Shearwater Kick Off Their SXSW at Waterloo Records

Shearwater took to Waterloo Records this afternoon [03.11.12] for the first of their nine shows during SXSW.  They performed a handful of songs off their recently release album Animal Joy from Sub Pop Records. Check out videos below of "Animal Life" and "Dread Sovereign," as well as the band's schedule for the next week.


 


Sunday 3/11:
5pm @ Waterloo Records, 600 N. Lamar Blvd.

Monday 3/12:
1pm @ French Legation, 802 San Marcos St.

Wednesday 3/14:
2pm @ Hypemachine Hype Hotel, 504 Trinity (JM and Lucas duo set)
5pm @ Parish, 214 East 6th St.

Thursday, March 15, 2012
7:30pm @ Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop, 400 Nueces St.
1am @ PureVolume House, 504 Trinity Street (technically Friday early morning)

Friday, March 16, 2012
12:25pm @ Radio Day Stage – Austin Convention Center, 500 East Cesar Chavez
3:50pm @ Roky Erikson Ice Cream Social, Threadgills, 301 West Riverside
11pm @ Red 7 Patio, 611 E 7th St (Sub Pop Showcase)

SXSW 2011: Highlight Videos pt.2

If you haven't listened to the new Wye Oak album Civilian, you are doing an injustice to yourself. It certainly makes the early best of the year list and is garnering the Baltimore duo a heap of praise. They have been selling out a lot of venues on their latest trek across the country and luckily they played several times during SXSW. So if you didn't get a chance to catch them that week, you have done yourself another injustice. But you can at least watch the video below of them performing the title song off the new album during the Merge Records showcase.

Also below is a great SXSW highlight from Austin's own Okkervil River giving us a blast from the Black Sheep Boy days. All good stuff.










See my SXSW Highlights blog posts here. For more SXSW videos please check out my youtube channel, and additional photos can be seen on my facebook.

Download Free Music For SXSW 2011

I've got to be the laziest music blogger when it comes to SXSW. The big event officially kicked off today with the start of the Interactive and Film portions, yet I haven't begun mapping out a game plan for next week's music festivities. There are plenty of shows and parties this weekend as proof that the music doesn't wait until Wednesday. But I guess I officially still have a couple days to come up with something.

For anyone else that is in the same boat as me, or is a little clueless as to who to go see, here are a few worthwhile samplers that I've come across in the past couple days. I'm sure there are plenty more, but if you're looking for free music of SX bands, here is where you start.

The Austin Town Hall Sampler
featuring: La Sera, She Sir, The Great Nostalgic, Secret Cities, Toro Y Moi, Cloud Control, Everyone Everywhere, The Cults, Yuck, etc.

SPIN Presents AUSTIN POWER
featuring: Jessica Lea Mayfield, Okkervil River, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, J Mascis, Twin Shadow, Kurt Vile, Sharon Van Etten, The Kills, etc.

Don't Mess With Texas Sampler
featuring: The Black Angels, Charles Bradley, OFF!, The Dodos, Say Hi, Surfer Blood, etc.

Ioda Opening Day Bash Sampler 
featuring: Gold Panda, Beach Fossils, Weekend, True Widow, Queen Sea Big Shark, Withered Hand, etc.

Dirtnap Records Sampler
featuring: High Tension Wires, Mind Spiders, Something Fierce, Bad Sports, The Steve Adamyk Band, etc.

Melissa Auf der Maur SXSW OOOM Pre-Release Party, 03.18.10 @ Péché, 6-7pm

Former Hole bassist (and onetime Smashing Pumpkin) Melissa Auf der Maur will be making the rounds at SXSW this week to promote her multimedia project Out Of Our Minds, or OOOM for short. The album drops on March 30th, and to celebrate Melissa will be hosting a pre-release absinthe hoedown this Thursday, March 18 at Péché on 4th st ( a.k.a. the one above Cedar Street Courtyard).

Festivities will take place from 6-7pm. The party is being sponsored by Fender, Filter Magazine, and Venuszine. RSVP here.

For those who don't know, I've been a long time supporter through Melissa's career and am very excited that she is finally unveiling the music of OOOM.

Come and join us at the party. There will be fun... Oh yes, F-U-N will be had...

OUT OF OUR MINDS MUSIC VIDEO from MAdM OOOM

The Rosebuds "Leaves Do Fall" SXSW Performance Video

I came across this video today, and figured I would take the chance to chat about one of my favorite bands.

A big highlight of this year's SXSW for me was getting to see The Rosebuds perform several times. Within the last year this band quickly became one of my favorites thanks to their spectacular fourth album Life Like. After hearing album I dug into their previous work, and I can pretty much say now that I love everything The Rosebuds have put out. The North Carolina duo of Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp have remained a genre defining band with each release-- sometimes traditional indie rock, sometime synth dance, other times a little of both.

The song "Leaves Do Fall" comes from their second album Birds Make Good Neighbors. Here's a video off crawdaddy.com of The Rosebuds performing at Mohawk during SXSW. 

It really was quite the pleasure to see them multiple times during that week. Much like the musical turns found on their albums, for each show they added a little extra spice to the performance. Whether it was the "Nice Fox" sing-along at the My Old Kentucky Blog party or the "Bow to the Middle" waltz-along (same Hot Freaks party as vid above), Ivan and Kelly kept it exciting each time. Hopefully, it wont be long till they come back to Texas. Even after seeing them three times in three days, I am edger to catch them again. 

SXSW Journal - Days Three & Four

The other two parts of my SXSW 2009 coverage have now been published on Stereo Subversion. So click the links below to check them out. 

[SSv: SXSW Journal - Day Three, 03.20.09]

[SSv: SXSW Journal - Day Four, 03.21.09]

And here are some photos from those days...

The Pity Party

Melissa Auf der Maur

The Rosebuds

Tinted Windows

Lights

Amanda Blank

Lady Sovereign

The Duke Spirit

Melissa Auf der Maur

White Lies

PJ Harvey & John Parish

The Knux

The Rosebuds

SXSW Journal - Days One & Two

It's been a week since SXSW 2009 ended, and I know a lot of people are still feeling the burn. Or could it be that you are actually feeling withdrawal from the pure awesomeness of it?!? I for one had an amazing time. Many bands were seen, free alcohol was drank, and I did some tweeting and writing throughout the four days in an effort to keep tabs on all that had went down.  The result of that is my SXSW Journal. Stereo Subversion is publishing each day as separate posts and the first two are up right now.  Click the links below to visit them.

[SSv: SXSW Journal - Day One, 03.18.09]

[SSV: SXSW Journal - Day Two, 03.19.09]

And here are some photos from those days.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Vivian Girls

Janelle Monae

Ladyhawke

Heartless Bastards

The Avett Brothers

The Decemberists

Ume

The Rosebuds

Anya Marina

Lisa Hannigan

N.A.S.A

Little Boots

Lucy The Poodle Productions presents... LUCY MAGAZINE

Lucy The Poodle Productions is an Austin based conglomerate that specializes in throwing one hell of a party and having fun. In between the partying and fun they found time to develop a new zine which will launch during SXSW.  It's a  a full-color, printed glossy magazine featuring  music, art, theatre, film and all that other good stuff. Most importantly (to me at least), the first issue of Lucy Magazine will feature an article I wrote about The Boxing Lesson. Yes, the wonderful folks at LTP set me up to interview the band back in January and commissioned me to write a brief piece on them. While you've seen me discuss a plenty about The Boxing Lesson before, this article gives a little in-depth look on their own perspectives regarding the year that was 2008 and the year that will be 2009. And truthfully I'm interested to see how my article looks within the magazine. So I'm super excited about it.

And furthermore, there will be a launch party this Friday, 03.13.09, at Stubb's (Lucy The Poodle throwing a party... you don't say). Austin bands Shapes Have Fangs, The Bubbles and Sheboygan will be performing. There will also be some film screenings that should keep your interests peeked. Plus all that attend will get a copy of the inagural issue of Lucy Magazine. That in itself is all the reason you need to attend.

UPDATE: Lucy Magazine can be read online. Flip to page 18 for my article on The Boxing Lesson. 

Jessica Lea Mayfield @ The Parish, 2.13.09

I didn't think that I could Love Jessica Lea Mayfield anymore than I already did, but that changed when I saw her live at The Parish (2.13.09).

Mayfield for me was one of those music review finds that we all hope for. When I joined Stereo Subversion as a album reviewer at the end of the summer, With Blasphemy So Heartfelt was one of the first albums they sent me. At the time, it hadn't been released yet and Mayfield was just about to embark on a tour with The Black Keys. It had not dawned on me that hers was that alluring yet sorrowful voice that I heard on The Black Keys' song "Things Ain't Like They Used to Be." However, after one listen I instantly knew that I had discovered something amazing. To avoid repeating myself I will just point you towards my review, but will mention that after repeated listens I believe I shortchanged the album. An 8 out of 10 is indeed a great score, but looking at it now I would bump the grade up to a 9. It's that damn good. 

With that, I was unbelievably excited to see alt-country's next sweetheart at The Parish opening up for the Annuals. Accompanied by a full band which included her brother David Mayfield, Jessica and her acoustic guitar caught a couple gasps from the crowd. And it wasn't just because she was looking absolutely gorgeous that night, it was because it's quite something to see such a strong and mature voice come from such a tiny young woman. Like the title of her album suggests, her songs are full of heartbreak and pain which is only intensified thanks to her blues-like sullen vocals. She played "Bible Days," one of the standouts on her debut, early in the set. "For Today," "Greater Heights," and "Kiss Me Again" were all thrown in there and through it all Jessica's music poured out with all the sadness and beauty that made her album such a remarkable creation. 

Not to be overlooked was David who played the upright bass like a man possessed, thrashing the strings and swinging it around as if it was a dance partner. At one point he even threw himself on the ground and lifted the bass into the air with his legs while still playing.

They ended with my favorite track off With Blasphemy, "I Can't Lie To You, Love." How fitting that they would close out on that one.  It was like Jessica was playing just for me...

Austinites will have another chance to catch little Ms. Mayfield when she visits for SXSW. She's currently scheduled to play The Parish again on March 18th, a showcase which includes her good friend (and producer) Dan Auerbach. I'm sure she will pick up a couple more shows during the week, so do yourself a favor and catch Mayfield live. You will not be disappointed at this discovery.

For now, listen to what she has to say about life on the road in this video from Uncensored Interview.

The Boxing Lesson Daytrotter Session

I've been singing the praises of Austin's The Boxing Lesson since I discovered them this past summer. The space-rockers released their mesmerizing album Wild Streaks and Windy Days early last year and have been frantically playing live ever since. Then the band achieved another great accomplishment in December when they recorded for Daytrotter. Their session just went up today, and having recently talked to the band, I know they are quite excited about the end result. The session even includes the new song "Room 17" that they've been testing out at recent live shows. It's a good one. So make sure head over to Daytrotter and get yourself a free download.  

The Boxing Lesson is currently wrapping up a short tour and will be playing Austin again on February 26th at Stubb's. They also have some big things going on for SXSW so keep an eye on their myspace for those details. In addition, I'll have some news around SXSW time about some stuff I did for the band  as well.  Until then... Live Long and Prosper!!