Upon departing Austin last March at the end of South by Southwest (SXSW) 2007, I found myself going through airport security directly behind Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore. Upon arriving in Austin yesterday for SXSW 2008 (running till March 12-16), I found myself unloading my carry-on baggage just a few rows down from… Thurston Moore. Last year’s SXSW climaxed with a Saturday-night performance by the reformed Stooges that ended with half the audience onstage with Iggy. SXSW 2008’s opening night climaxed with Orlando stoner-rock skids Dark Meat performing a song-by-song cover of The Stooges’ 1970 classic Funhouse that ended with mosh-pit mayhem and collapsed ceiling tiles. All of which is to say that, at SXSW, a certain constancy holds — each year return, and everything seems exactly as you left it. For all the bingeing that goes on here — musical and otherwise — SXSW doesn’t feel like a blur; it’s the other 361 days of your life that feel like a fleeting blip.  

With some 1,500-plus artists spread out over four nights, 68 venues, countless day parties and every genre (save classical and Christian metal), it’s nigh impossible for two individuals to have the same SXSW, much less distill the experience into some blanket interpretation of What It Means for the State of the Music Industry. All you can really say is that some bands played — and on Day 1, here’s what they did:

The Raveonettes (Emo’s, 3pm): Such is the concentration of activity at SXSW that even a four-album act like Raveonettes are willing to bust ass like a no-name rookie to get attention, with the Danish duo (plus touring drummer) making the first of several appearances this week.  The 80-degree weather of course doesn’t discourage Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo from wearing black (with the former sporting a T-shirt advertising their latest Vice Recordings release, Lust Lust Lust), however it’s not so much their wardrobe that needs colour as their harmonies, which, purty as they are, have the tendency to render their psycho-candied pop confections in monochrome.

Chikita Violenta (Emo’s Annex, 3:30pm): This Mexican quintet announced off the top that this was their first appearance outside of their home country, which is only half true — in 2006, they traveled north to Toronto to record an album with Broken Social Scene producer Dave Newfeld. And when translated to the stage, you can still hear why they doled out for the airfare, as the band favours densely textured, dreamy pop surges that will sound familiar to Torontonians. However, the uniformly fuzz-covered presentation means that the only song to truly distinguish itself is a cover of The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High.”

The Mae Shi (Emo’s, 4pm) & Death Set (Emo’s Jr., 4:30pm): One of the most intriguing aspects of SXSW is seeing which of last year’s breakout artists have transformed into influences on this year’s emergent acts. In the case of two band I happened to catch back-to-back, the patron saint of choice is 2007 SXSW star Dan Deacon, whose brand of participatory group-chant hysterics could be felt reverberating through both venues bordering the Emo’s courtyard complex. LA quintet The Mae Shi counter spazzy synth-core breakdowns with precious, emo-tive five-way holler-and-response. (At one point, they drape themselves and the first few rows of the crowd in a large white tarp to hammer home their big-tent-revival zeal.) Way less contrived — and way more fun — are Baltimore brats Death Set, who deploy various Spank Rock, NWA and INXS samples to trigger noise-thrashed blitzkrieg pop that get both black dudes in oversized visors and chubby beardo guys bum-rushing the stage. If Death Set were to play Toronto, it’s not clear if they should play Sneaky Dee’s or The Social; maybe split the difference and book ’em for Wrongbar instead.

Akron/Family (Austin Convention Center, 5pm): These Brooklyn weird beards belong in a forest, next to a campfire; not on a prop stage next to a big-screen TV advertising Thursday’s Lou Reed keynote address. But the Akrons — performing as a trio — are game, quipping that they’ve never seen so many women in their audience (“we usually just get guys with beards”). And if the assembled throng is too cool to participate in the band’s harmony exercises, the Akrons eventually just shut them out and slip into their own world, slowly dissolving this short, mellow set into bird whistles. Close your eyes and you can almost smell the marshmallows.

Domino Records Showcase (Antone’s, 8-11pm): Judging by the line-up snaking around Antone’s as early as 8pm, the Domino Records Showcase was the place to be. Though those who earned early admission were faced with the nondescript sight of Simian Mobile Disco DJs James Ford and Jaz Shaw, who, instead of unearthing the eclectic obscurities that defined their DJ nights back in the UK, stuck to a straight-forward electro-house club-banger set that felt ill-suited to a rock-show warm-up slot.

But the moment their last cut faded out, Southend, UK upstarts These New Puritans were already kicking into their first. On the surface, the band sound very much like This Old Post-Punk, adopting shout-speak cadence of The Fall and Gang of Four, but the band’s use of tittering electro-sonics finds them contemporaries in the likes of Liars. And if the muddy sound mix sapped frontman JB of the imposing attitude he displays on their recent debut, Beat Pyramid, shit-hot single “Elvis” was delivered with appropriate menace.  The Puritans’ brief set meant a long wait for Brit troubadour Dev Hynes, a.k.a. Lightspeed Champion, and if the Puritans played too short, the Champion went a few rounds too long. Hynes has charm to spare — he repeatedly made light of the fact that SXSW crowds prefer loud guitars and “crazy beats” — and his sonorous voice could give The Dears’ Murray Lightburn a run for his Black Morrissey crown. But the eight-minute closer “Midnight Surprise” is begs for more embellishment than the acoustic/violin treatment Hynes gives it on this night, while the threadbare presentation only further emphasizes to his cornier lines (“wake up, smell the semen”). And with that we wait. And wait some more. Even though Scotland’s Sons and Daughters arrive with nothing more than standard guitar/bass/drums implements, it takes them over 30 minutes to appear. But when they do, all is (mostly) forgiven, with singer Adele Bethel glittered up like a ’60s sex kitten and guitarist David Gow her matinee idol — all the better to present the glammed-up girl-group sounds of their ace new album This Gift.

Grand Ole Party (Emo’s Annex, midnight): From the back of the Emo’s Annex tent, this San Diego trio suppose what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs would look like if front-girl Karen O played drums too. But GOP singer/drummer Kristen Gundred delves into deeper shades of soul, and her throaty purr is all the more impressive given her steady stick-work. She could also be the first person to make wearing a headset seem kinda sexy.

Dark Meat (Spiros, 1am): And so the night ends as all boozy, woozy nights should: with an airing out of The Stooges’ Funhouse. Fortunately, in lieu of locating a functioning turntable on Red River Street, Orlando septet Dark Meat opt to do all the work for us. But for all its ferocity, Funhouse is a delicate thing — like a grenade, it needs to be handled carefully, lest people get hurt. So it's no surprise that Dark Meat’s sloppy performance — flubbing the chorus on “Down on the Street,” summoning the horns too soon on “1970” — quickly degenerates into stage dives and broken ceiling panels. Still, it’s way more fun than The Weirdness.

EYE WEEKLY’s SXSW coverage appears daily till March 16 in our Live Eye section.

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