I don’t mean to sound American, but I feel like hell has spat me out this morning. It appears that drinking for twelve hours a day for what has been about eight days now, in the sun, is not conducive to feelings of well-being. It would also appear that I am not the only one who feels their existence has taken a turn for the worse in recent times, as every Englishman I encounter seems to be complaining of the same problems: lack of real food available and the disconcerting effects of all day drinking and the sun.

King Khan and the Shrine’s kick out the jams at Emo’s, with the idiot-savant howling about “wanting some crack”, “wanting to be a girl”, and “I wanna take all the pills in the room”. Incorporating Cramps-style guitar licks, a ten piece, uniformed soul/blues outfit, complete with a vaguely Dolly Parton/ Marilyn Monroe looking dancer, a three-piece brass section and King Khan looking like the reincarnation of James Brown, (on class As!) they play perfectly, deliciously executed songs, that your mother and father could even nearly like, with a total party vibe.

The Goner Records Showcase at the Scoot Inn on East Sixth Street, features the pimped Nobunny. Performing with a four-piece band, wearing nothing but a pair of Speedos and an eerie bunny mask with an ultimate warrior-style headdress, this is a particularly unnerving concept: it’s like the set of that disturbing movie Deliverance. They’re loose, catchy and fun, playing mostly songs from their record with an average length of one and a half minutes, with an over abundance of energy.

An hour or so later, we head to the In The Red Records Showcase at Beerland on Red River Street, at the heart of downtown Texas to see The Strange Boys, Intelligence, Mark Sultan, Blank Dogs, Vivian Girls, and The O.Cs. As we have come to expect, they put on a great display by doing what comes naturally to them.

Although the idea of SXSW’s multitude of shows is that even the unofficial stuff is advertised so you can get to them, this occasionally cannot be the case. Last year the infamous No Age and Fucked Up show on La Marr Bridge (an actual bridge!) on the south west corner of festival got shut down by the cops. This year it has to be nominated for one of the worst kept secrets of all time.

Lack of stealth is not a problem this year: no police arrived during the duration, and utter chaos ensued. Annihilation Time’s set is as raw as uncooked food at the vegan cafes they probably frequent, with a huge circle pit of crust on top of the bridge. The lack of sound (due to the size of the tiny generator-powered vocal PA) barely matters in the slightest as their sprawling mess hair metal riffs and unrelenting D-beats get carried away with the wind. This doesn’t affect the unrelenting violence and raucousness of the ‘audience’, nor does it affect the constant hail of punks’ All Stars that are being hurled upwards, only to come crashing down, upon each other’s heads.

The Vivian Girls on the bridge is a slightly mellower affair, yet being something along the line of their sixth show of the day, they are as you could imagine…already annihilated. Main vocalist, Cassy takes a while to find her way to the lack of stage, admitting this being partially down to her being high. Spectators are going wild, and the sound is gone with the wind. Tonight the harmonies find themselves with different augmentation than usual, which renders them slightly dissonant. Their cover of Wavves punk pop ‘hit’, “I’m so bored” which they crash through, having learned earlier in the day, is particularly fun, if slightly more ramshackle than the rest of their rough-and-ready set.

Looking around as five o’clock draws near and I see punks still perching on top of lamp posts, bridge railings and anything they can scramble up. It’s a good view from the singing bridge, combining the natural beauty of the river and city skyline, with the bricolage and hegemonic anti-establishmentarianism of the setting up and execution of a free subversive show on a bridge, within the context of a predominantly free music festival.

At this point it all gets too much for me to contemplate. I leave the singing bridge and head home in search of Barrocca, bed and litres of water.

Steve

http://lovvers-letscommunicate.blogspot.com/