom that started it all," "the big bang behind garage rock and roll," and so on). The dudes are aged, and their bluesy songs sound a little standard at this point (even borderline state fair/casino-ready), but they can still wail, especially keyboardist/vocalist Gerry Roslie, who looked like he was singing from lyric sheets but who could still open up and let out some serious moaning and shrieking. I can imagine how to a teenager in the '60s this must've sounded as revolutionary and rebellious and whatnot as, say, Nirvana sounded to my generation. They played "He's Waiting" (which always makes me think of the Japanther song on Leather Wings that samples anti-cult nut Bob Larson talking about the "He" in the song being the devil). They played "Money (That's What I Want)," into which one could read some admission about cashing in if the Sonics didn't keep their reunion schedule so tastefully lean. They played "Louie Louie," "Strychnine," "Have Love Will Travel," "The Witch," "Psycho," and others, and the songs all sounded enduringly kick-ass, even if the saxophone and harmonica (and sometimes keys) didn't really made it into the mix like they should've. Sax player Rob Lind by the way gives off the vibe of a funny dad, cracking jokes, and directing folks to the merch booth by saying, "Remember, a Sonics t-shirt signifies to your dad that you just don't give a crap."

Two bands I didn't much care for: Woods, a four piece who are basically a standard guitar/bass/drums rock trio with one dude hunched on the floor singing into a pair of headphones and working a dj mixer attached to two tape decks and a pedal-board. For all that though, the fourth guy's contributions seemed to amount, on the couple songs I caught, to little more than some echoing sonar pings added between lines of the chorus. Ditched that show to catch Tigercity on a friend's recommendation, and while that band definitely nail their specific sound—something like Hall & Oates & Astley, with disco bass and drums, soft synths, and alternately deep and falsetto crooning singing—I wasn't really feeling it. If M83 sound the way you falsely remember/romanticize the John Hughes '80s, these guys are how it actually sounded.

I saw the Pains of Being Pure at Heart again, and I don't regret a minute of watching almost the exact same set as yesterday (I would watch it again today if it came up). Minor difference: the played a different new song this time, "Falling Over." Other things I noticed: their keyboard had one wonky, broken key; the keyboardist was pretty much nowhere in the mix, either on vocals or keys, but it sounded okay; the guitar was far clearer today than yesterday; they play "Come Saturday" much faster live than on record. So dreamy.

Went to the wrong venue (SXSW fail) then had to run way down south on Congress st, across the bridge, to catch electronic pioneers Silver Apples, arriving at the club just as the MC was talking about them being "the birth of electronic music." Originally a duo, Silver Apples is now just one man, Simeon, as drummer Danny Taylor has passed away. Back in the day, from what I can glean from photos, Simeon would just play an array of oscillators (basically just big boxes with some controls and maybe a waveform display), bending the tones into notes, almost like playing multiple theremins. Now, he was playing one or two such devices over backing rhythm tracks on a CD. Before his set, he was calling back and forth to the sound guy about impedances, trying to get a clean tone instead of a distorted (suitable maybe for Wolf Eyes) screech out of his device (later, he pounded the device, Fonz-like, to get rid of a buzzing). With the live drumming replaced by relatively restrained drum programming (think the preset beats on an old organ), it was easy to draw a straight through-line from these guys to Kraftwerk. Silver Apples' songs all have a certain rhythmic pulse and electronic tone to them, but they're psychedelic as they are anything, full of trancey drones and Simeon intoning something like shamanic poems over the sounds.

Silver Apples photo by Donte Parks

Simeon, wearing a brimmed leather hat, a Hendrix t-shirt (they were contemporaries), and an earing has kind of a Hunter S. Thompson-ish crazy old genius coot vibe to him. He talked about how you move to New York and they call this stuff avant garde, but down in New Orleans it was just (and then I missed the last bit; presumably he said "gumbo"). He said that when the band originally wrote and recorded these songs, in 1967-1969, "it took a while for people to catch onto what we were doing; we waited them out." He played "Misty Mountain," "Velvet Cave," a couple new songs—"I Don't Know" and "Purple Egg"—from what Simeon explained was an EP of children's music ("they wanted psychedelic, but I don't know what that is, so I recorded some children's songs; I guess children are pretty psyhcedelic"). Simeon chanted colorful nonsense while rotating a crank-arm on the front of his device, bending the note, jiggling vibrato out of it, pulling it down low into bass gurgles or high into piercing sine waves, playing with harmonics and dissonances. They closed with Silver Apples' first (and greatest) song, "Oscillations," and it was a transcendent recital. One song reminded of Eats Tapes; another of Animal Collective—safe to say neither of those bands would've come about quite the same without these guys. They truly are the original Simeon Mobile Disco (sorry), and it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime type of show.

Went to a party on the pedestrian bridge but had a literal run-in with Wavves' "Weed Demon" that sent me running scared just as Vivian Girls went on somewhere, invisible in the gigantic throng. Wound up at an afterparty where Portland's Starfucker and Max Tundra were playing. Last time I saw Starfucker, at Vera, I had wondered how differently the band might go over rocking a show with booze; now I know that the would go over swimmingly. After a few same-y sounding first songs, all marching rhythm and sliding guitar parts, the band (playing as a four piece tonight) broke out some of the more distinctive jams from their self-titled debut album. All of it had the crowd dancing and going aggressively nuts, though. Max Tundra set up and went on next, busting out "Which Song" with his usual eccentric flair to a considerably thinned crowd. After which song, though, exhaustion and diminishing returns were catching up (it was 3 or 4am by now), and it was time to cab it home. Now off to the SXSeattle day party!

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.

the Coathangers, photo via their myspace

The Coathangers are kind of like if the Black Lips if the Black Lips were all ladies. Like that band, the Coathangers hail from Atlanta, Georgia; also like that band, they play a fairly garagey brand of punk rock'n'roll. All of the band members sing, but the drummer handled singing/screaming duties on at least a couple songs, and hers were probably the most impressive. They joked that they were going to do a Papa Roach cover at one point, and that they were available for weddings; one of them did that "ooh aah aah" that dude in Staind or Kornknot or whatever did on that one song. Take note: The Coathangers are among Ari Spool's Top 3 Bands to See at SXSW, and not without good reason. They played the Suicide Squeeze showcase last night, as the Seattle will be releasing the band's forthcoming album.

I missed Berlin producer Boys Noize at last year's SXSW, and also in Seattle, but I had heard nothing but good things about his performances. Maybe I'm missing something, or maybe last night's 10pm slot was just kind of off, but it was not the greatest DJ set, despite his engaging high energy. He started off with a typically buzzing, bit-crushed, synth-heavy jam, but after that first track he brought things down with what seemed like an interminable series of breakdowns marked by old school analog drum machines and lots and lots of open space between the beats. For several songs, each time it seemed like he was about to build to another big riff, he just dropped another relatively low key beat. He broke out of this pattern a couple times, once with a track that featured a great, housey clavinet, but for too much of the set it was all faux drops and plateaud momentum. The other problem is that when he did drop one of his big synth riffs, it was pretty indistinct, that is: fine for the dance floor, but nothing that would stick in your head afterwards. He wrapped things up with his excellent remix of Feist's "My Moon My Man," and it was unfortunately an exception—catchy, with plenty of payoff. It's weird, because I like dude's remixes and productions, but I just wasn't into that set last night.

Yoni Wolf of Why? played a rare solo set last night in the small back room of Mohawk, where it was so crowded that it was impossible to see the musician seated at his piano. But it was still a pleasure to listen to him. He played spare versions of "The Vowells Pt. 2" and " These Few Presidents" off of 2007's soul-crushingly good album Alopecia. Then he made some joke about the Middle East whose punchline was "blame it on Bahrain"—a Milli Vanilli pun, ladies and gentlemen. After that he played some new songs, off of a Why? album that he said would be out in September (!). Because he was playing all the songs on just a solo piano, and because Why? as a band have such layered, nuanced arrangements and production, you didn't get more than a sketch of each song's sound, but you did get Wolf's lyrics, which are always the highlight anyway. (I got in another voice vs lyrics argument, not about Why? so much as the Hold Steady, but I will repeat here my steadfast belief that killer lyrics beat a singing voice any damn day.) One song had a lyric about "habitually rubbing the sleep from my eyes," another had him worrying if he would grow old and get fat and when would "someone swing a scythe against me," another had a chorus about January 20-something, his last one I just have written down the line "I'm still here."

I only caught a couple of songs of Past Lives (back at the Suicide Squeeze showcase), so I can't really judge their whole set, but from what I saw the Austin crowd wasn't really feeling them too much. They sounded about like always—dubby, wobbly bass lines, hard and sharp drumming, Devin Welch's wiry, strangulated guitar scratches, and Jordan Blillie's alternately shrieked and low-sung vocals—but the audience was nonplussed. Maybe you just have to have the context of growing up with the Blood Brothers, like Seattle did, to really feel these guys?

Shout Out Out Out Out, drunk, ca. 2008 by Kelly O

At last year's SXSW Edmonton, Alberta electro-rock sextet Shout Out Out Out Out handily won the title for Most Wasted Band at SXSW—probably not an easy feat: One of their member toppled into his keyboards, knocking them offline for a song, and Cadence Weapon had to come up and do a freestyle number to kill the time while the roadies got his gear set back up. So, of course, I was eager to see them again. And not just for the potential drunkenness—I have a very soft spot in my heart for these guys. They're kind of like United State of Electronica, if that band were snarky and dark and bitter instead of lovey and huggy and cartoonishly nice in an almost cultish way. SOOOO have songs about the perils of consumer debt ("Forever Indebted"—released presciently on 2006's Not Saying/Just Saying), the twin benefits of healthy artistic competition ("Inspiration Competition") and low self-esteem ("Self Loathing Rulez"), impaired decision makin ("Bad Choices"), and how your friends will fuck you over ("In the End It's Your Friends"). They're also a little less poppy and a lot more track-y than are USE, regularly stretching songs out to eight minutes or so. Live, they have two drummers (one of which twirls his sticks and hams it up in a terribly endearing way) providing meaty backbeats and the odd cowbell, and four guys alternately playing racks of synthesizers and bass guitars (on on song, all four of them were playing bass guitars). The vocals are all vocodered, so they might be tough to pick out at first, but they're also simple—uncomplicated and earnest—enough to get down after a couple listens. Anyway, their songs are great fun, and their new album, Reintigration Time, which I've been listening to a promo of for the last couple weeks, is well worth getting when it comes out in May (oh, and it's already out in Canada/the Internets, I guess)—its song "Guilt Trips Sink Ships" and the above mentioned "Bad Choices" are my new jams. More about this album soon. Also, their set this year went off more or less without a hitch—all the synths cut out for a second on one song, but it wasn't entirely clear if this was intentional or not, and anyway the band recovered just fine.

At the perfectly ridiculous Red Bull afterparty, I finally saw Monotonix for the first time after missing them again and again and again in Seattle, and it was kind of exactly what I expected after hearing about them again and again and again. Which is to say: it's a fun show, the band playing on the floor and in the crowd, with sweat and mustaches and hair and drum thump and guitar fire and vocals nowhere in the mix whatsoever. Nothing on fire that I saw, but the crowd doused the band and each other in plenty of sticky drinks just in case—I came home with more energy drink on me than in me. But all that aside, the music just seems like such unimpressive garage rock to me—I couldn't hum you a riff of theirs if I tried, and I can't imagine ever feeling like listening to them outside of a live show. All of which, in my mind, buts them in a tier below those live bands who put on a spectacle while also turning out killer songs, a la Les Savy Fav. With the vocals effectively eliminated, it just kind of seemed like Lightning Bolt For Dummies. (Before y'all jump down my throat, know that the band has many fans here at the Stranger, and that I don't speak for everyone here.)