Plenty going on this weekend, as Austin welcomes ACL festival-goers to our beautiful city limits. While I won’t be attending the Austin City Limits Festival itself there are plenty of good bands there and plenty of events going on around town and the Transmission community worth the price of admission, as they say. This is one of those weekends (like the week of SXSW, Fun Fun Fun Fest weekend, etc) where you really just have to step back, look around, and say “Damn… I live in a great fucking town!” Assuming you stay sober enough to piece together a coherent sentence.
Monday: Mohawk welcomes DFA Records’ Juan Maclean Monday, with LAX and Learning Secrets’ Ian Orth. I can’t say I’m particularly impressed with Juan Maclean’s music… I mean, next to labelmates like Hercules & Love Affair, Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem and Fun Fun Fun Fest participants YACHT (get your tickets here), Maclean’s music seems awfully run-of-the-mill. But LAX and Ian Orth? Hot shit. If I were you, I’d get down and dirty at this dance fest Monday, then just chill out the rest of the week, in preparation for a weekend that will surely kick your ass.
Elsewhere, Beauty Bar hosts Power Squid, Mistress Stephanie and Her Melodic Cat, and The Saturday Night Matador and underground king and Houstonian Bun B hits the Parish like a hurricane. (You like that… hurricane… Houston… god I’m clever… sigh).
Tuesday: I love seeing friends’ bands do well and so it’s been amazing to watch Transmography grow as a band. Two fantastic dudes (one on drums, the other on keyboards and other noisemakers) who play spastic, layered dance music – or in the words of The Austinist, “Ghettofied Noisemongers.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. Tuesday, Transmography will be at Beauty Bar with Red Leaves.
Since your motto for this week needs to be “keep it chill” (lest you slip into drug and alcohol induced comma come Monday morning), I’d say your Tuesday should be spent nice and stoned, swaying clumsily to the metallic sounds of Eagle Claw, The High Cost of Living, Howl and The Roller at Red7.
Wednesday: About the only thing going on Wedesday that’s worth a damn is Stereolab at La Zona Rosa. Meh. Personally, I’d mark this one down as a day of rest – the real fun starts tomorrow.
Thursday: Wow – where to begin. First off if you’re one of the lucky few to nab tickets to see David Byrne at the Paramount Theater, kudos to you sir.
Beauty Bar is where I’ll be for The Mars Volta ACL Pre-party with DJ Nobody and “guaranteed attendance” by Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Omar Rodriquez-Lopez and the rest of Mars Volta. That’s inside – outside you’ve got Art Disaster 7 featuring DJ Orion, The White White Lights, Till We’re Blue or Destroy, Toko Ri Get High, The Lemurs and Brownout. That’s a pretty amazing lineup – probably one of the best collections of local talent I’ve seen. Expect a packed house.
Mohawk hosts the shoegazing indie-pop of locals Loxsly. Everyone seen their video for “Lamprey Eels” from the Flashlights EP they put out earlier this year? No? It’s pretty amazing, you can watch it here.
Friday: Oh ACL Festival, how I loathe thee. Well, honestly I’ve never even been to the Austin City Limits Festival. And while yes, occasionally, there are a handful of bands that I’m a big fan of playing – goddamn that’s a lot of money to pay for a ticket – I got habits to support! Maybe someday I’ll break down and buy a ticket. To all of you who are attending – have a good time, drink plenty of water, and I’m glad it’s not gonna be blisteringly hot this year. Or am I?
So, I’m not gonna waste time telling you that Jamie Lidell is playing at the Parish with Black Joe Lewis, or Gnarls Barkley is getting crazy at Stubb’s. Those shows are all either sold out or just flat-out gonna be a hassle to deal with. Keep it chill - RSVP here for the RollingStone.com party at Mohawk featuring Cool Kids, Voxtrot and Belaire. What a random-ass lineup! Cute girls with keyboards, jangly indie-rock, and Chicago hipster-hop. Wow. This, my friends, is Austin.
Wanna avoid the crowds altogether? Check out Rockland Eagles and High Watt Crucifixers at Red7.
Beauty Bar’s “ACL After Hours” parties take the cake all weekend – Friday night it’s A.U.X., Ume (how gorgeous is Lauren Larson, really), The Steps, and The Always Already with Prince Klassen and Bird Peterson on 4 turntables. Dance. Party.
Saturday: Again, you already know what’s going on this weekend… Austin’s getting a major head-fuck from out-of-towners (in the form of oh-so-hip ACL attendees and, well not quite as hip Arkansas Razorbacks fans). I can’t even begin to imagine what this city is gonna look like Saturday. Srsly.
ACL after-parties galore: Butthole Surfers at Stubb’s, Okkervil River at Emo’s, The Swell Season at Paramount Theatre, and Jakob Dylan and the Gold Mountain Rebels at Antones. Meh – whatevs.
Yowzas – A reunited, original lineup And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead play Beauty Bar Saturday with Scorpion Child and Grand Ole Party. OG lineup means taking it way back to the two-piece lineup of Conrad Kelly and Jason Reece. You know where I will be! Jagjaguwar’s Sunset Rubdown brings their super-psychedelic brand of pop music to Mohawk Saturday. Rubdown is one of several side projects stemming out of Montreal’s critically acclaimed Wolf Parade. Good stuff, a bit too trippy for my tastes but still, good stuff.
Red7 hosts skate-punk legends Electric Frankenstein with Shit City High. I wish I had some awesome story about growing up listening to Electric Frankenstein but, frankly, I’m not that old and I never really got into skateboarding, sadly. Out on the newly remodeled (yet far from finished) Red7 patio you’ve got the return of Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Film Festival with live music from Flametrick Subs, The Belgraves and Sober Daze. Psychobilly and weird cartoons – this should be interesting.
Sunday: The after-parties continue – sigh. I dunno why I feel obligated to promote these things but here goes: Conor Oberst with M Ward and Jenny Lewis at La Zona Rosa, The Black Keys and The Black Angels (weird) at Stubb’s.
You probably read about the Transmission Entertainment community in The Daily Texan last week, about how we’re all a bunch of music fans who make things happen (shows, festivals, parties, etc.) for other music fans to enjoy. So when I see a band booked at a Transmission club that I haven’t heard of, 9 times out of 10 I think, “Well, this band is probably good, I’ll go ahead and check em out.” Master Slash Slave is one such band. Masterminded by San Franciscan Matt Jones, MSS’ music is keyboard-driven and all over the map. “The White Stripes and Kraftwerk arguing with Interpol over what to wear” is what their Myspace profile describes them as. All I can tell you is click the link above and check that shit out. Then go to the show.
Red7 continues its Free Summer Sunday shows (though I think the “summer” portion of that is about to be dropped) with Camp X-Ray, Fake Problems (punk alt-country), Broken Gold (Ian from Riverboat Gamblers playing Replacements-esque rock), Frank Turner (troubadour from the UK) and Radioland Murders (yep, my band).
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