The SxSW Diaries #3: Beyond Tartan and Shortbread

Our fourth day at SxSW starts with a fork in the road as half of our team heads off early to follow Honeyblood around town (but not in a creepy way), while the other half (awright!) makes a pilgrimage to Austin’s institutional vinyl emporium Waterloo Records to take in sublime Malian Tuareg ensemble Tinariwen.

Throughout the thirty minute bus trip downtown, passengers can’t escape the booming London accents of major label tipsters, presumably on their way to the ‘Is Loyalty Dead in A Soul-Starved Industry?’ seminar. One refers to bands who can’t return their £1.5 million advance as ‘sinking ships,’ and wants after ‘more dirty hits,’ while the other mercilessly celebrates the recent passing of a popular UK music freesheet with the most business-like of parting shots: ‘I mean, they were always shit on emails, weren’t arsed about any of the bands I did PR for.’ It’s all enough to make John Niven’s homicidal satire on A&R men, Kill Your Friends, seem quite plausible. 

Finally, thankfully, we reach

North Lamar Boulevard

’s bustling intersection at

Sixth Street

to wash the taste away with a walk along the aisles of Waterloo. A vast vault of treasures since its foundation in 1982, past in-stores have seen everyone from The Stooges to Nirvana bring chaos to its shop floor, perhaps explaining why they’ve turned their SxSW into an outdoor marquee in more recent years. Across the street, as if to simply prove that fringe events are still possible during a multi-discipline festival which already has several hundred participating venues and an estimated 300,000 revellers thirsting after a decent gig, Waterloo’s literary neighbour BookPeople hosts David Yow, Mac McNeilly and David William Sims who offer a frank account of Austin’s own incendiary noise-rock progenitors, The Jesus Lizard.  

“Nick Cave politely declined, we didn’t hear back from Iggy…” half-jokes Yow of the myriad guest contributors to their forthcoming Book release, a comprehensive chronicle presented through the eyes of the band and its roadies, peers, photographers, and most ardent fans. From Yow’s repeat ER visits on the way to becoming an unforgettable frontman and his unlikely idolisation of Led Zeppelin (“Robert Plant said he thought we were ‘trendy!’”), to dealing with the fallout from fans when they signed to Capitol, and Sims’ at times damning reappraisal of some of their own work, it’s a fascinating insight to a band that, on the outside, never took itself too seriously until the lights went up at showtime. 

When we emerge from The Jesus Lizard’s talk, a round-trip taxi back to our hotel for ID is an expensive lesson learned. Pulling up to Latitude 30, the British Music Embassy – still recovering from being steamrollered hours before by visceral Brighton garage rawk duo Royal Blood – tonight plays host to a motley crew of Scottish music’s brightest hopes. BBC Introducing, NME and various other agencies have already played their part in seeking to represent all four corners of the UK this week, tonight it’s Creative Scotland’s turn. In real terms, SxSW has heralded the American launch of homegrown success stories such as Frightened Rabbit and CHVRCHES in recent years: there are six groups of extremely varied disciplines here tonight hoping to emulate at least some measure of that success. As compere Vic Galloway succinctly puts it: "Everybody loves a bit of tartan and shortbread, but there's a lot more going on than that..."

Repeat SxSW attendee Withered Hand is first up, returning to Austin with a full band which at present includes Dan Willson’s mentor Kenny ‘King Creosote’ Anderson in its rotating number. With long-awaited second album New Gods only just on the shelves, Willson probably couldn’t have picked a better time or place to show off his glistening new set of melancholic gems; redolent of Neil Young or Mercury Rev at their most fragile, there’s a sense that in many ways this is his spiritual home.

Evidently keen to shake off the folk rock shackles they’ve worn since long before Mumfords rendered ‘banjo’ a dirty word, Edinburgh residents Meursault have trimmed down from the sprawling sextet of yore to an electric power trio for this debut run of American dates. Some might say that prodigious songwriter Neil Pennycook should have been out here years ago, and such was the band’s determination to make it this time that they turned to Kickstarter to help fund the trip. The influence of cult independent label Song, By Toad has proven to be somewhat transatlantic in the past, and it seems Meursault's unbridled passion is finally making them inroads over here. Tonight's as fiery a start as any, boding well for reportedly in-the-works fourth LP, I Will Kill Again.

A different beast altogether are Glasgow quartet Casual Sex, who win men of the match outright for showmanship alone; a measured combination of wit and cool, tonight they dedicate eponymous EP thriller The Bastard Beat to George Osborne as frontman Sam Smith applies a badly aimed round of lipstick. “Normal’s fine, but I hear you like to get a bit weird out here,” he queries with an arched eyebrow. “I can do weird.” Introducing the louche, Roxy-friendly disco funk of Nothing On Earth for its Texan premiere, Smith reaches further into his tombola of random patter: “Imagine Bryan Ferry riding a dragon when you hear this song. Or a wolf. This was written for him.” It’s easy to see why a band this tight and entertaining has become such a curio to the American music press.

Since touching down on Wednesday night, Honeyblood have played some innings already. Noticeably refined every time we’ve seen them play since forming in 2012, Stina Tweeddale and Shona McVicar have been earning their chops on tour after recording their FatCat debut under the watch of esteemed producer Peter Katis (The National/The Twilight Sad/Interpol) this past winter. Where once a certain scrappiness was part of the garage rock two-piece’s charm, by the time they get to Texas they’re a well practiced unit firing on all cylinders. Rolling Stone’s David Fricke walks in right on cue.

He sticks around for Honeyblood’s label and recent tour mates, We Were Promised Jetpacks, now a five-piece with keyboardist and guitarist Stuart McGachan in the fold. As SxSW veterans playing for the third year, tonight they’re effectively ending a US tour in the way they first introduced themselves to the country. Trading in their youthful urgency for broader strokes, this road-testing of new material shows a band with the ambition to present itself in widescreen, giving an instant impression that they’re about to turn another corner when album number three surfaces this summer. 

After another full day of darting around Austin and the logistical mayhem that entails when you’re staying out in the sticks (never leave it late to book that hotel), The Skinny retires for the night with the promise that we’ll catch Showcasing Scotland’s headliners elsewhere on closing night. We take a walk down Rainey Street – a recent site of urban renewal – where picket fences mark out upgraded buildings and a repurposed school bus sits in the middle of the street, turned into a barbecue restaurant. “This place used to be a slum until a few years ago,” a local teen named Adam tells us, out for his usual Saturday night kebab. “See that building over there?” he motions towards a two storey house with a big yard that plays host to a local rap crew. “Sold for $2 million last year.” Although homelessness remains a major problem which Austin admirably continues to battle head on, the popularity of the festival has certainly determined its affluence.

A building across the road that looks a lot like the Waltons' barn, dubbed ‘The Bungalow,’ is host to Okayplayer Africa’s 15^th Anniversary party tonight; we make it there just in time to see the police walk away (from a threat to close the party down due to excessive noise) and hear word of a ‘special guest’ due to take the stage. Hopes of an impromptu Roots set are dashed and our smoothometer combusts when Mancunian songwriter and occasional Gorilla, Dailey, steps out in shades (it’s 11pm) to croon silky soul for half an hour. More frustratingly, the set eats into Young Fathers’ planned performance with Cairn String Quartet to the point they’re left with barely ten minutes onstage. They make every one of them count; with fire at their feet, it’s a whirlwind three-song set where violins and war drums collide in time to the trio’s unwavering stomp. But it’s a heartfelt rendition of I Heard from last year’s Tape Two that proves to be the show-stopper; conveying in its own way the frustration of travelling so far just to be short changed at the finish line.  

We take one last walk along ‘Dirty Sixth’ to collect highlights from a few dozen punters, by this time strewn along the street in various states of disrepair after five days of mayhem. Everybody’s knackered. A man dressed as a clown laments missing Snoop Dogg while a backpacker from Kansas thrusts his CD in our hand. Then, at last, the hoards disappear en masse to wash their sticky fingers and let this vibrant city recuperate in time for the X Games in June. The mindless tragedy that cast a shadow over the week notwithstanding, as festivals go SxSW 2014 was an oddity and a triumph – and oh yes, we'll be back.

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Vic’s Picks

Mr Galloway offers his closing thoughts on his 12th consecutive excursion to Austin

It would be little churlish to overlook the show I was personally hosting last night at SXSW, and not have it as my pick of yesterday's line-up. After all, I spent all evening there myself. And there's the fact that 'Showcasing Scotland' 2014 was a huge success from start until finish. For anyone with a passing interest in modern, independent music from Scotland, the bill was a dream – Withered Hand, Meursault, Casual Sex, Honeyblood, We Were Promised Jetpacks and Young Fathers. Every act played his or her heart out, plus the diversity and quality of the acts on offer kept the Texan crowd focused and happy.

From my own stand-point, it's a pleasure to introduce and talk up acts that I'm truly confident can and rightfully should make an impact anywhere in the world. Everyone on the bill, regardless of style or genre, has a strong set of songs and a powerful live show. It was also a feeling of real vindication seeing the 'British Music Embassy' packed to the gunnels with industry, punters and music fanatics of all shapes and sizes. Once again, it was one of the hottest tickets in town and proof that Scotland's new music stands up next to anyone else's. Well done to all concerned!

It's absurd in many ways to travel halfway across the globe to then point out bands from the UK, but often that's the way it works out at SXSW. This year, the UK acts have definitely stolen the show. If Thee Oh Sees from San Francisco were the best thing I saw in Austin in 2013, then this year I would have to plump for London's Fat White Family in 2014. I know they are the new hype and everyone's talking incessantly about them, but believe me when I say: You will not see a better live band on the planet right now.

Looking like they'd all just staggered out of a squat and were more than capable of instigating a riot, they owned the British Music Embassy for their allotted 40 minute set. I could not take my eyes off frontman Lias Saoudi. If you're of the school that believes rock'n'roll should be visceral, dangerous and potentially confrontational, much as I am, then this is your new favourite band. Saoudi channels Johnny Rotten, Iggy Pop and Birthday Party-era Nick Cave whilst the rowdy, ramshackle crowd behind him sound like an unhinged, groove-laden, organ-fuelled version of The Fall. This is a very good thing indeed, in case you're wondering. For the first time in an age, I witnessed a group that simultaneously excites and terrifies its own audience. Not only were they my pick of Saturday at the festival, in amongst a vast array of other excellent performances, they were hands-down the best band of the festival.