Austin City Limits Festival: Day Two

Austin City Limits Festival Sept. 24th, 2005

It has been a little over a week since I returned from Austin and I can honestly say I still wish I was there. I feel like this thing called “life” is slowly moving along with out me, and the time to make things happen is now. I’ve always complained that there’s nothing for me here on the farm. Now the time has come to find “something” elsewhere. The necessity lies in urgency; if I mope around and sulk long enough I’ll eventually start thinking complacently again. When you’re away from this land of “Dawson/Grassy Meadows” for any amount of time you realize “This is what I’ve been missing!” But upon reentering the economic dust-bowl you tend to give up easier and fall back on your “It’s not that bad” mentality. IT IS THAT BAD!

This time, I refuse to recoil. This place honestly has nothing for me at this stage of my life. I feel positive that I could retire here, but that is at least 40 years from now, if I’m lucky. At this rate of employment, I may be working well into the after-life.

But I digress- this blog is about Austin, more specifically, the 2nd day of this year’s Austin City Limits Festival. It was an incredible experience for me, having never been to Austin, and would have to be considered the same thing for any unashamed music-dork.

I kept track of some really great T-shirt slogans amidst all my nitpicking of bands. I’ll disperse some of them among my concert reviews, beginning with this one, from the King Dork of all Music Dorkdom- Frank Zappa (I hope I wrote it down right):


Information is not Knowledge/ Knowledge is not Wisdom
Wisdom is not Truth/ Truth is not Beauty
Beauty is not love/ Love is not music

Music is the BEST.


The day started just after 11 a.m. with some hometown action from Kasey Crowley. This girl had an 80 lb. body with a 2 ton voice to put behind her country-pop balladry. She had sweet-sixteen prettiness about her that I think could help her make some crossover waves, especially if a production team like The Matrix got a hold of her. I can’t believe I’m actually encouraging someone to work with Avril Lavigne’s producers, but hell, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind being on time with the rent for once. Not that she lacks anything besides commercial success. Her songs were great; “Cinderella in motorcycle boots” is enough to melt the hardest of hearts. Yet she seemed genuinely gracious and grateful to be there for her 2nd ACL Fest. If I had to compare her to a modern country artist it would probably be Sara Evans’ earliest stuff. She was singing very personal lyrics, but they had some universal connection points which, to most, are a good indicator that bigger things are to come. Make the audience say “I feel ya” or “Yes, I’ve been there too!” and you’re on your way.

Another one of the weekend’s high points, for yours truly, had to be Aqualung. Matthew Hales is the songwriter and he’ll never live down his comparisons to Coldplay and Radiohead, but in all honesty, I’d take Aqualung over either of them. Their music is way prettier and somehow more heartfelt than Coldplay yet none of the lyrics are cryptic warblings like Thome Yorke and company (No “Green plastic watering cans” to be found here).

Tracy Bonham, who’s own CD I haven’t heard yet, came out and played violin on “Brighter Than Sunshine,” the album’s single, with John Darling adding some guitar. I think it would suffice to say that everything I love about Radiohead and Coldplay, without all the things I hate, make Aqualung my choice in Brit-pop right now. The album is “Strange & Beautiful” and the best tracks are the title track, “Brighter Than Sunshine,” “Left Behind” (with fantastic Radiohead cymbal bombast) and “Easier to Lie.” Great stuff that all came off really well live. I stood by the sound booth and heard some of the pre-show communication between the engineers and the backstage crew. It seems that just about every band these days has a laptop on-stage with them, either for an extended drum loop or, in this case, for some intro music. Sound Engineer over-the-radio : “Ok guys, she’s going to walk on stage and hit the space bar and the intro music is rolling. .” Sure enough, he was right.

A FLAMING LIPS 2004 TOUR T-SHIRT: “Real Blood Is Not Fun”

A couple songs serendipitously found their way into my ears at ACL. Songs that I may not have caught otherwise, but I was glad they did. I happened by the AMD stage just as The Frames finished covering “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash. Make that one thing I know about The Frames: “they do ‘Ring of Fire’ at their live shows.”
The other song I just happened to catch was that piano ballad by Jet. What a great song! I don’t even know the name but it sounds more like Elton John than it does Jet, and the chorus goes “Look what you’ve done, you’ve made a fool of everyone.” I could even see a light in some onlooker’s eyes that said “I didn’t know JET sang this song!”

If you’re into the Killers, the Bravery, or any of this other new-wave revival hubbub, then check out Austin’s own What Made Milwaukee Famous. Their name is also the slogan for Schlitz beer, which I’m sharing with you because I have drank Schlitz on more than one occasion but realize that not many people have suffered such fate. These guys aren't from Milwaukee and weren’t even supposed to play, but they filled in for Nine Black Alps. As if getting called to play the festival wasn’t a big deal, WMMF had opened for Arcade Fire and the Black Keys the previous evening and were doing a taping of ACL with Franz Ferdinand later that night. When their CD gets shipped to college radio, the label will say “RIYL: The Killers, Jimmy Eat World, and My Chemical Romance.” That would be a pretty good indicator of their sound.

Although my skin was still sweltering from the heat, John Butler Trio made the time pass much easier. This guy is an Aussy that plays acoustic guitar funk with bass and drums. It comes off as a cross between Hendrix and Ben Harper with some of the shifty soul bounce of Robert Randolph (who’s set I left to catch the JB Trio) and the blues-drenched delivery of Keb’ Mo’. In other words, Butler got more soul than any one white man should’ve been allotted. “Treat Yo Mamma” could’ve been a big hit, and judging by the dancers and pot smoke, no one cared that it wasn’t!

PALE BLUE T-SHIRT WITH WHITE LETTERS: “I French-kissed Kelly Kapowski”

A tool I like to use at these festivals is something called the “Three Song Treatment” or the 3ST for short. The 3ST is great whenever you’ve never heard a band or there’s been so much chatter about them prior to the event that you can’t help but catch their set. You listen for three songs, and then you’re free to leave or stick around. You can get a good idea about any band in 3 songs. No band should HAVE to put their best material in the first three songs, but they at least deserve your attention for that long. Besides, anyone can write ONE good song and sometimes you need to hear two bad songs in order to prove this theory correct.
Since Death Cab for Cutie has literally been plastered all over EVERY magazine I subscribe to (Rolling Stone, Blender, Spin, Entertainment Weekly, Maxim and Interview) in the last 3 months, I had to at least give them the 3ST. Unfortunately, when a band like Death Cab boasts 6 minute long songs, epic-like length for a folk-lover such as I, even the 3ST leaves you stranded for almost a half-hour.
Just as I’ve finally accepted that the White Stripes do, indeed, rock (nearly 4 years after the fact), maybe I’ll jump on the Death Cab bandwagon after their publicity ground-swell has subsided. But for now, I don’t see what all the fuss is about. That said, I hope they’ve bought their publicist a new house. I have to say I like Postal Service stuff a lot more, too.

BALD GUY’S T-SHIRT AT JB TRIO: “Old Guy's Rule.”

Saturday at ACL was the shortest of the three, for me, mainly because I was still recovering from Friday and I was too tired to even TRY to give a shit about Oasis, the Drive By Truckers, or Widespread Panic. In my mind nothing any of those bands could’ve done would’ve topped the Dirty Dozen Brass Band anyway. I’ve always wanted to see these guys and even hardly being able to see as I was, it was an incredible show. Have you ever heard a saxophone squeal? It ain’t easy, just let me say. And neither is trying to suppress your ass from shakin’ when the DDBB is on-stage. Sometimes a journalist has to throw his pen in the air, put the notebook back in the bag, and just let the music pump your heart for a while.

WHITE BASEBALL SHIRT WITH TWO SQUIRRELS DANCING: “Squirrel on Squirrel Action!”


Currently listening:
Strange and Beautiful
By Aqualung