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| Best of SXSW `09 |
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18 March 09.
We had a lot of stupid debates about what to call my front room: the parlor, the sitting room, the living room, but in the end the room defined itself. Now that it houses an upright piano, two clarinets, two guitars, two hammered dulcimers, a fiddle, and an overwhelming amount of sheet music, it's the music room. Let me note that I'm pretty far from playing any of those instruments very well, and my housemates are much heavier users of the music room than I. I met a fellow band member of one of `em a few weeks ago, and he suggested that maybe I could just stand in the back and provide a two-note oom-pah on the clarinet. I've always hated the sound of the term Indie music, which seems to refer to the label not being owned by one of the Big Four, though even that's problematic: what are we to make of the members of the Independent Label Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Warner Music? No, let's forget about label ownership and popularity. How close is the music to a bunch of people (or maybe one), hanging out in the bedroom or the garage or the living room overcrowded with instruments and cables? OK, enough pontificating. I downloaded this year's SXSW BitTorrent: 1O53 songs; 2 days, 17 hours, and 41 minutes. I did this for `07 and `08, and it brought me joy. My last.fm profile tells me that I've listened to the Chocolate Horse's The Caribbean 71 times in the last few months, and Gavin Castleton's Women's Care in Eb maj 23 times, and--giving up on last.fm's massive undercounting--heavy rotation of SXSW tracks by Rebekah Higgs, the Bon Savants, Clare & the Reasons, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, Micah P. Hinson, Ola Podrida, Johnossi, and Low Line Caller. So I get a lot out of this exercise; maybe you'll get something out of it too. Now go to drop.io/fluffinfo and get yer music.
Black diamond heavies - Bidin' my timeThey claim to be from the South, so Williamsburg may actually be referring to the city in Virginia.
Bomani Armah & Project Mayhem - Read a BookI have a lot of librarians reading this blog, so here's an anthem for you. Of course, I am passing up on a whole lot of politics; e. g., I leave to you to decide exactly how you want to sing along to “Read a book, nigga”. Also, digresses after 1:35.
Gavin Castleton - BuggutsAs mentioned above, I liked this guy's SXSW item last year. This year's is entirely different in genre and tone.
Delhi2Dublin - ApplesYou see their Indian/Irish name? Yeah, that's all you need to know. It works.
DJ Chicken George - Overthrowed!Who's being sampled on the horn part will come to me any second now.
Fol Chen - Cable TVMaybe it's `cause I used to live there. These guys list themselves as being from Highland Park, which is just north of Silverlake, Echo Park, and various other gentrified hipster parts of town and also East LA, which is not part of the city of LA at all, but just an unincorporated patch of county trapped among other cities--but that's a whole `nother blog. You can find pix of them playing places like Mr T's Bowl, and the video pushes LA kitsch. I put one song up in last year's list mostly because of the line “Those days in Los Feliz have come to an end”, maybe this one'll have more appeal to those of you who never lived in LA.Not much girlfriend or boyfriend music this year. Perhaps I'm not yet over my crush on Neko Case, who does occasional girlfriend music, such as Challengers by the New Pornographers and Neko. I suppose this track is as close as I'm getting on this set.
The Coast - Killing off our friendsSing along!
Alina Simone - From great knowledge“I was born in Kharkov, Ukraine and came to the US with my family when I was just a baby. I grew up in the green suburbs of Massachusetts.” [from her web site] So I presume she's singing in Ukranian. Update: It's a cover of a Russian songstress
Radioclit - KamphopoI first picked this song out because I'd been expecting I could delete it immediately. And yet it was actually good.
Youth Group - Start today tommorowInitial thoughts: “Darlin' it's all inside your head it seems to me” and “Two jumps in a week you know you think you're pretty clever, don't ya boy.” But so what, it sounds good. History by Long-view was also good, but I didn't include it in the file because had a similar feel to this track.Honorable mention for best name: Jesus Loves You (But Yr Still Coming Home With Me Tonight) by Des Ark
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