Thursday

I really wish I'd had the energy to write this up yesterday, as I'm sure I'll forget something.

I started out the day with breakfast at Cisco's, and then made my way down Congress to the Roky Erickson show. I caught several bands, including Henry Clay People, The Good and the Bad, Miss Li, Riverboat Gamblers, and Asteroid Galaxy Tour. But the stand out was, by far, J Mascis' new band, Sweet Apple. The crowd for this show was more family-oriented than most of those for SXSW. Mike Weibe from Riverboat Gamblers put it succinctly when he said, "This is the most age-skewed crowd we've ever played for. I feel like I could talk about Metamucil or just jiggle my keys." The vocalist for Sweet Apple paid no mind to the fact that there were children in the audience and began the show by hurling unopened cans of beer and full packs of cigarettes into the crowd. Because of or inspite of these antics (I'm not sure which), Sweet Apple went on to put on the most entertaining show I'd seen yet at SXSW, plowing through a set of swampy, raunchy guitar rock. I highly recomend picking up their album when it's released.

I had been looking forward to seeing Sixteen Deluxe and Roky Erickson, but Sixteen Deluxe broke a cardinal rule of SXSW and took an interminable amount of time to set up. After half an hour, they had yet to start their soundcheck, and I bailed.

I ran up Congress, made a quick stop at the Third Man store to pick up an album (the wait was mercifully short this time), and continued to Valhalla to catch Gordon Gano and the Ryan Brothers. I'd listened to some of Gano's new material online and really liked it but was still unprepared for how great the show would be. The band alternated between new songs and Femmes classics. They played modified versions (Gano plays the violin during his set now) of "Country Death Song," "American Music," "Good Feeling," and "Blister in the Sun," the latter sending the crowd into an absolute frenzy.

From there, I went to Prague to see the Batusis, Sylvain Sylvian (from the New York Dolls) and Cheetah Chrome's (from the Dead Boys) new band. I got there a little early and caught a few songs by Miss Derringer, whose Eighties style pop was pleasant enough but also uninspired. The Batusis, however, were the most amazing thing I've yet seen at SXSW. The four-piece plays its garage/surf/punk with unparallelled energy and precision. Both incredible showmen, Syl and Cheetah look as if they've been playing together their entire careers. And it didn't hurt that they threw in a couple Doll's songs ("Jet Boy", "Trash"), a Dead Boys' song ("Sonic Reducer"), a VU song ("Femme Fatale") and, for Johnny Thunders, a cover of "I Wanna Be Loved." Adding to the excitement, several NY punk luminaries were in the audience, including, Lenny Kaye, Clem Burke, and Steve Conte. After the show, I managed to get a picture with Kaye, Conte and BP Fallon (who worked with Thunders, Led Zeppelin and T. Rex).

I then ran back up to Sixth and Red River to see Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker at Encore. Both bands sounded great, but David Lowery was waging war with the venue from the moment he stepped on stage. Before CVB even began, I saw Lowery mouth to audience members in front of the stage, "This festival is bullshit." He went on to complain, with the benefit of the microphone, that the venue had promised a drum kit and not delivered, that his mic was not grounded (which he demonstrated by touching his guitar strings to the microphone to get a spark) and that we should frequent other venues that didn't try to kill the artists, and that if we loved CVB, we wouldn't spend another fucking dime at Encore. That last bit prompted an Encore employee to jump on stage to argue with Lowery, at which point Lowery grabbed the beer from the employee's hand and poured it on the stage, saying, "This guy is working here, and he's drinking beer." After Cracker played their set, band members, band representatives, and club representatives argued aggressively on stage, culminating with a woman slapping and threatening to kill a mohawked man. At that point, the few remaining people were ushered out of the venue.

Update: Some assholey anonymous commenter has suggested that I have unfairly maligned Sixteen Deluxe and that it was a different band that went on after Sweet Apple. This entirely possible, as I wasn't there for the whole show, I wouldn't know Sixteen Deluxe if they walked by me on the street, and I was basing my assumption on the presumed lineup. So, apologies to Sixteen Deluxe for casting them in a poor light for the three people that read this blog.