SXSW
Juke Savages On The Brazos Revisited


I've never been to South Padre Island, but I've spent my past two Spring Breaks in Texas. My mid-semester destination of choice is Austin, during the annual South by Southwest music festival and media conference. For one week every spring in the Live Music Capital of the World, about 1,200 bands and countless other industry types converge to rock 'n' roll all night and day for five days. The performances take place in about 60 downtown venues, almost all along Sixth Street, in the heart of Austin's bar district.

My SXSW diet this year consisted of about 10 hours of rock 'n' roll per day and not nearly enough food, beer or water. I never once took a dip in my hotel swimming pool, although I did take a break late one afternoon to watch the bats fly over the river with some fellow rock journalists.

The best bands I saw were all from New York—Steel Train, The Exit and the New York Dolls. I caught the Dolls on the afternoon of the SPIN magazine party, the only real private event I scored a pass to. Staring up at the stage behind Stubb's BBQ, I tried to imagine what it would have been like to see the Dolls in their heyday—when David Johansen didn't have to rely on a music stand (for lyrics? a setlist?) and Sylvain Sylvain wasn't the only other original member of the group flanking him. The punchy performance was admirable, though, and I hope some of the greatest bands of my generation will still be willing to rock out wrinkled.

I wandered into shows by The Exit and Steel Train on the same night. The Exit, a band name I'd known of for years, blew me away with intense, slow-driving guitar rock tinged with punk, dub, psychedelica and more. I heard they were talking with Wind-Up Records at the festival, so I hope to Hell they don't become the next Creed.

The Exit's buddies, Steel Train, put on an entirely different kind of show. Apparently classically trained art school boys, Steel Train may not rock exactly, but they sure sound pretty. Crammed onto a tiny stage in a cheap sake bar (imaginatively named Sake on Sixth), the five-piece harmonized and hearkened back to the Summer of Love with clear, young voices. I heard some people say Steel Train is boring, but I found the folksy melodies invigorating and pleasant. And I swear that's not just the sake talking.

Another memorable act was Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, a San Diego punk band with firecracker of a frontman, who idolizes Iggy Pop (too much) and makes occasional use of a saxophone. My post-gig conversation with him involved a story about a Tucson concert where he spat on kiddies in the audience and further scared them by waving his penis around. Yes, I might just have a new rock 'n' roll crush.

Honorable mentions: Boyskout, the lushest, littlest rocker girls I know, who cranked out their post-punk noise in one of the first sets of the festival; The Frames, a wry, emotional Irish indie band that has since grown on me despite my initial determination of their music as "borderline AC" (adult contemporary, that is); Experimentalists Menomena, whose music involved so many instruments that members sometimes had to play with their feet.