Day Three - SXSW 2008
Total Number of Bands Seen:
Only 9. Vampire Weekend, Ravens & Chimes, Builders and the Butchers, Laura Marling, The Choir Practice, Cool Kids, A-Trak, Kid Sister, The Constantines.
Total Number of Tacos Consumed:
A mighty trifecta (pictured above), moving me into a first place tie in our dumb binge eating contest.
Notable Shows That I Was Unable to See:
Two. Night Marchers day show and Fucked Up playing under a bridge, like trolls.
Celebrity Sightings:
Three. Perry Farrell, dancing by himself with a pole, M1 from Dead Prez partaking in a vegan taco next to me at Mr. Natural, and Ice Cube, standing nearby at Kid Sister.

Yesterday was nice. I experienced the greatest SXSW show I have ever seen (The Constantines), basked in the blinding hype of Vampire Weekend, and stood next to the star of Are We There Yet?. Not bad.

Watching Vampire Weekend is a bit like walking in on a meeting of the young WASP society—which is a total cheap shot I know—but if the New York band is trying to kick their prep school roots, it's not working. Also, while seeing them onstage, it feels like they are the next generation of the Shins, except they skipped over the first two amazing records and made their very own Wincing the Night Away right off the bat. But then again, "Oxford Comma" is still one hell of a song.

After last year's botched effort to see every single Portland band, I'm taking it easy on catching bands from our town, but I made the exception for the Builders and the Butchers. They drew a surprisingly large crowd, the majority of which was made up of fancy A&R representatives, and other industry movers and shakers. The writing has been on the wall for some time now that their stomp and holler junkyard punk/folk is going to be all the rage, now I guess it's just a matter of time.

British singer-songwriter Laura Marling is supposedly the new Kate Nash (or the new new Lily Allen), but her songs seemed like they still needed some work as they plodded along, sounding sweet, but without much substance. Like a poorer, British, version of our very own Day of Lions (Day of Lyons?). We fled, heading around the corner and catching the adorable Choir Practice, a vocal-rich twee ensemble from Vancouver, B.C.. Just look at them, sashes and all...

C-U-T-E.

Yesterday's goal was to break away from the heavy slab of indie rock white bread I've been digesting and try something new, something with a bit more diversity. We narrowly missed Dizzee Rascal, but didn't have trouble making it into a packed Cool Kids performance. I thought they were a tad bit redundant, but they were just killing time for Kid Sister, whose performance came along with complimentary nail painting, and a whole lot of hype for an emcee who was excellent, and a bit spastic, in the live setting. I hope she comes to Portland. Soon.

But of all the bands I've seen so far, nothing comes close to The Constantines. A few notes into their blaring set, I turned to End Hits blogger Rob and shouted "THIS IS THE GREATEST BAND ON THE PLANET!!!" But, given the deafening volume, it probably just sounded like "JTXAQU OPTTS VEWQU QGFATFRDSS!!!"

They were an absolutely unrelenting combination of every single reason why you fell in love with rock and roll in the first place. The bassist lost his shoe, the singer flinches from pain with every raspy word he yelps, and the guitar player is wearing a cast—it was bruised and battered but it worked.

My head is spinning and I’m pretty sure there is a slow trickle of blood cresting from my hissing ear (I left the handy ear plugs at the hotel, bad move, I know), but I’d be lying if I didn’t say the Constantines performance was the best SXSW show I have ever seen. A remarkably intense experience that took their “Springsteen meets Fugazi” sounds to an entirely new level.

To close, the band chose a cover, one fitting for the grand nature of the evening. ACDC’s “Thunderstruck,” but not in that traditional ballsy guitar god style, instead the Constantines ran the song through a filter of 20-plus years of Dischord punk and angular aggression, sounding like Lungish’s Dan Higgins playing the roll of Brian Johnson. Like every thing else they did this evening, it was amazing.

Ho hum… just another eight minute epic from Meat Loaf… nothing out of the ordinary. YEAH RIGHT! And thus, MEAT WEEK CONTINUES!

For today’s dose we’ve got “Paradise By The Dashboard Light.” Be absolutely sure you get to the straight-out-of-nowhere disco break (“We’re gonna go all the way tonight, we’re gonna go all the way tonight”). For those of you who’re impatient, the musical insanity begins at the 3:00 mark.

When the moment hits, it becomes running-red-lights music. Just fucking crank it up louder and throw something heavy out the window. Jesus… It’s time for SPRING! “You don’t understand officer, THIS IS MEAT FUCKING LOAF, YOU GODDAMMN SWINE!”

And by the way, lines like “we were barely 17 and we were barely dressed” take on extra rad when coming from mouth and mind the mighty, crazy-eyed Meat. (You know he let a Volkswagon DRIVE OVER HIS HEAD on a dare?!?)

Then there’s the overdubbed baseball announcer. What? Say What? You know, sometimes it’s best not to question genius… like when the girl wants to bone Meat Loaf and he tells her he’s got to “sleep on it”. Wow. Do you know how much trouble I would get into if I said that to a girl? Are you kidding me?!? I’d be out the door.

Here it is, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”:

SMUT (So Many Unique Treasures), the vintage store located at 28th and E Burnside, is having their annual record sale this weekend! Starting tomorrow, they’ll have thousands of long-playing vinyl records for the measly low price of $1.00, so now’s a good time to stock up on some cheap listens. I’ve found lots of good stuff there in the past, from Talking Heads to Willie Nelson to the Music Machine, so you can be sure I’ll be flipping through their bins this weekend.

SMUT, 7 SE 28th. Record sale is from 11 am to 7 pm on Sat. March 15 and Sun. March 16.

A new, all-ages venue has recently opened up in close-in North Portland, providing another invaluable space for bands to reach audiences under 21. Exit Only isn’t just a music venue, either; it serves as an art gallery too. Here’s their MySpace page.

Exit Only is located at 1121 N. Loring St., which is on the east side of the river, not far from being underneath the Marquam Bridge. Here’s a map.

And here’s a list of upcoming shows. Each show begins at 8:00 pm.
March 15 - The Prids, Green Circles, The Formless
March 29 - Defect Defect, The Whips and The Whales, Sweeping Exits, Shitfit
April 5 - Southern Belle, Pegasus, Bodhi, Church
April 6 - Fist Fite, JonnyX and the Groadies, Experimental Dental School, Vendetta Valentine
April 11 - The Slants, Fist of Dishonor, The Gentry
May 10 - Autistic Youth, The Estranged

Day Two - SXSW 2008
Total Number of Bands Seen:
19, I think. Bodies of Water (twice), No Kids, Born Ruffians, The Retribution Gospel Choir, Paper Route, Oh No! Oh My!, Dr. Dog, Saul Williams, Ezra Furman, Evangelicals, Joseph Arthur, Throw Me The Statue, Bon Iver (again), My Morning Jacket, Moby, Thurston Moore, Mark Kozelek (twice), Yo La Tengo, and Lou Reed.
Total Number of Tacos Consumed:
Sadly, only two. The tasty vegan chorizo taco is pictured above.
Notable Shows That I Was Unable to See:
Three. Jens Lekman (twice), Monontonix, Devin the Dude.
Rock Star That Currently Resembles My Deceased Jewish Grandmother, Adelle:
One. Lou Reed.

Good lord, what a day. While I failed miserably on my lone goal from yesterday—”Eat more tacos, two is not enough”—I did see nearly 20 bands over the course of the morning, afternoon, evening, and morning again. I won’t dare run through them all, so here’s some selected highlights, including a great set by Born Ruffians, Thurston Moore jumping on me, and Mark Kozelek performing sinful songs in the house of God.

Fueled by breakfast tacos (little did I know they'd be my last taste of taco deliciousness all day), we took part in a few day parties in various tents, museum lawns, and nasty clubs with offensive logos. Did I say offensive? I meant sexy. Damn sexy. Oh yeah, fuck that leg, just like that...

Anyway, the Torontonians in Born Ruffians were a real treat, a jangly and rollicking set of intelligent pop that reminded me of a hyperactive Pavement, or their fellow countrymen, the underrated Germans.

While I thought his latest album, the free downloadable (ala Radiohead) The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!, was a bit of a mess, Saul Williams can be one hell of a live performer. His backing band looks like they just rolled out of the Thunderdome, while WIlliams himself was going with the Adam Ant look (but with more feathers), as he pounced about the stage with a confident swagger. The music? Eh, still the same muddled industrial rock topped by Williams' slam poetry flow.

I was reluctant to attend the Lou Reed tribute for all sorts of reasons, but mainly because it seems unnecessary. Haven't the last 20-30 years of indie rock, more or less, just been a tribute to Reed? In a world of underrated icons like your Arthur Lees and Daniel Johnstons, another celebration in honor of Lou Reed's genius isn't particularly high on my list. But there I was, and it wasn't as bad as I had feared. Each act performed an original song, then a Reed-penned cover. Yo La Tengo was great (as always), as was Thurston Moore, who looked like this...

...before suddenly leaping into the crowd and landing at my feet...

Thurston darling, nice work on not spilling my beer (pictured here in my hand), I appreciate it.

But the real highlight was not Reed himself, who was joined by Moby (he's totally like a vegan John Cale), but instead that honor goes to Mark Kozelek. The Sun Kil Moon frontman performed a pair of Reed songs, "Caroline Says," and a gorgeous take on "The Kids," with its stirring chorus of "They’re taking her children away/Because they said she was not a good mother/They’re taking her children away/Because of the things that they heard she had done." Up until that point my dance card for the evening was filled with Jens Lekman, but after seeing Kozelek perform, I knew I needed to see him again.

Sure enough, after about a half dozen more bands, that is just what I did.

He performed in the Central Presbyterian Church, which is, well, a church. We sit in the pews. He performs onstage under a giant cross. We rock. We pray. We great our neighbors, pass the collection plate, and cool our frosty Lone Star cans in the holy water. Not quite, but the show was painfully intimate, as Kozelek quickly admitted that he was hoping his acting career would have worked out so he'd never have to perform music again—honestly, he seemed pretty sincere about that statement—and he also unleashed a quick "goddamn," before admitting he was warned not to swear inside the church. When he wasn't insulting the precious ears of Christ with his sailor's mouth, Kozelek performed a mixed bag of beautiful tunes, including a few from his upcoming record, April. It was the perfect show to end a hectic day.

Tomorrow's Goals:
Diversify. SXSW is a glorious rainbow, so why am I slumming it in the lily white 'burbs of the festival? Other than Saul Williams, my SXSW has been like a nonstop parade of white dudes (and dudettes) making the indie rock.

Also, more tacos. Seriously. Eric Grandy and Rob Simonsen are at seven a piece, while I'm still at four. But I remember my grandfather's dying words about music festival taco binge eating, "Son, it's a marathon, not a sprint."

Then he died.

Looking for something to do tonight? Here’s a rundown of some of the shows that are going on around town. With all the touring bands at SXSW, there’s no better time to get out there and suck in some local music. So suck it up!

•Berbati’s Pan (10 SW 3rd)—The Pink Snowflakes, The Village Green, Monstrous, Saturna; $7, 9 pm
•Crystal Ballroom (1332 W Burnside)—Flogging Molly, The Runaway Boys; free w/Jack Daniels ticket, 9 pm
•Dante’s (1 SW 3rd)—Climber, Siberian, The Dimes; $5, 9 pm
•Kelly’s Olympian (426 SW Washington)—Nordic Nites: Nordic, Dance Terror, Michael Bruce; $5, 9 pm
•Satyricon (125 NW 6th)—Scar of the Archetype, Grenadiers of the Doomed, Knu Threat, Butokuden, Ronster; $7, 7 pm, all ages
•Someday Lounge (125 NW 5th)—The Fix: Ohmega Watts, Rev. Shines, DJ Kez, DJ Dun Diggy; free, 9 pm
•Tube (18 NW 3rd)—DJ KG; free, 10 pm
•Wonder Ballroom (128 NE Russell)—Global Farm Benefit: Immortal Technique, Poison Pen, J. Arch, Circle, Mic Crenshaw, 3/5 Human, Santotzin; $15-18, 7:30 pm, all ages
•Ground Kontrol (511 NW Couch)—Fun World: Loch Berlin, Pegasus, The Friendly Skies; $4, 9 pm
•Aladdin Theater (3017 SE Milwaukie)—Ladysmith Black Mambazo; $31-34, 7:30 pm, all ages
•Doug Fir (830 E Burnside)—Kieskagato, The Online Romance, Newspapers; $6, 9 pm
•Holocene (1001 SE Burnside)—Drats!!!, Rollerball, Lickity; free, 9 pm
•Rotture (315 SE 3rd)—I’ve Got a Hole in My Soul: DJ Beyonda; $3, 10 pm
•Mississippi Studios (3939 N Mississippi)—Run On Sentence, Death Songs; $7-8, 8 pm

Onwards and upwards I say—towards that ninth crescendo, the sweat soaked shirt, the fighting duets at the top of the mountain, and one ball-bursting climax after another. These are the homes of my main man, Meat.

And so we continue, down Meat Street as it were… and man, I’m learning too. It’s a fucking incredible journey. Check this shit out (from Wikipedia):

While (in Texas) Meat was called in for an Army physical which he tried to fail by gaining sixty-eight pounds in four and a half weeks. They determined that he was fit despite being colour blind, having a trick shoulder and being very concussion prone; he has had 17 of them from allowing a Volkswagen to roll over his head on a dare, which garnered him the nickname Meat Loaf when a friend who was present remarked afterward he must have “meatloaf for brains”.)

I’m fucking speechless. Can you believe this? Meat PURPOSELY TRIED TO GAIN 68 POUNDS IN FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS!

HE LET A VOLKSWAGON ROLL OVER HIS FUCKING HEAD ON A DARE!

Jesus. This is incredible. Meat Loaf is more badass than I thought. We’re getting dangerously close to the realm of hero… I might have to go own down to Powell’s and pick up the autobiography. Meat Week may just turn into Meat Month… or at least Meat Fortnight.

There’s so much more to tell, and yes, for me to discover. But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow, as MEAT WEEK continues.

But of course, it would be wrong to leave you without a song. So here’s one from the 37 Million strong Bat Out of Hell. The track is called “You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)”. And for those of you who are wondering, that crazy dialogue IS indeed on the record as well. Could that be the first rock skit? That would make Meat an influence on hip hop as well… Jesus… this thing just won’t stop.

So here’s the long awaited (at least by me) video for “Break the Ice” off Britney Spear’s Blackout CD—and while I love the song, the video is brilliant on a number of levels. 1) Since it’s all done in Japanimation “Aeon Flux” style, we don’t actually have to see and be depressed by Brit’s burrito bump. 2) And since it’s Japanimation, it automatically gives me seizures—making sure I don’t have time to remember that Britney is currently under her dad’s house arrest. And 3) What if this video is actually what’s going on in Britney’s brain? That she’s actually experiencing this stuff in her mind, a’la The Matrix? That would explain SO MUCH of her behavior. (But wait… what if Britney’s not actually real and I’M the one experiencing an imagined universe? Ohh, wowwww. I need to smoke some pot.)

Headline lyric from “The Promised Land” — Darkness on the Edge of Town

The Associated Press reported today that an Australian woman stabbed her husband to death with a kitchen knife over the music of Bruce Springsteen. The incident took place in 2006; today she was sentenced to eight years in prison. Now, I’ve known people who would kill to get their hands on Springsteen tickets, but this incident was apparently spurred by something far less serious:

On the night of the killing, she tried to play a Springsteen CD and he took if off the stereo, triggering a bitter argument. “I mean, who the hell doesn’t like Bruce Springsteen, for God’s sake?” Cooper told police in a record of interview presented to the court. “I just picked up a knife and I went ‘boom’.”

Read the whole story here.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band play the Rose Garden on Friday, March 28th. Amazingly, tickets are still available here.

posted by Eric Grandy at the Stranger’s Line Out:

Thanks, Megan, for posting up my first great SXSW moment, Extreme Animals’ barely recognizable rendition of Archers of Loaf’s “Web in Front.” EXTREME! The duo’s set was only three, or maybe three-and-a-half, songs long, but it was a treat. Extreme Animals were my first exposure to the 20-sided neon world of Paper Rad, via a cantankerous noise-aficionado roommate (hey, Justin Pogue), and they will forever hold an eye-soring place in my heart. The duo consists of one mustachioed long-hair on drums and one on circuit bent Roland TR-707, casio, and feedback knobs, along with one laptop doing some vital sequencing. Believe it, Extreme Animals can pull of a feedback knob solo, even if “knob solo” sounds a little, well, wanky. They played on the floor in front of the stage at Emo’s JR, a kind-of-divey bar attached to the impressive outdoor complex that is Emo’s, but Mustache #2 got up on stage a couple times to do “metal claw” when he wasn’t dancing through the audience (breaking that fourth wall and running into the crowd would prove a theme at Emo’s Jr tonight). Their final song featured a “magic flute” solo; the two dudes pantomimed playing flutes while it played out. After their set, one of them said they had made a children’s show, and if we had children we should check it out. I don’t have kids, but maybe watching their show would encourage me to get someone pregnant.

Over in the Emo's main room, Longwave were pretty but forgettable.

Back in Emo's Jr, Free Blood, were awesome. Free Blood are a duo comprised of the tall, lanky, stage-stalking falsetto singer from !!! (John Pugh, who's apparently done with !!! now) along with a girl named Madeline. They both sing over a thumping pre-recorded backing track that sounds a lot like the funkier electro moments of !!! or Out Hud; the vocals are reverbed. The girl slo-mo dances and rubs her face in a way that suggests mushrooms or ecstasy. Pugh meanders down into the crowd. One song has a brutal, synced-electirc (guitar?) solo; another has Pugh shouting out (his? her? Mike Jones'?) phone number. For another song, Pugh plays guitar, and asks an audience member to come be his mic stand; a guy named "Pickle" volunteers to great cheers and does a commendable job as a mic stand. He gets a hi-five out of Pugh afterwards ("That's the first time a mic stand's ever given me a hi-five). For the last song, Pugh and Madeline did a little slow dance while their beat played out. It was sweet.

Jeffrey Lewis showed up at Emo's, just in time for Meneguar. Kirby and Seling may disagree with me here, but Meneguar strike me as a very middling rock band. I can see what they're going for—pop choruses buried under gyroscopic guitars and vocal reverb, Juno-esque instrumental buildups and breaks, occasional feedback rock bombast—but it just doesn't seem to come together, and their sound was muddled, with the reverb sucking all the energy from their would-be sing-along vocals.The noise bits between songs were fine, but the songs themselves? Meh. Meh-neguar.

In the main room, a band called Delta Spirit played some perfectly festival-friendly roots rock. Also, if you've never been, the "main room" at Emo's isn't really a room; it's an open air courtyard with some awnings here, some bleachers there, and a bar in the middle. It's awesome. It's also 70 degrees here in March, so it works.

The first big disappointment of the night: Japanther have mysteriously disappeared from the bill at Emo's Jr, to be replaced by fellow Brooklynites Team Robespierre. Bummer. Team Robespierre, it turns out, are a kind-of okay replacement, in fact, if I'd seen them under any circumstances other than expecting to see Japanther, I'd probably have nothing but good things to say. Their show combines a little Japanther, a little Matt & Kim, a little youth crew Hardcore, and a little Atom & His Package. There are dual keyboardists and dual vocalists. There is some dancing into the crowd. Also, Team Robespierre summon up the best/only mosh pit of the night, with kids crowd surfing on a crowd not quite big enough to support it, some dude loses the lens of his glasses, and lots of kids slamming into each other, opening huge holes in the crowd. Pretty fucking fun.

In the main room, Be Your Own Pet offered a much simpler version of punk, one built on frenetic three-chord thrash and cracked southern belle Jemima Pearl's wailing. The band was much better than when I saw them last in Seattle, the instruments tighter, and Pearl's stage presence more confident, oscillating between skinny spaz flailing and faux sexy snarl more convincingly than before.

Down the street, at the Thirsty Nickel, Diskjokke is playing in entirely the wrong bar. The Nickel is a wooden-walled saloon, long and narrow, with the stage right by the door, flanked by windows. Diskjokke is playing a laptop with a couple MIDI controllers, pumping out chill but grooving disco, but the crowd, packed up into the front, isn't dancing. They're watching. Watching a guy play a laptop. This is something I'll just never understand—if you're going to see someone make dance music, and if there's not really any kind of a live show to speak of, why would you standing there staring instead of dancing? Pushing through the crowd, it turns out that it's not so packed; the Nickel is huge, and there's plenty of space further back, although the sound doesn't carry. Oh yeah, did I mention that the sound system seems to consist of two PA speakers. Not really the kind of thump you want in your discotheque. I've been told that this is often how it is at SXSW—rock bands end up playing dance clubs and sounding like shit, electronic act wind up at a honky tonk that doesn't know what to do with them, etc. Oh well. I check back later for Kim Hiorthoy, who's rocking an awesome V∞redoms t-shirt (Dave Segal tells me Boredoms' EYE did a great remix for Hiorthoy), and the crowd has thinned out a bit and started dancing a little, but even just halfway back in the crowd, the sound is weak. It's disappointing, as this line-up was one I was really looking forward to.

In other disappointment: Cut Copy at Karma was so crowded after I waited in line to get in (gasp!), that it was impossible to see or hear much of anything. The crowd was bouncing and clapping along up front though, and one guy's head was visible above them, lit in neon green against the club's dark. I was curious to see the Tough Alliance's lip-synch power violence act, but not that curious.

Over at Barcelona, Pandemonium Jones of Caps & Jones was DJing a mellow warm-up set, climaxing with the Black Kids' "I won't Teach Your Boyfriend how to Dance." Remember Black Kids? That's a fine song. Barcelona is the venue that Lindstrom, Hiorthoy, and Diskjokke should've been playing at, a cool, neon-lit underground club, also long and narrow, but with a much better vibe for dancing. Next up were Ninjasonik, a trio of Bronx kids (and literal Black Kids), of whom my friend Jamie said, "You'll hear them say 'nigger' a lot, and that's kind of the whole point." One of them has a pretty sweet Shock G/Humpty look going on. They sound-checked to Peter Bjorn & John's "Young Folks," played their DJ back in the booth. The transition from sound-check to actual set is murky, though, with their next numbers consisting of only various repeated iterations of their name ("Ninja fucking sonic / Sonic fucking ninjas") and then the choruses from ODB's "Yeah Baby I Like it Raw" and M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," for which they've made paper planes to throw from the stage at the handful of people gathered around. They never got around to dropping the N-bomb before I left.

Well, there’s not much I can add to Ezra’s wonderful post about Day One at SXSW.

I also ate two delicious, delicious tacos.

My wrist also looks like it survived some freak accident with a clown.

However, one thing Ezra did miss that proved to be the highlight of my night was Cut Copy. Oh my god these guys killed. Maybe it was the eight Shiners in my belly, but they had me dancing so much by the end of their set that I was officially drenched. Judging by how amped the crowd was, I wasn’t the only one.

Oh, and again, with that whole Shiners thing: not only did I end up standing directly next to Jens Lekman for quite sometime at The Tough Alliance, I managed to say hello to him without peeing myself from excitement. I’m not starstruck very easily, but Jesus that man is pretty.

My goal for today: see ROBYN!!!

Day One - SXSW 2008
Total Number of Bands Seen:
Six. Jeffrey Lewis, Kimya Dawson (on accident, I swear), Be Your Own Pet, The Kills, Bon Iver, Tough Alliance.
Total Number of Tacos Consumed:
Two.
Notable Shows That I Was Unable to See:
Three. R.E.M., Van Morrison, Okkervil River & Roky Erickson.
Number of hand stamps and wrist bands:
Four.
Celebrity Sightings:
None, unless you count Jens Lekman at the Tough Alliance show. He was dancing. Poorly. While holding a tote bag.

Not a bad first day, especially when you consider that we rolled into Austin in the early evening, and before we saw any bands we needed to check-in to our hotel, register for the conference, and, most importantly, eat some tacos. I chose the stomach-turning “deep friend avocado, with avocado(!)” taco (pictured above), which was wasn’t as bizarre as the name sounds. The avocado was nugget-thick with batter, but cool and soft inside, plus it went well with a dollop of the habanero hot sauce.

Onto the music…

Jeffrey Lewis, much like his performance a few weeks back opening for the Mountain Goats, was fantastic—a charming blur of hyperactive kiddie songs, run through the neurotic filter of a tortured (comic book) artist, and militant Crass fan. Our plan was to catch the bouncy pop of Saturday Looks Good to Me next, but instead we stumbled right into a Kimya Dawson performance (my hatred for Juno is well documented).

PANIC!

No time to consult the guidebook, so we just fled into the sea of people, took a random left and were staring at the hyperactive Be Your Own Pet.

It's like pop-punk for kids who wouldn't dare admit to listening to pop-punk. Honestly, it's hard to see where Be Your Own Pet stops and a band like Paramore starts. Or even Tilt or Discount, for that matter. Still enjoyable, though.

Speaking of pop-punk (specifically Discount), it was time to cut across town to catch The Kills. I adore their latest, Midnight Boom, and haven't caught the band since their early days from back when they were still (I assume) a couple. They do have the same intense, faux-junkie back and forth, as before, but that are-they-going-to-fuck-each-other-on-the-stage? vibe was long gone.

Despite my best efforts to catch Cut Copy, I arrived too late, so I reversed direction and sought out the ghostly voice of Bon Iver, the band behind my favorite record of the year (so far, it's still quite early), For Emma, Forever Ago. Problem was, the show was at a terrible venue that booked a very loud Buckcherry cover band a few yards away from the delicate sounds of Bon Iver. At the same time.

Worse, was this douche nozzle bouncer who refused to let anyone upstairs to see Bon Iver, despite the show not being sold out.

Ha, beer for breakfast, you silly fucking frat boy, I will turn your bones to fucking dust and murder your fucking family.

Um, anyway, I got in. Bon Iver's set was gorgeous, despite my seething rage for a certain bouncer getting the best of me. I needed to mellow out. I needed something fun. I needed something Swedish and gay.

Oh, hello Tough Alliance. The Swedish duo was just what I needed, as their ridiculous techno-pop (Lip syncing and fog machines, yay!) sounded better as the evening progressed, even if it made me feel like I was at a sweaty gay bar in Göteborg. It was a little hokey at times, but not a bad way to end my first night here at SXSW.

Tomorrow's Goals:
Eat more tacos. Two is not enough.
That is all.

What a $4300 blowjob looks like

Alright. Still no word from the rest of End Hits. And frankly, it still doesn’t matter. I’m killing it today. I mean, there’s MEAT WEEK!, and if that wasn’t enough, I present to you, fresh from the Eliot Spitzer Sex Scandal, Ashley Alexandra Dupré! (or, “Kristin”).

SHE’S A SINGER!. That’s right. At least, that’s what Drudge says. Man, this is too good. Not the music, but I have a remedy—Ashely, if you’re out there I’m ready to make you new beats. That’s right—I will save your career.

Becaues, Ash, as a music critic, unless you team with me in some sort of, I Wear The Colonel Outfit And Call The Shots way, you’re in trouble. My professional, critical opinion: if the rest of your songs are like the generic, ballin’, stay-strong junk track you’ve got up there, you should just keep your day job.

(Man, I’M ON FIRE!)

All kinds of ideas flowing here… maybe it’s time to start End Hits records? I bet with my beats and Ash’s newfound celebrity we could outsell MGMT and Yeasayer in one week! Hot damn.

Call me, honey. Let’s do it.

Well, I’m not sure what happened to the rest of the End Hits staff… Two ideas: 1: they all went to SXSW and left me to stay in dreary Portland and rob their houses. 2: holed up in their bedrooms listening to emo they finally slit their wrists. Could go either way on this one, but no matter. We don’t need them. Know why?

BECAUSE IT’S MEAT WEEK!

That’s right. Yesterday’s discovery of Bat Out of Hell on sale for 1 cent at amazon.com has unleashed a river of Meat!

And what a time to do it — I just found out that the new Meat-u-mentary, Meat Loaf: In Search of Paradise, is coming out today! Check out this amazing quote from the review. Meat, talking to a backup dancer about her wardrobe, says, “Less hooker, more Studio 54!” Man, what a ruthless Meat-down!

Here’s the trailer for In Search of Paradise:

Oh, and in regard to my earlier post about the saggy album sales of hipsters MGMT and Yeasayer… well, Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell has sold over 37 MILLION copies! MEAT THAT!

Now, I’m not for the big Brooklyn blowjob aspect of this piece from Sunday’s New York Times, but there are some interesting components, namely that a lot of hyped out bands aren’t vying for major label support.

(Really, the Brooklyn bit feels tacked on—more a reason just to stay home and off the phone by interviewing the bands in town… Jesus, it’s time to move on and just accept that fact that New Yorkers are superior to everyone else… Good God, FUCK OFF! And really, to call a lot of the bands “New York” bands is a cop-out anyway. That’s like saying someone is an “L.A. actor”. How many New York bands were born and bred there? If I had an intern I would send them out on this task. But since I don’t we’ll just have to go with my gut, which says almost none of them are real New Yorkers… OK, this isn’t what the post is supposed to be about… Moving on…)

Here’s the crazy bit of the article:

For the most part those low sales expectations have been borne out by the marketplace. Yeasayer’s “All Hour Cymbals” — released on the label Now We Are Free, created specifically for the group by Mr. Foster — has sold only 15,000 copies, and MGMT’s “Oracular Spectacular,” even with the backing of Columbia, has moved 21,000 since it became available in October.

Wow. Those numbers are fucking sad. Those bands are arguably two of the hottest in the scene right now (which anyone who was turned away at sold-out shows can attest to — and on that note, those who got in can also attest to MGMT being fucking TERRIBLE live. They owe producer Dave Fridman all the pussy they’re getting… Yeasayer, on the other hand KILLED IT—a real shame that they were somehow forced from their headlining slot down into opening because MGMT had the better single, or because they were on Conan, or whatever).

Now, let’s look at those numbers again:

MGMT: 21,000 CD’s
Yeasayer: 15,000

Atrocious. It’s done. The tire isn’t flat, the piston just rammed through the block. It’s not fixable. It’s totaled.

It’d be nice, however, if we could somehow see some download stats, both legal and illegal. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bands had MORE illegal downloads of their albums than actual physical CD sales. Has that every been looked at? Has it ever happened? (If not before, I bet these two bands are the first potential candidates…)

Back to the The Times article for a moment. It also asserts that the lack of major label pressure and/or involvement is a boon to indie music in that creativity is more free to flow in earnest. I’d like to know what some touring, CD selling musicians think about that. From my most recent interview with Panther, I know they’d disagree.

But there’s a point to what Sisario is saying, I suppose.

And without all the internet downloads would there be all the hype? Would the shows be bursting at the seams across the country? Are the bands making more off the tour? I’d sure bet that more than 15,000 people watch them play up close and personal on this go round…

Alright. Signing off from the land of rhetorical and/or unanswerable questions.

HO-LY SHIT!

I was thumbing through the 1 cent CD’s on Amazon.com, looking for something to make fun of. Little did I know I’d find a TOTAL FUCKING GEM and ACTUALLY BUY IT!

The CD I ordered, for just one measly penny (ok, shipping too) is BAT OUT OF HELL! The fucking real deal, original Meatloaf. None of this Bat Out Of Hell 2 shit. It’s really an awesome album. Every single song has like, eight crescendos—absolutely epic. This is driving music if there ever was any. It’s perfect for you and a buddy (you’ve got to learn the words) ramming around town at high speed on a Thursday afternoon with a buzz.

“And the LAST Thing I saw (oh, and we’re shouting it out the windows at people we pass by) was my HEART STILL A-BEATING / Breaking outta my body / and flyin’ away / like a BAT OUT OF HELLLLLL!”

Oh man. What a familiar scene. It was something we did often, that is, until I lost the cassette. (Something about Bat Out of Hell is better to have on cassette…) But I don’t have that car, nor a tape player anymore. So we’re going to have to upgrade.

Just in time for spring. Fuck. Yeah.

You too can join in the fun for only ONE CENT! DO IT NOW! You won’t be sorry!

Because I am possibly the biggest old-school Spice Girls fan in North America, I have used caution not to post too many Spice Girls songs in my continuing series, “Your Friend, the ’90s.” HOWEVER! Due to an alarming amount of ignorance about the Spice Girls around the Mercury offices (Intern Drew, I’m looking at YOU), I feel compelled to post the Girls’ squirmingly cute and disturbing single “2 Become 1.”

The best part of the video: The Spice Girls obviously entered a parallel dimension so they could co-exist safely in busy and super-fast downtown traffic. (Somehow a deer and a pair of lesbians made it, too.)

The worst part of the video: There’s WAY too much creepy stares/head cocking/scrunchy noses going on here, and Baby Spice’s condom invitation (“Be a little bit wiser baby/ Put it on, put it on”) makes me feel weird in my pants.

Other than that, like all other Spice Girls projects… it’s PERFECT IN EVERY WAY!

On today’s installment of Trends We Miss, we lament the phenomenon of rock bands titling themselves after a common place name. These generic, boring band names seem to have gone by the wayside in favor of nonsensical words like “Menomena” and “Spoon,” or clusters of familiar words that create new, puzzling phrases like “The Arcade Fire” or “The Radio Heads.”

O, for the days of lame, uninteresting bands names! You know what I’m talking about.

Chicago.
Boston.
Kansas.
Europe.
Asia.
Alabama.
Motherfuckin’ America, yo.

And there are so many untapped possibilities! Imagine if bands continued to do this. We could have bands with names like Albany! Or New Rochelle! Or Las Vegas! Or Darfur! Or Tropic of Capricorn! Or Beirut!…. well, scratch that last one.

(Seriously, though, can you believe a band actually had the audacity to call themselves Chicago? And wasn’t there a band called Oregon? Were they actually from Oregon? The balls. The fucking nerve.)

Minneapolis emcee Brother Ali is one of those rare interviews that you wish never ends. Incredibly candid and emotionally available, Ali will talk your ear off on almost any topic and it’s hard to walk away from a conversation with him and not feel inspired.

Inspired by how real he is. Inspired by his commitment to his craft. And inspired by how much adversity he had to overcome to get where he is at.

But what wasn’t inspiring was cutting the majority of our interview due to space issues. So, after the jump, read the full transcript of my conversation with one of the most interesting, and important, emcees in the hiphop kingdom.

MP3:
Brother Ali - Doomage (feat. Slug)

Brother Ali performs tonight at the Hawthorne Theatre.

photo: Skye Rossi

Brother Ali

If given the forum, and a bountiful word count that knows no end, I can write and write about Brother Ali until my keyboard breaks, or my hands snap off at the wrist, whatever comes first. Every since hearing a bootleg of his early demos, I’ve been enthralled by the enigmatic Minneapolis emcee, and member of the Rhymesayers collective. My original intention was to pen another long-winded rant (I believe my fourth in as many years) on the genius of Ali’s honest rhymes, and his keen sense of his role in the hiphop kingdom, but instead I’ll let him do the talking. On tour for his latest release, The Undisputed Truth, here is a candid, realistic, and all-too-human Ali talking about his craft, his life, and how this is all he knows.

You rhyme about your relationship with touring and how it’s a Catch-22. It put food on your family’s table, but is also takes you away from them. But as someone who constantly tours, have you made peace with it?
I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m not ever able to make peace with it. I have just accepted the fact that it’s what I do and I can’t not do it. I would be rapping somewhere else if there were no people at my shows. It’s weird, being part of the underground, you’re always having people come up to you and say, “You did it with none of the resources and I’m going to do it too,” and I look at these guys and I’m like, “No, you don’t get it. You have other things in your life that are equally important to you than rap music and that’s why you’ll never do it.” I have this and this alone. This is the one thing I’ve had my whole life. I didn’t play sports, I didn’t have girlfriends. I didn’t play Dungeons & Dragons or videogames. I wasn’t in the Boy Scouts. This is what I did. My whole life. When I get on the stage, for an hour and a half, this is why I’m alive and this is why I exist in this world.

In the wake of “Uncle Sam Goddamn” and you becoming more politically vocal, would you ever do one of those USO performances overseas?
It’s weird because people ask if I would do them and I say “yes,” because I’m not mad at the troops. I view the troops as the same as my drug dealer friends. A lot of my Muslim and black community friends hate the drug dealers, and I get it, I understand. But do you think that they really want to do it? Or is it something they believe in? Most of the people in the military see it as a way to have some stability in life, and they don’t see anything else as being realistic. I don’t think the majority of them want to go do that shit. I wouldn’t go and play for the police. That’s a different thing. People join the police academy because they want to carry a gun and tell people what to do, I think when people join the military they’re hoping that they never have to take their gun anywhere and hope that they’ll never be at war.

Have you gotten any feedback from troops?
Yeah, I’ve had people who came back and said, “We listened to your stuff all the time when we were in Iraq. We played your music for the Iraqi people because there was Arabic in it.” But, when the video first came out, I got a lot of mail and it was all really dumb. “You’re a fag. Fuck you. And I’m going to kill you. You should move out of America.” I just really think that people have a hard time hearing anything that’s going to upset the kind of security that they want.

I’ve seen you a handful of times over the years and it seems that each time, it’s in a bigger venue with a larger crowd. Do you feel like you reached a point where all your hard work is finally paying off?
Yes and no. The thing is that—I think that this is an easy thing to say and I try to really stick to it and really mean it—with your true success, you have to measure it by whatever standard you have for yourself. If I feel like my art is growing, if I feel like I’m putting in the amount of work that I should be putting in, getting enough out of myself, giving people quality shows, albums, interviews, and everything. I try to gauge my success by that. The fact that with Shadows on the Sun, it took people a minute to catch on. The fans caught on first and then everybody else caught on later.

Where do you see yourself, as an artist, in hiphop?
This year I was really fortunate, I got to go on Conan [O’Brien] and tour with people I grew up idolizing. I got a lot of really good press that I had no clue that I’d be able to get. The Source, Rolling Stone, Spin, and places like that. But I know that all that stuff can be taken away. I can make my next album, grow again, and pour more out of myself again, and if for whatever reason, people don’t see it that way, I still have to be okay with what happens. It would be easy for me at some point to really give this underground audience exactly what they want. Which is me going at the albino thing harder, playing it up more. Give them the anthems. They’re new to hiphop. They’ve just now learned the beauty of creativity in rap music; they never knew it existed before. They love the section of hiphop that speaks to them, and they think they have to be against the rest of it. I could come out and be like, “Fuck 50 Cent,” which I don’t believe. I could do that and maybe get bigger, and really play into that. It’s weird because I’ve seen some of the younger independent guys be like, “Okay I got this young, white fanbase, who really like hiphop and I’m speaking to them for the first time.” They play into it as hard as they can. And to a certain degree, it works. But not for me.

Brother Ali performs at the Hawthorne Theatre on Tuesday, March 11.

First it was Lohan, and now someone else is joining Menomena in their bathtub…

It’s Huey Lewis! And a seal!?!

Not sure why the seal is there, but Huey is soaking it up (no splashing! no horseplay!) with the Menomena boys because the band has just signed on to take part in a Huey Lewis tribute album entitled, Are You Still With Me?!.

Yes, I’m not making that up.
And no, I didn’t know such a thing existed.

They are covering “Back In Time,” from the soundtrack of Back To The Future, a song so great that it is paid tribute to via fan video:

There is nothing like rolling over on this hazy Portland morning and seeing you lovely End Hits readers lying right next to me—ugh, soooo creepy—so why don’t we put on some music to break this awkward silence?

MP3:
Basia Bulat - True Love Will Find You In The End

I know, it is such a great song. I’m pretty sure it’s a Daniel Johnston cover from the recent Basia Bulat Daytrotter Session. I especially like the “This is a promise with a catch” line.

So, you wanna hang out later?

No?

Oh, ok. I’ll call you.

Ah, Mondays. Garfield’s favorite day, and frequently the bastion of open mic nights. But tonight, there’s actually a fair amount of things to do with your time and money. Here’s a peek at some of what’s happening.

•Berbati’s Pan (10 SW 3rd)—Agent Orange, MDC, No Red Flags; $15, 9 pm, all ages
•Someday Lounge (125 NW 5th)—Personal Stash w/DJs Adam Gnade & Josh Blanchard; free
•Tube (18 NW 3rd)—Tokyo Sex Destruction, White Recluse, DJ Nate C; 10 pm, $3
•Valentine’s (232 SW Ankeny)—Graves, Lake, Swimming; 9 pm, free
•Roseland (8 NW 6th)—Serj Tankian, Fair to Midland; 9 pm, $25, all ages
•Hawthorne Theatre (1507 SE 39th)—Earth Crisis, Terror, Sworn Enemy, Shai Hulud, Down to Nothing, Recon; 6 pm, $20, all ages
•Hippodrome Circus Arts Center (315 SE 3rd)—Glass Candy, DJ Beyonda, Caves, E*Rock, Reggie Watts; 7:30 pm, free w/RSVP
•Holocene (1001 SE Morrison)—Leslie & The LY’s (pictured above), Fleshtone, Juice Team DJs; 9 pm, $8

Welcome back to Monday my friends, lovers and foes. It’s a rotten one, I’ll tell you. Somehow sick again. Or at least, under the weather—that fucking flem sewer is back in the back of my throat. DAMN YOU COLD! GO THE FUCK AWAY! I’VE BEEN GOOD!

It’s time to sit down for a little collective bargaining session with viruses and the seasons to strike a new deal. No more colds will be tolerated after the clocks have been changed. Viruses are pretty much going to have to take one up the ass here, because they’re currently controlling way more than their share…

But dammit, the cold’s not going to stop me tonight. Let’s just hope inhaling eighteen packs of second hand smoke inside the Tube doesn’t make it too much worse. Regardless, the fact of the matter remains that I WILL be going to see Tokyo Sex Destruction—cold or no cold.

The band is from Spain, which I figure gives them a little pass on the stupid name. TSD sounds a lot like the MC5—heavy, soul punk—and that’s just awesome. In fact, it looks as if TSD is collaborating with MC5 bassist Michael Davis. He’s done some production work and even played on a track or two.

Strange of all the vintage bands and sounds that are so constantly being plagiarized (psychedelia anyone?) that the MC5 and bands of that ilk (like, more recently the Nation Of Ulysses) haven’t been aped. I wonder… God, stomping, cathartic political soul is AWESOME! It’s heady music with ENERGY! BALLS!

Listen up: Tokyo Sex Destruction’s “Break-Out Town”

See their Myspace for more, and might I recommend “Get On Your Knees”?

And if you’d like, bring me a bag of Riccola and I’ll buy you a Tecate.

First came Pitchfork TV.

Now we have Videogum?!

Stay tuned for End Hits Mega Video Tube Extravaganza TV, where we’ll play nothing but Eugene Mirman shorts, Bruce Springsteen videos, and clips of cats doing the darnedest things.

Wait, on second thought, maybe that’s just my typical Monday afternoon. Ah well, I can dream, right?

By now you’ve heard all the chatter about She & Him, the super duo made up of (local singer—then for awhile, not so local—but now supposedly local again) M. Ward and indie starlet Zooey Deschanel. Their debut recording, Volume One, will be out via Merge on March 18th, and here’s a little taste of the sweetness…

MP3:
She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?

Not bad, huh? I sure was surprised. The project feels more Deschanel than Ward, with her warm vocals dominating most of the album, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this holds up live when the duo debuts at this week’s SXSW festival.

Besides, look how cute they are. In a cemetery no less.
Hey, isn’t that my grandma’s tombstone in the background? Oh, who cares. They are sooooo adorable.

The Tap Project is a nationwide fundraiser for UNICEF, wherein participating restaurants ask customers to purchase a glass of tap water for $1. The project takes place next week, beginning Sunday, March 16 through Saturday, March 22. The money raised will go to providing clean, safe drinking water for people in third world countries.

As part of the PDX Tap Project, there’s a celebration tonight at the Hippodrome Circus Arts Center (315 SE 3rd). It’s a party thrown by W+K12 for the waitstaff of all the restaurants that are participating in the project.

Tonight features music by Glass Candy, Caves, E*Rock, Reggie Watts, and DJ Beyonda. For more information about Tap Project, and a list of participating restaurants, go to the website here.

UPDATE 12:55 PM—I’ve learned that this event is invitation only, for the staff of the restaurants who are part of the project. RSVP required. Still, be sure to get involved next week when the project is underway by visiting the participating restaurants.