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It’s Spring Break in Austin, and that means one thing (for me, anyhow) – the South By Southwest Music Festival. Attendance seems to be up this year, which will make show attendance more challenging, but, as usual, there’s too many good gigs happening not to try.
Fortunately, along with the official showcases themselves, there are plenty of freebies saturating the city, sometimes in the unlikeliest places. Case in point: Aussie’s Bar & Grill, a restaurant I drive past at least a couple of times a week but have never even thought about visiting. It’s pretty far off the beaten path in relation to where everything else is happening, but the restaurant closed off its parking lot anyway to host a party it called Southern Hemisphere Sounds: Music From Below the Equator. Bands from Chile (Intimate Stranger), Peru (Emergency Blanket) and South Africa (Tidal Waves) hit the stage, though most of the acts seemed to come from Australia.
Representing his country’s long musical history was the legendary Dom Mariani, a singer, songwriter and guitarist much beloved in the rock underground for his work with the Stems, the Someloves and the DM3. Fronting the Dom Mariani Trio, he knocked out one guitar pop gem after another in what would have seemed a casual manner if the band hadn’t been having such obvious fun. He drew mostly from his DM3 catalog, including pop tunes both snappy (“Speed Freak,” “Can’t Get What You Want”) and anthemic (“Blue Thing,” “1 Time 2 Times Devastated”). But he also dipped into his repertoire with the Stems (the burly “Move Me”) and the Someloves (the soaring “I Know You Now”), often adding extended but never patience-testing guitar solos. Paying tribute to an early and obvious influence, the band blasted out a jam-kicking version of Big Star‘s “When My Baby’s Beside Me,” dedicated, of course, to the late Alex Chilton. Erasing any arbitrary lines between genre designations like power pop and garage rock, Mariani simply rocked his catchy melodies into the ground like the pop ‘n’ roll genius he is.
Which is probably why the Chevelles were something of a disappointment. The Underground Garage-approved Aussie quartet is by no means a bad band – its combination of power pop sweetness and arena rock attitude is fertile ground for greatness and the contrast between singer/songwriters Duane Smith (the flashy one in the purple shirt/black vest combo and the Gibson Firebird) and Adrian Allen (the casual one in jeans, T-shirt and Stratocaster) gives the band a distinctive personality. Drawing mostly from Barbarella Girl God, the Little Steven-curated collection that’s likely the LP most familiar to Yanks, the Chevelles whipped out hard rocking pop tunes with skill and abandon, with “Out of My Mind,” “Stacey Loves Cocaine” (also on the new album Accelerator) and “Zaragoza” being particular highlights. There was nothing at all wrong with the set, and if it hadn’t come after a stupendous show by the brilliant Mariani (godfather to the sound the Chevelles truck in), I’d probably have come away raving. As it is, I was perfectly satisfied, just not as knocked out as I hoped to be. I’d definitely see the Chevelles again, however.
After that it was time to immerse myself in the thick of it, i.e. downtown Austin, where a lot of shot bars and drinking establishments magically turn themselves into music venues this time of year. I hit Buffalo Billiards first, where the magazine Billboard was holding a showcase. Gold Motel, the young quintet on stage when I arrived, wasn’t too bad – sort of an ‘aughties version of the Motels in their earnest attempt to bridge alternative and mainstream pop sounds. I was there for the Boxer Rebellion, an anthem-pop act from the U.K. which quickly proved itself less dull than Coldplay but not nearly as colorful as Muse or U2. It’s the kind of group likely to become someone’s passionate favorite, but not mine.
Next up was the oddly-named Tap Room at Six Lounge, which featured an eclectic roster. I entered to the sound of Leeroy Stagger, an earnest, solid roots rock power trio from Canada whose tunes “Where I Live” and “Saskatoon” I liked, but I didn’t hear enough of the group to make any kind of real judgment. Next up was the Lost Bayou Ramblers, a Cajun dance band from Lafayette, Louisiana with some rock flavoring (credit the distorted power chords and occasional flourish on the drum kit). With a sonic brew led by fiddle and Acadian accordion, the quintet had no problem filling the small floor with enthusiastic dancers. I’ll cop to finding it difficult to tell the tunes apart, but I love seeing a band that gets feet moving and couples spinning around the dance floor.
The surprise of the day was the Refreshments – not the 90s Arizona group famous for “Banditos* and the theme song for King of the Hill, but a Swedish quintet deeply in love with the sounds of American music circa 1956. Its mix of old-school R&B and rock & roll has been done before, of course, and it’s easy to peg the band as Scandinavia’s answer to the Blasters or Rockpile (indeed, the band has collaborated with the latter’s Dave Edmunds and Billy Bremner). But the group’s easy skill (particularly that of boogie-woogie pianist Johan Blohm) and the strength of tunes like “Cadillac Rock,” “Shy Guy” and “A Band’s Gotta Do What a Band’s Gotta Do” nudge aside any caveats. Completely unconcerned with anything other than playing good music and having a good time, the Refreshments were very, well, refreshing – and the audience thought so as well, repeating calling for an encore.
Following that palette-cleanser came the main act of the night: Willie Nile. Having passed up a chance to see him play for free a few SXSWs ago and having since fallen in love with his work, there was no way I was going to miss him again. And he didn’t disappoint. Backed by a basic rock trio (Nile had a guitar but let it dangle to his side as often as he strummed it), the New Yorker blazed away with the kind of anthems usually associated with names like Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. Nile’s extravagant hand gestures and all-inclusive populism might seem overblown in our irony-saturated age, but he doesn’t come off as cheesy at all. The work of Springsteen and Petty tends to wear thin (at least for me), but “Run,” “The Innocent Ones” (the title tune of his excellent new record and dedicated to “the people of Japan”) and “You’ve Gotta Be a Buddha (in a Place Like This)” grabbed even the most disgruntled Refreshments fans and refused to let go. Joined by Texan singer/songwriters Patricia Vonne and Michael Martin, Nile kicked a hole in the sky with “One Guitar,” the kind of one-man-can-make-a-difference cliché that still resonates in the hands of a true believer. He closed with a cover of his late friend Jim Carroll‘s immortal anthem “People Who Died” and damn near burned the place down. After that performance, there was nowhere else to go but home, to rest and recover for the next day’s madness.
