So, a month has gone by since the infamous HoC SXSW gig Don't Tell Mom Fest has occurred. The show met with great success and the participants, both musician and non-musician, showed much respect for the living space of those who hosted the event. All the people who participated in the planning and housing for the gig are appreciated immensely. Kudos x 10,000,000,000 especially go out to Wade and Clayton, the spearhead behind the show and the contact people for bands who wished to play. Apologies to those who got turned away and thanks to the extra bands who were added to the bill at the last minute. Below is a write up provided by many who attended the show:
Ecocide is a sludgy, crusty punk band reminiscent of Noothgrush, with strong-diaphragmed female vocals and, surprisingly, a violin. They played a really solid set early in the day, kicking off what was to be a date which will live in infamy. These young rapscallions hail from the dusty town of San Antonio.
In the eclectic spirit of the day, Ecocide was followed by the positive, poppy stylings of Bloomington, Indiana's Totally Michael. He was the first act to really get the crowd going with his energy and contagious smile (his myspace page lists his only two influences as Prince and Blink-182 but it makes sense if you see him play). Just for the record, he absolutely doesn't like raisins in his oatmeal.
Shapes Have Fangs are a local Austin garage rock band, who were really great sports and played later than listed to accommodate Totally Michael's totally out of control, totally fucked up schedule. Their set was catchy and precisely delivered.
Best Fwends act like they're in 5th grade but we know they're not because they sport beards. They played their entire set lying down on a plastic sheet speckled with cartoon characters that you can find on their website; some shifty-eyed jokers in the crowd responded in kind with the first horizontal mosh-pit ever witnessed. They had a cute photo-shoot in the commons space of the house before the show.
Boogdish suffered from some alleged "technical difficulties" so he did an entirely a capella set. Did his equipment really short circuit? Who knows? But there was a lot of snot- as always.
Best Friends Forever, played a highly energetic set in the heat of the day. These three cute kids sang songs about Eisenhower, romance, adventures, and traveling. the name of their album is in fact Romance Conflict Adventure. Its released on Plan-It-X Records. Getchya one for 5 bucks! The unique harmonies formed by the dual vocalists, along with their dancy beats, made them one of the most popular acts of the day.
The Show is the Rainbow? More like No Show is the Rainbow! But seriously... he was really disappointed he couldn't make it. Drunk and disoriented, he called the house phone six times to no avail. Little did he know that no one ever answers the damn thing.
O Pioneers! has undergone a lot of changes since the early twenty-oughts. From the nether-world of Houston's suburbs, O Pioneers! were long a staple of Texas country punk. They used to play pretty regularly at 1919 in Ft. Worth, with the likes of Fort Worth's Cattle Assassins and Denton's Angry Businessmen, as well as Saw Wheel and Defiance, Ohio. Once they played a show there with Matt & Kim. Since then they've changed drummers and added a guitarist, moving strongly towards more conventional, if rowdy, indie-rock. It was a disappointment to find that their well-known emphatic anthems were nowhere to be seen or heard. They brought musical comrades Look Mexico and Call It Radar, whose sounds fit well with their new style. Check out the video footage here!
Kick It! played next. Their set was "dance-punk" and when they donned the makeshift stage, the crowd really lit up. Maniacal dancing ensued- the nightlife of the gig had officially begun. 
Surprisingly, this was Aryawn's first gig. This set was the holocaust mixed with Mary Poppins- needless to say one of the strangest and most memorable sets of the entire night. They played as the sun's last rays gurgled a painful death on the horizon and the keg arrived. Candles were lit at their feet where their pants were already hanging. Their first song was about resurrecting Reagan's corpse. Later in the set, they handed out cans of spray paint and the audience responded by trudging like zombies to a nearby condo (no comment on what happened next). One of the defining moments of the whole evening was when the entire crowd danced the waltz in carnivalesque glory. Issuing from keyboard, accordion, guitar, clarinet, and flute, their noise was scary (harsh at times) yet totally something you would let your four-year-old listen to. Hitler 'staches, tutus, fairy outfits, and disguises typified the night's most unlikely success.
Robo Trumble, hailing from San Antone, had previously played "the best show of their lives" at HoC the month prior at Conniption Fest '08. Although, this most recent performance was toned down a bit in comparison to the last one, they still drew a nice-sized crowd for their set. Video footage from the Conniption Fest has been added to the blog; check it out here! The sultry stanzas sung by Sarah coupled with the wily witticisms of brother and drummer Andy are always a treat. 
Schwervon!: Who else but this duo from New York could re-work the lyrics of Wild Thing and turn it into a song about the mythical character Swamp Thing? Sexy songsters who get your salivary glands pumping in a thoroughly unexpected part of your anatomy. Check them out if they play in a town near you!
Angelo Spencer played as a traditional one-man band replete with drumset, guitar and harmonica, but with a DIY country twang. He played a song by This Bike is a Pipe Bomb which was inspired to cheer up Clayton over the fact that they were unable to play the show.
The show moved indoors at 11:00 pm and The Fainting Fansies went on next. They're an acoustic folk-punk band from Denver, Colorado with a sound sort of like Rosa Punx. Their songs were beyond catchy- maybe call it viral- so much so that people who had never heard them before were singing and shouting along by the end of their songs. Their set was amazingly fun with people jumping and dancing to melodies and lyrics completely devoid of pretense. From this point on it was more of an intimate, dancy, positive house show.
Nana Grizol (including members of Defiance, Ohio) kept the energy alive with an elaborate setup involving an organ and horns along with a more standard punk setup. They filled the dining room with a richly textured block of sound that was both sweet and striking- kind of like drinking southern tea while lying on the back of a flatbed speeding off to who knows where.
Madeline, Plan-It-X's smooth-voiced singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia was the perfect way to put the night, with all its drunken windings, to bed. As her last notes died from the PA, the cop's spot lights bled in through the front windows, reminding those in attendance that they had tread into the West Campus neighborhood, the purported stompin' ground of the TABC and frat kids. They told everyone to quiet down or face the consequences, which was easy enough to comply with, as the marathon fest was finally over.
2 comments:
Your tutu is on my desktop. That and your tights.
I'm glad they're somewhere!
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