Fun Fun Fun Fest is just around the corner (November 7th and 8th), so let's get to know a few more of the acts performing. Here we'll look at punkyish stuff from both new hotness No Age and the reunited glory of Face to Face.
Fun Fun Fun Fest is just around the corner (November 7th and 8th), so let's get to know a few more of the acts performing. Here we'll look at punkyish stuff from both new hotness No Age and the reunited glory of Face to Face.
Beautiful weather, lots of good music and an Austinite on the ground with her camera: how much better could it get? Pooneh Ghana documented her trip to Coachella, and here's what she brought home.
Los Angeles, for all its immensity, is one of the few American cities which can truly be said to have its own, isolated identity. And we'll be able to get a nice taste of that tonight, as The City of Angels attacks Austin with a couple of the best bands that freakishly large city has to offer. Headlining is No Age, whose recently released sophomore LP, Nouns, has been lauded far and wide as one of the year's top albums. No Age is the brainchild of dynamic duo Randy Randall and Dean Allen Spunt, who use their exceptional names to craft churning lo-fidelity punk music that inspires critical analysis rather than mere dancefloor spasmosis—consider this the thinking person's punk rock.
It’s as if the over-the-top angst of the last generation of alt-rock has been sublimated into something abstract and hidden, expressed through warped songcraft rather than screaming and feedback.
Saturday Saturday Saturday! It's a bounty of goodness unlike anything most people of privilege (or non-privilege) have seen, seeming that it is filled not only with SXSW's usual wealth of day-funs and joys and diversities, but that it is also privy to the wonderment that is Mess With Texas 2, a noon-to-ten cornucopia of music and comedy at Waterloo Park. It's sort of like a day of Fun Fun Fun Fest plus comedy minus the price plus the knowledge that there's great stuff going on everywhere else as well. So let's get to it, and all the other great stuff going on EVERYWHERE, shall we? Mess With Texas 2 @ Waterloo Park At this event, it's almost ridiculous what a wide range of musics you'll be able to see, from electro-folk to softcore-punk to anti-pop to alterna-world to whatever-other-hyphenated-genre-you-could-possibly-fabricate. Headlining are the Kim Deal-led Breeders and late-nineties punk-stars NOFX, but they are just icing on the cake of a day that features acts as intriguing as the inimitable Islands and the ever-so-subtle Atlas Sound. And, take a deep breath, because also lining up on one of the three stages is rise-from-the-ashes-via-Juno story Kimya Dawson, the mysteriously-spelled Wooden Shjips, hype-machine Simian Mobile Disco, quick risers Yeasayer, Monotonix, and No Age. And in case you haven't already caught them, this may be a convenient time to check out local respectables Shearwater and White Denim. Seriously, though, that's a ridiculous list already, and it's really just the beginning. And it's free, for God's sake! And there was some comedy at this Mess With Texas thing, too, right? Yeah, you can expect some laughs from the likes of Janeane Garofalo, Brian Posehn, Todd Barry, and Eugene Mirman, among a veritable slew of others. Make sure to get there before the sun goes down if you want to check that out, though, because we all know humor goes best with some sunshine.
Another day, another long list of long list of web-darling music acts and their attendant corporate sponsors.
Photos courtesy Nash Cook
Hey everybody, we're giving away two tickets to the Liars/No Age show at the Mohawk on Saturday! Winners are also invited to a late Happy Hour (8-8:30) with Liars before the show. Details and concert entry form after the jump...but first, backstory:
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Stay tuned this week for full-length review of the latest New Pornographers and Rilo Kiley albums. Caribou Andorra (Merge) Dan Snaith's project formerly known as Manitoba is the realization of a degree in mathematics, numerous electronic gadgets and a nothing if not agile companionship between the past and the present. Though Andorra is the product of Snaith's deft handling of quite modern equipment, the feeling of listening is more nostalgic than expectant. "Melody Day,"...
As the campaigns head to the wire, it's time for our batch of gubernatorial candidates to address the hot-button issues. With this political installment, let's see where the people who want to live in that big pretty house pictured above stand on dealing with sex crimes against children.