SXSW Day 1: The New Pornographers, The Go! Team And World Party Help Kick Off The Fest

ChartAttack's Steve McLean is in Austin, Texas for South By Southwest this week. Here is his first report...

sxswI saw a fine performance by Rhett Miller on Tuesday night at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern so that I wouldn't have to use a valuable time slot on him in Austin, Texas. Since I had a 6:30 a.m. flight to catch on Wednesday morning, I didn't bother going to bed, knowing that the music I was about to see and hear would erase any thoughts of fatigue. After arriving in Austin and checking into my hotel, the musical odyssey began with a 12:30 p.m. show at Emo's by local band The Arm. The quartet played songs from their new Call You Out album that were a bit reminiscent of The Fall without all of the Britishisms. They were good, but not as good as I had hoped.

Following the set, I walked down to the convention centre to register and pick up my delegate badge and goodie bag, which I took back to the hotel. After throwing out all the crap, I returned to the convention centre to see Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, an Indiana trio with the only washboard player I'll probably intentionally see over the next four days. The group blended Delta blues with lo-fi indie rock and although the lyrics were almost unintelligible, they did perform a song about the singer/guitarist's father being so drunk that he got kicked out of one of their shows.

From there, I moved across the street to the Canadian Blast BBQ to enjoy some free food and booze and to catch The Trews. They did what they do best and delivered an effective set of meat-and-potatoes rock. I caught a couple of psychedelic-influenced rock tunes from The High Dials before returning to the convention centre to see Nashville's The Pink Spiders. The young garage rock band mixed in a bit of angular indie rock and thrashed out a little up until their final song, and shining moment, "Modern Swinger," from their Ric Ocasek-produced Geffen debut.

I hurried up to Emo's to see Dallas favourites, The Deathray Davies, who started late. Eventually, the sextet crowded themselves on to the small stage to play some new wave-influenced indie rock. Things sounded best when the keyboards were up in the mix. It was another good, but not great, set.

I had hoped to catch the end of The Golden Dogs' set back at the Canadian Blast BBQ, but they'd ended early. I consoled myself with a few Crown Royals and Cokes and a set from Pilate, who were very solid with their Canadian take on U2.The Green Mesquite was next for the annual Horseshoe Tavern Canadian party. The three-meat platter was on special and the Shiner Bock pitchers were flowing. A couple of hours of schmoozing later, we hopped into the van and went to The Parish. I had hoped to see Swedish alt.pop quintet The Envelopes, but just caught their last song. That was too bad because their "Sister In Love" was one of my favourite songs posted on the SXSW website.

I went downstairs to The Parish II for We Start Fires, a British quartet fronted by three women. They put a lot of energy into their new wave indie rock during their unexceptional but passable set.

There was a scheduling mix-up at Emo's Jr., so Chicago's M's had been moved back an hour. Since I couldn't see them, I went out back to Emo's outside venue to see another Austin band, Voxtrot. I heard a very faint hint of The Smiths at times during their entertaining new wave rock set, which included a sped-up cover of The Talking Heads' "Heaven" that I think I actually might have liked more than the original.

To this point, nothing had blown me away yet so I went to Stubb's for what I was sure would be a winner, The New Pornographers. Since it was probably their only show with Neko Case this year, they put an emphasis on the songs that she sings lead vocals on, so I couldn't have been happier. The group led off with an excellent version of the title track from Twin Cinema and played an amazing 40-minute set that also included "The Laws Have Changed," "The Bleeding Heart Show," "Mass Romantic," "Bones From An Idol" and closer "Sing Me Spanish Techno," among others.

I then did the movement of Jah people and went to Exodus. There was a big lineup, but luckily Radio Starmaker Fund's Jerry Leibowitz happened to be at the front of it so I sidled in with him. I bought him two drinks as a token of appreciation for getting into the totally jammed club.

World Party, featuring former Waterboy Karl Wallinger, played an acoustic set that included "Is It Like Today?" "And Way Down Now" but, quite surprisingly, no "Ship Of Fools." I hadn't seen the group since a show at Toronto's Lee's Palace at least 10 years ago and didn't even know they were still together, so I was grateful for the opportunity to catch them.

The Plimsouls were a legendary '80s power pop band from Los Angeles who've been playing sporadic reunion shows of late. I was lucky enough to catch this one. Though I was at the back of the oversold venue and couldn't see anything, I was later told that frontman Peter Case was quite animated.

The live music portion of the night ended at the same club with The Go! Team. I've never been able to catch them in Toronto, but they put on a totally high-energy show here for the faithful. What they lack in musical chops, they more than make up for in enthusiasm. Ninja was at her cheerleading best, hopping around frantically for the duration of their set. It was an excellent way to cap off a day (along with a few cans of Guinness back in the hotel suite later on) that didn't start off as well as I had hoped.