Kevin Bronson on March 13th, 2013

0

[One red-eye trek from L.A. to Dallas to Austin, two spins around the Convention Center and downtown posting flyers for today’s Buzz Bands LA show and a slew of trips to coffee shops later … File under Wingin’ It at SXSW:]

@KRBronson on Tuesday at SXSW …

The explosion of music, marketing and culture that is the South by Southwest Music Festival was never more evident than on Tuesday night. Not very long ago, SXSW was primarily a Thursday-through-Saturday affair, encroaching on Wednesdays in recent years. Welcome to 2013, when some 40 official showcases, along with private parties, drew big crowds with seemingly no interest in saving themselves for the weekend.

Among the biggest lines was the queue for the first of Pitchfork’s showcases at Mohawk (above: a view from the upper deck of the outdoor stage and, beyond, Red River Street). L.A. quartet IO Echo’s set was startlingly short – three songs, and not even the title track to their forthcoming debut “Ministry of Love” (out April 2) – but between Ioanna Gika’s goth-angel presence, the assault of strobes and smoke and a sound that is at once dreamy and industrial (think Garbage in the Orient on a spaceship), it set the tone for DIIV, Cloud Nothings and surprise guests Local Natives later.

Also notable …

We’ve followed Spirit Animal since Steve Cooper, once known as the Gray Kid in his L.A. days, departed for New York and assembled a steady band. Would the new project focus on his rapping skills? Would he become a dance-floor idol? Would he become a funk-rock crooner? Kind of all of the above. The quartet’s party gig at Frank was ferocious, Cooper displaying his razor-sharp lyricism and guitarist Cal Stamp recalling the wicked licks of Living Colour in a half-hour of metal-funk-hop that resonated all the way down to your internal organs. Cooper still takes a good photo, and he has a song called “The Black Jack White.”

Close encounter of the nerd kind …

Yes, there were a smattering of backpacks at the Nerdcore Showcase at Flamingo Cantina. On a night that MC Lars finished with an exclamation point, two acts kick-started things with brainy, rapid-fire raps that encouraged crowd participation. Cincinnati’s Dual Core started with a freestyle comparing the 512 (Austin’s) area code and the 513 (Cincy’s), and then launched into a 25-minute set that had about 5 hours worth of ideas. The Nerdcore crew rap faster than most people can think – you’d just call it vocal palpitations if so much of it didn’t make perfect sense. Toronto’s Wordburglar followed in similar fashion … these guys make it impossible to resist the whole call-and-response thing.

Almost Echo Park …

Jack Gibson, a singer, songwriter and occasional scene mystic when he’s living in L.A. and not Portland or Austin, finally got his band Tenlons Fort an official SXSW bid. Well, it wasn’t so much him as Flaunt magazine – after years of being turned down by SXSW, Tenlons Fort found that one way to get approved for a showcase is for a presenter to actually book you. So Gibson ran with the whole notion of being an “official” SXSW band, assembling a temporary outfit (Tenlons Fort never really had a steady cast anyhow) called Tenlons Bronco, Hollywood-style. Tongue firmly in cheek in a gig at the North Door, he name-checked the festival’s omnipresent corporate sponsors in an impromptu rap, commented on the current state of music by declaring that “hand-clapping and a thousand people singing the same chorus” are the key to making it in the business and delivered charmingly off-kilter incantations on the strange collisions of art and commerce. If you weren’t familiar with Tenlons Fort, it was strange. If you know that Gibson can write serious and seriously beautiful songs, it was wry and vicious.

Memo to …

The 1975: If you’re going to be from Manchester, for sake of the musical heritage of your home city please offer something more interesting that your haircut. The best Matthew Healy and mates could muster were competently played, well-sung but ultimately safe rockers that recalled bland Americans like Imagine Dragons.

Drive-by Austin …

Dude pulls up to your restaurant in a sound system-equipped van. Says he will make it short and sweet, lest the authorities bust him. Then he plays two songs … nice … but both from the Beatles’ catalog. If you’re going to go gonzo, then how about some originals?