Palm Greasing and The Next Big Thing

The Scissor Sisters

::	MUSIC DAY TWO: Palm Greasing and The Next Big Thing By Terry Sawyer

Fashion writers go to Milan and Paris to take note of what tastemakers will be churning out in the coming year and what people will be actually wearing in a couple years once someone has produced the peasant-ready knock off. It’s just as tempting, here in Austin, to take note of patterns and predict what will be getting tossed in the post-festival wood chipper of hype.

If last night was any indication, then kitsch seems to be the latest intellectual scam to infect the hipster cognoscenti. At least three bands that I’ve seen at SXSW suffered from one form or another. The Scissor Sisters got the benefit of the buzz last night and everyone that I bumped into said that they were making their way over to one of the larger venues of the festival to catch a glimpse. No offense to the band, but if the Scissors Sisters are garnering critical praise then there’s something deeply compromised about the psychology of trend setters, something that anyone who reads a fair amount of music criticism could diagnose in a flash. The Scissor Sisters have loads of irony, which is one way of saying that someone sucks but they’re able to deflect the impact of sucking by being self-conscious of it. They sound like the B-52s bent through a bad night of ’70s karaoke combined with the stage antics of embarrassing drunk relatives. I’m all for listening to music that’s fun, which is why indie cooler-than-thou types should just get over themselves and listen to some good pop music rather than looking for a band that has what they consider the contrarian hallmarks of an indie find just so that they can enjoy the few moments of residual fun that might seep through the hackwork. (This means you, Har Mar Superstar.) The Scissor Sisters set a new standard for awful, but they should be given much credit for engaging in grade-A sucker marketing.

The elevation of kitsch didn’t end with the Scissor Sisters, but seemed to permeate the atmosphere once I began looking for it. As a side note, one of the worst things I kept seeing was truly horrific mustaches on perfectly good looking gents. I’m talking about pretty indie rockers wearing those meaty old cop mustaches that my mom thought was hot on Burt Reynolds. Please, no. What started with Electroclash seems to have trickled into every genre with the ’80s deluging in with no flash flood warning. It’s not always entirely bad. Electrelane make completely solid synth rock with detached vocals and a stage presence that bordered on ennui. It was hard not to bob my head along even if I couldn’t think of anything that they bring to their “I Know What Boys Like” revival.

Sometimes I feel like kitsch is this toxic combination of nostalgia and political indifference, but then I think of someone like John Waters and realize that it can be used to subversive ends. Here at SXSW, sadly, it just seems like the work of professional dabblers, people who will drop kitsch mode for whatever hits the runways next year.

The Statistics

Networking is the competing side event at every single concert and if I knew exactly what it was I might try to do it myself. At every venue there are milling clots on the periphery who do nothing but chat and engage in exaggerated laughter, you know the supplicating kind where you’re trying to impress someone important by ignoring their absence of personality. I did have to wonder how exactly the people with press badges would review a show where they spent its entirety trying to score party passes or job opportunities, but maybe I’m just jealous. My total social retardation makes that kind of everyday smoothness an impossibility. When I interviewed Denver Dalley of the Statistics, he seemed equally nonplussed by the networking aspects, noting that “This is really just another show and that’s how I look at it. I want to have a good time, do a good job, and check out some of the other bands on my label.” That seemed to be the general impression I gleaned from the musicians I talked to. No one was hoping for the festival to launch them into international acclaim. At best, people hoped for one or two connections, at least one or two free beers, and the possibility to see bands from all over the world who might not normally get to tour here. I guess that would make SXSW a glorified working vacation for everyone involved. It sure as hell is for me.

Jean Grae

But there was plenty last night to counter the affected auras of those in the know. Hip-hop is still the ignored stepchild of SXSW, a travesty considering how much innovation and creativity occur in its margins. MC Jean Grae would easily dominate the current crop of popular female MCs if she maybe switched to rapping about sex all the time. With just a mic and a DJ, she kept the whole crowd wrapped around her fist, and hypnotized with an intricately folded flow that has almost no peer. So far, Grae easily put on the best show and created the most the unstoppable vibe. I bottled it up and carried it with me for the rest of my night.

Hell on Wheels was my best surprise find, a three piece outfit from Norway that, played it loud and proud. It didn’t hurt to have a lead singer with a Jeff Buckley range who could scale aria heights before melting it all back into a thrashing scream wall. These were both great shows that I wish could have bled past the strictly allotted 40 minutes and seeing either one of these bands would be worth a world of lost networking opportunities.