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Home > Atlanta Music Scene > Archives > 2008 > March > 15
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Saturday afternoon at South by Southwest in Austin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Saturday in Austin and all is music and sunshine.
In search of lunch, I head to Maria’s Taco Express, just because I know that it’s the place where Austin music mainstay Alejandro Escovedo plays on a regular basis - and that he’d be playing sometime over the weekend. Escovedo wasn’t performing in the early afternoon, but he was there playing host. Just as the tacos were ready, North Carolina underground pop royalty Chris Stamey took the stage. It’s the kind of serendipitous thing that happens here during South by Southwest. Go for a taco, and you just might get a set of music from someone you’ve admired for decades. His take on late Big Star vocalist and guitarist Chris Bell’s gorgeous “I Am the Cosmos” nearly had me salting my tacos with weepy, fanboy tears.
From the South Austin taco tavern, I head toward the center of town. On the way toward Waterloo Park, it’s a quick stop at Bull McCabe’s Irish Pub, where Atlanta trio Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause are playing an afternoon set. The crowd may be sparse, but the band still gives it all they’ve got. After all, this is the band that wouldn’t let simple flight cancellations stop them from playing on Friday, when Kramer and drummer Adam Renshaw drove 8 hours to fetch bassist Shannon Mulvaney from Dallas. Check Friday’s post for the details.
An hour or so later at Waterloo Park, which sits in view of the state capital, there’s an all-day free concert called “Don’t Mess With Texas 2.” One of the afternoon’s acts is Atlas Sound, led by Atlantan Bradford Cox, also the frontman of the band Deerhunter. Atlas Sound’s hypnotic trance-pop wasn’t exactly the most appropriate soundtrack for a sunny afternoon outdoors. Sometimes it’s good to mix things up, though. If you closed your eyes and zoned out, the band’s music could carry you away like the welcome breeze that blew through the shady park.
But while Cox was playing here in Austin, his mind was also on home. “Half of my neighborhood is being flattened by tornadoes as we speak,” Cox tells the crowd, after asking if they’d heard about the storms that ripped through downtown Atlanta. “In other news, I almost saw a guy get killed when he was hit by a car.”
“And how are you guys today?,” he asks, all the bad news being put aside for a few moments so we could spend a perfect day in the park.
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Georgia takes over Austin’s Chain Drive
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Morning State’s Russell Ledford (left) and Dave Williams.
The Pendletons join in for a chaotic and crowd-pleasing end to Morning State’s set.
Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause throw down some rock power.
Most of the time, Chain Drive is home to Austin’s bearded, burly and denim/leather clad gay crowd, but on Friday night it hosted some of Atlanta and Athens’ finest bands filling the proudly dive-like bar.
Atlanta’s Trances Arc took the stage first, though stage might be too fancy a word for the corner the bands occupied. It took a little time for the sound mix to match the group’s talent, but by the time the quintet got to their last two songs, their updated alt-rock blast was just right.
Next up was Anna Kramer and the Lost Cause, but their appearance was iffy right up until show time. Though Kramer and drummer Adam Renshaw got to Austin early, bassist Shannon Mulvaney was supposed to fly in early Friday. Some flight cancellations stranded Mulvaney in Dallas, but that couldn’t stop the rock. Kramer and Renshaw drove to Dallas and picked up their marooned bassist. “It was about four hours up and fours hours back,” Kramer said. “But we made it just in time.” Just minutes after Trances Arc finished up, the trio pulled up outside. You’d never know that they’d had such a hard time getting to the gig. They blazed through a rambunctious set highlighted by a punk-powered take on the Merle Haggard classic “The Bottle Let Me Down.” These three musicians all play a big part in pumping out thhe band’s pure rock power with a country undercurrent, but drummer Renshaw is mind-blowingly good.
The Pendletons, one of Athens’ most buzzed about outfits, has a set full of some of the catchiest tunes I’ve heard all week. The quartet’s ear-caressing indie-pop is bound to win over anyone who’ll give it a chance.
Another Atlanta foursome, Morning State, followed. These guys play their tight, taut pop with big rock crunch and fearless abandon. By set’s end, the band’s bold spirit spilled out into the audience as their friends from the Pendletons joined in for a chaotic sing-along. If anyone wasn’t having fun at this show, it certainly wasn’t the musicians’ fault.
