Editor's Note: Every show I attended has been covered here by one of our other fine staffers, so I'm just going to add my notes in italics. I'm a lazy bastard, okay?

Jenny begins...

Saturday morning, I'm getting a little jaded about shows. This must be what it feels like to live in Williamsburg. Can I motivate my way out the door for Yep Roc's Yard Dog party? It helps that it's about a block away. As I arrive, Minnesota-based singer songwriter Robert Skoro is mid-set, navigating delicate melodies and wispy acoustic guitar picking. It's the kind of quiet music that, in a slightly better world, would cause people to drop what they're doing, stop talking and just slow down and listen -- but we're at music networking central and it's hard to hear Skoro over the buzz of conversation. I may be turning shallow and opportunistic myself. I find my attention wandering. Is that Robert Pollard talking to John Langford over there? And Jesus Christ, what kind of super-group would that be? (It is Langford, but not Pollard). The set ends and Skoro thanks everyone for listening, but, of course, no one is listening to that either.

Then Ian Moore takes the stage, playing mostly songs from this year's Luminaria. I'd liked the album, not loved it, and I'm surprised how strong his set turns out to be. Moore has a great late-night voice, cool and whispery, and an evocative guitar style. What's surprising about the live show is how these songs came to life in performance. They're well-crafted and subtle on the record -- but they learn to rock on stage. "New Day" breaks out of its singer-songwriter cage mid-song, its transformative instrumental break leading into a triumphant chorus and wordless vocals. "Cinnamon", a song Moore introduces as something Nick Cave might have written if he'd lived in Maine, is dark and infused with sexual longing. Moore also breaks out two new ones, "Killing Joke" and something about a culvert, and they are very strong, rhythmic and rock oriented. The whole set is so good that I reminded myself to dig out Luminaria when I get home and see if I can find whatever I missed there the first time.

John Doe is next, and while he never plays what I think of as the definitive SXSW song ("Too Many God-Damned Bands"), his set, in many ways, captures the best things about this festival. Here we have a legendary rock figure, playing a small stage, outside, on a Saturday afternoon, to a crowd that just seems damned happy to be there. Doe starts out in acoustic country mode with "Forever Hasn't Happened Yet", the title track from an album due out next week on Yep Roc, along with "Highway Five", which he co-wrote with ex-songwriting partner, ex-wife and all around Ex Exene Cervenka. Just before "Big Blue House", he switches over to electric guitar, announcing that he hopes we've enjoyed the unintentionally acoustic first few songs, since apparently the DI box wasn't working. My feeling is that they were okay, but the set gets a big shot in the arm when he plugs in. There's another nod to the new album in the country-rocking "Mama Don't", then the crowd-feeding "Beat Up World", where Doe gets a few people, certainly not everyone, to sing along to the "Fuck It Up" chorus. He closes by covering "Money (That's What I Want)" -- the Barrett Strong song, not Pink Floyd -- dedicating it to all the bands at SXSW. "Six shows, three days, $175" he observes in the final chorus. Yeah, okay, but what about all the free beer?

I'd really come to see Jake Brennan and the Confidence Band, a very rocking country garage band out of Boston. (For some reason it's easier to get to Austin in the winter than a weekday show in Boston.) When I got Jake's record late last year, I was surprised at how, ummm, sensitive it was, given the band's reputation as one of Boston's best live shows. Now, in the tent back of Yard Dog, I got a whole different experience. He played a song he was writing the night I interviewed him -- "I want to Know Why He Never Loved You" -- and, as I recall, having a bit of trouble with. Apparently he worked it out, because this cut, along with the rockabilly cover "It Was Always So Easy to Find An Unhappy Woman", were intense and hard-rocking. "Believe" suffered a little from the lack of mandolin and pedal steel, but as consolation, Jake has picked up Scott Janowitz on Hammond. The set was pretty great, and the rest of Yep Roc's sked looked strong, too -- Dolorean, Forty-Fives and Laika and the Cosmonauts. But George and I had an appointment with Diamond Nights, whose "Girl's Attractive" is our pick for the play-it-till-you're-sick-of-it Summer of 2005 song. You can read all about our adventures there, way on the far side of town at the funky Rhizome Collective, in an upcoming feature, but you've got to wait until I've transcribed the tape.

So my friend Holly Anderson gave me two sisterly bits of advice for my SXSW experience: (a) eat at Hut's Hamburgers, across from Mother Egan's, at least once, and (b) see Chris Brokaw's show. I do the best I can, and manage the hamburgers (yes, they were everything she promised), but I've been trying to interview Robert Lloyd from the Prefects/Nightingales for months, and the 12:00 a.m. slot is dedicated to him. I do end up at Friends early on in the evening for the Black Swans show, and their luminous folk blues songs are mesmerizing, dark and utterly at odds with everything I've heard at SXSW so far. Unfortunately, Noel Sayre, the band's violinist, was unable to make the trip -- Jerry DeSicca later said he was caring for an elderly father -- so the songs were missing that swooning, swooping something that made Who Will Walk in the Darkness with You? so hypnotic. Still, DeSicca's wonderful voice -- soft and mournful like Tindersticks' Stuart Staples -- and the very evident skill of his second guitarist eventually won me over.

Nine o'clock belonged to Man Man, the Phildelphia art-rock-performance band whose Man in a Blue Turban album pretty much obliterated everything else in the weird-but-wonderful category last year, and whose live show, even in a tiny W. Mass. club when at least one member of the band had stomach flu, in turn obliterated the album. Word has spread about these guys, and I spotted a couple of other name-brand music writers in the audience. The band was setting up when I got there -- an intense process when your show requires not just guitar/bass/drums/keys, but also several varieties of xylophone, brass instruments, a metal bird, a duck shaped maraca, a parasol and enough percussion instruments to stock a mid-sized pawn shop. The audience was startled when the band started -- letting out an artful array bizarre chants and shouts and rickety rhythms. The set was continuous, with album cuts including "Attack of the Peruvian Monster", "Goldteeth", "I Manface", "Sasparilla" and "Zebra" intercut with newer stuff and connective interludes. It was the kind of show you have to watch as well as listen to. The drummer, Tiberius, was pounding like a maniac, arms swinging above his head with each whack, tongue hanging out like Michael Jordan. The bass player created crazy shadow theater on the back banner and twirled that parasol. The all-instruments new guy stood quietly at the back switching from horn to guitar to found percussion, and I couldn't see Honus at all because a very tall guy was immediately in front of me, but I'm sure he was going nuts, too. Still, even though the show was completely insane, it was tightly constructed and musical. You'd think it would go off the rails. It never did. How do they do that?

Editor's Note: Okay, I'm going to step in here with a mildly dissenting viewpoint. While Man Man's shtick was interesting for about ten minutes -- and so deafeningly loud throughout the set that my ears hurt despite my earplugs -- I didn't hear the musical payoff that Jenny did. If anything, Man Man struck me as a heavier version of Deerhoof without the occasional, fragmented concessions to pop song structure. Mind you, I drank half a bottle of cough medicine before the show (because I was ill, not for fun or anything), so my opinion may have been biased by chemical interactions beyond my control.

Now, I've got to book over to Maggie Mae's to try to find Robert Lloyd from the Prefects and get him to tell me all them great stories about touring with the Clash and the Buzzcocks. I've been trying to get hold of him all weekend, because transatlantic phone calls cost a fortunate and I don't exactly get an expense account (You've never asked -- Ed.). Showing up early, I find him and make arrangements to talk the next day. Meanwhile, I've got to stay at Maggie Mae's to take photos, two bands later, so I end up hearing Castanets and Ariel Pink, too.

Castanets sound like the kind of band that might make sense on headphones, late at night, right after you've broken up with your worthless but attractive first love. It... is... very... slow. It... is... not... a... Saturday... night... band. I stay anyway. Even the band looks bored. The girl playing tambourine may be in a coma -- I see her hand shake slightly as the tambourine hits feebly on her leg. Is that a tear in her eye, or did she just stifle a yawn? Sorry, no sale.

Ariel Pink is next, and let's be upfront: I've had some trouble deciding whether Ariel Pink's record was interesting or just unbearably gimmicky. Now I'm leaning toward gimmickry, an epiphany that hit me when Ariel Pink himself was arguing with the sound guy through the reverbed microphone. "Ev-ev-ev-ry thing-ing-ing-ing should be lou-ou-ou-ou-der," he ordered, and jeez, it sounded just like the record. So, fuck writing songs, get your own mic, turn up the reverb and you, too, can be the new cool thing.

On with the Nightingales, who share two members with the Prefects, a 1970s punk band whose Prefects are Amateur Wankers has been knocking me out for the last six months or so. Nightingales' set starts with "Going Through the Motions", the long, drony highlight from Amateur Wankers (Beerland bands take note -- they wrote it because they had trouble filling up their 40-minute set. It was originally an improvisation and still has a certain repetitive quality, which you may or may not enjoy.) Unlike some late '70s revival candidates, Lloyd has been writing and playing more or less continously under the Nightingales name, and his set includes older songs like "Parafin Brain" as well as some new ones intended for upcoming Nightingales singles and (later) a full-length album. The band is very tight -- surprisingly so, as I later learn that they have only been playing together for this short US tour. It's a good show, but just a bit flatter than great. Or maybe I've been watching too many teenagers jumping around.

I briefly consider staying for Daniel Johnston, but the Coachwhips are playing again at 1:00 a.m. and I'm getting to the point when I only want to see things I know I'll like. I get to Club DeVille just as 400 Blows are starting their set. This LA trio is known as "the anti-melody band" and their short set is grindingly, ferally intense, with fast, repetitive guitar riffs, played on the low strings, rock-hard, sentiment-free drumming and abstract poetry howled into the mic. The music functions kind of like a caffeine enema -- a bit unpleasant and hard to explain to outsiders, but oddly energizing and cleansing.

Again the crowd is waiting patiently for the Coachwhips, staring at the empty stage, when an unruly noise erupts from the patio downstairs. Oh yeah, I think, they're not going to be on the stage, and I head down. The rest of the audience drifts down gradually, to a space where an acid-fueled Coachwhips (Matt the drummer remarks on local product quality -- that's how I know) is already tearing shit up. I wrote about Coachwhips a couple of days ago, and it's all still true.

Here's Andrew's report:

Reminiscent of many dates that I had throughout my twenties, I didn't fare so well on Saturday night. The evening started off decently; we popped in at The Jackalope to see the Alternative Tentacles showcase. Jello began the festivities, ranting about his typical range of stuff, evening commenting on how he was glad that they weren't at The Velvet Spade Patio (like they were last year). Austin's very own Yuppie Pricks took the stage, told Jello to shove it and cruised through some of their classic Republican-fueled tunes, including "Coke Party" and "Cherry Red". They even threw in a tasty cover of The Damned's "New Rose" right off the bat.

As we were in the final night of SXSW, we had grand aspirations of seeing as many bands as possible. We said adieu to the Pricks and hopped down a few doors to Eternal, where Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players were in the middle of one of their classic thrift-store-inspired slide shows. Mom, Dad and pre-teen drummer Rachel gave the crowd a round of laughs; Jason Trachtenburg eagerly berated a cell-phone-using audience member and then told several bizarre and long-winded tales. As a matter of fact, in the 15 minutes that we were there, the Family played about one and half songs -- the rest was chit-chat. Most importantly -- while drummer Rachel can't be more than 12 years old, she can still keep time way, way better than Meg White (of The White Stripes). Keep practicing, Rachel!

The third stop before the clock struck 9:00 p.m. was Emo's Main Room to see Montreal's Pony Up! While I thought the band was a quintet, only four of the members were on stage. Nonetheless, the band's brand of twee-pop was quite charming and the large audience appeared to agree with me. The band finished the set with the dreamy and sarcastic "Wet".

Things took a turn for the worse after 9:00. We tried to make it into Aimee Mann's showcase at Stubb's, but the line was ridiculous (apparently for Son Volt and The Wallflowers, who were following Mann). I don't do lines -- especially on Saturday night. We swung over to The Velvet Spade Patio expecting to see Vaz. I'm not sure what happened, but Vaz never appeared. Instead, we were treated to a vicious aural assault by Oakland's Yellow Swans. Instead of setting up on the stage, the band had a card table near the sound board, with samplers, a mixing board and a reel-to-reel tape recorder on it. As one member twiddled the knobs and pressed the buttons, the other made one hell of a racket with the guitar. The sound was so oppressive that you could feel your internal organs rumbling due to the heavy bass. It was brief (the duo only played for ten minutes), but it was quite entertaining.

After eating the required slice of Hoek's pizza (or Death Metal Pizza, as I like to call it), we checked out the Jade Tree showcase at Emo's Annex. From Ashes Rise stormed through a charged set which sounded decent as long as one of the guitarists didn't speak. Now, I'm all for political commentary from musicians, but it's hard to take someone seriously when he's ranting about healthcare and Iraq to a bunch of 15 year olds. I don't think I even knew (or cared) what health coverage was when I was a teenager. Whatever -- the band still rocked. These Arms are Snakes followed right behind, twisting and turning through angular post-punk pieces. I was glad to see 'em, but I left without much of a changed impression.

New York's Dub Trio took the stage at Flamingo Cantina at midnight. Pumping through heavy bass-led dubs, they began with charging, punk-like beats that devolved into mid-tempo dubs. Each member mixed his own sound, with the guitarist adding touches of keyboard to most tracks. It was mind-numbing, and the bass sent me to some other atmosphere. 1:00 a.m. approached, and I decided it was better to finish SXSW on a high note (or a low bass note in this instance) and book it home. Aching feet and sore back in tow, I notched another successful SXSW venture into my bedpost and fell asleep with ringing tones in my ears.

Editor's Note: First of all, even in my half-dead state I was wowed by Dub Trio's performance. After spending the last few days hearing so many bands whose modus operandi was simple, sloppy, down and dirty, it was fascinating to watch these guys cobble together mostly-authentic dub live on stage -- their ability to shift from reckless abandon to complete concentration was something of a revelation. It was also a nice change to see an audience dancing. I didn't see enough of that this week.

I actually got to the Flamingo Cantina while Bio Ritmo had a few songs left in their set, and while I hadn't exactly been in the mood for Latin big band action, I was suitably humbled by their performance. Everything from the number of players and instruments on stage to the sheer tightness of their set to the impressive quality of the live mix, not to mention the joy with which the audience responded to it, reminded me once again that when you spend several days watching gritty garage bands and stripped-down country-folk acts, you forget just how satisfying a polished performance can be. The thing to remember, then, is that if you're ever at a big festival like SXSW or CMJ, it's important to challenge your own tastes by walking into a few shows that you wouldn't automatically have chosen. Sometimes you don't know what you're hungry for until you taste it.

Here's Georgy's update:

I decided to schedule a light afternoon for myself way uptown at the Dog and Duck Pub, where Pop Culture Press was hosting an outdoor party. My main target was Amy Rigby, whose cleverly lusty and unabashed rock has been a staple in my collection for some time. The crowd was notably older than most of the audiences I'd spied up to that point, with beer-sipping parents toting toddlers around. Perhaps in homage to them, Rigby played "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?", which mourns the middle-age lapse in lovemaking with lines like "What happened to babe and stud? / Too much KFC and Bud," drawing hearty laughter (of recognition?) from the crowd. Rigby then invited her daughter, Hazel, to join her for what she called "the mother-daughter punk rock cover band", and they proceeded to tackle Roy Orbison's "Domino" and X's "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts". When Hazel's mic cut out, Rigby jokingly admonished the sound technician, "I'm not only her bandmate, I'm her mother."

Next up was Steve Wynn, but not if Mother Nature had anything to say about it. The fiery songwriter's set was threatened with a dousing by impending thunderstorms. Luckily, he got it off before the downpour began, even though he taunted the sky by kicking off with a cover of Eric Clapton's "Let It Rain". His stormy, folksy rock complemented the weather, and the tent-covered audience stood enthralled, albeit wet and wind-whipped.

Though my Saturday night didn't work out as I had planned, it all ended up alright in the end. Kings of Convenience were playing at 8:00 p.m. way back at Antone's, far west of where I was slated to be for most of the night. As I was dying to see Menomena at 9:00, I decided to sacrifice seeing the Kings. So, how did it all work out?

In lieu of the Kings, I returned to Eternal for the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. While I'm a big fan of their songs, and I believe the whole slideshow and found art thing is really fascinating, Jason Trachtenburg needs to shut up. He needs to stop trying to be a clever bastard and just play music. Trachtenburg ate up practically half the set just yapping to hear himself talk (though the "God, my dad is such a dork" look little drummer girl Rachel Trachtenburg wore half the night was priceless). When they did play music, the family started with their theme song (I love a band with a theme song, especially one with the line "Our '82 Suburban / Is what we spread the word in") and performed songs including "Middle America" and "Look At Me", aptly supplemented with circa-1960s images of America's finest and frumpiest. Overall, it was a great set -- the music part, that is.

Back at Red Eyed Fly, the line was egregiously long -- not particularly for Menomena, but for Harvey Danger playing at 10:00. After a few fruitless moments spent lingering outside, I decided to ditch my effort to see Menomena. To soothe my frayed nerves, I headed to BD Riley's to see Massachusetts' own Kris Delmhorst. Her soulful acoustic folk songcraft hit the spot -- especially as a lot of her songs were about drinking whiskey. The funky, country-tinged "Honeyed Out" and "Water Water" were especially satisfying.

Denied a chance to see Sean Nelson for a third time at the helm of Harvey Danger, I decided to go see Ben Lee. Everyone's favorite ex-boyfriend of Claire Danes (as well as prolific Australian pop wunderkind) looked just as naïve, goofy and adorable as ever, but I was hesitant. While I'm a huge fan of the Grandpaw Would and Something To Remember Me By era, his stuff since Breathing Tornadoes hadn't really impressed me, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised -­ his shiny, bouncy pop craft has stood the test of time. More mature efforts like "Gamble Everything For Love" and "No Right Angles" helped balance the unabashed optimism of the tender, uplifting "Begin" and the hand-holder "We're All In This Together". Even though the girls are still shrieking and Claire is who-knows-where, Ben seems to have it all figured out.

With nothing really jumping out at me for 11:00, I decided to see another Massachusetts act, the hardcore Read Yellow. I will say without reservation that while their thrashing hard rock is not my thing, they do it very well, spilling sweat all over the stage as they skillfully flailed without interruption through their set. By the end, leadman Evan Kenney was in the audience, having passed his guitar off to a couple of fans who were trying to use a mic stand as a bow to play it like a violin -- or something. Meanwhile, Kennedy was climbing the speakers, bringing the band's no-holds-barred set to a spirited conclusion.

Seeking more familiar ground, I went off to see The Monolith at the Co-Op. This San Francisco band's Moogalicious pop puts the Rentals to shame, with sweet harmonies and gorgeous, synthy melodies. But to close out my SXSW experience, I decided to be a bit experimental. Since Shabbat had ended and I was a bad Jew and didn't attend temple (well, not that I ever do, but...) I headed to the dreaded Buffalo Billiards for none other than Matisyahu.

This New York Orthodox reggae rapper (yes, that's correct) has intrigued me ever since I read about him in the New York Times. Unfortunately, Adam Richman hogged his set and made Matisyahu run late. The amazing thing about this is that the crowd started chanting his name. From the one white Jewish guy in a kippah to the cluster of Latina girls in front me, everyone was bouncing and calling for him to appear. When he finally took the stage, he was clad in a black wide-brimmed hat, dangling tzitzit instead of gold chains, bearded and bad-ass. His smooth, sly reggae beats were straight outta the Yeshiva, throwing out prayerful rhymes like "In the spiritual desert, things are not what they seem / Putting faith in a mirage is just a smoke screen," but I can guarantee you no one felt like they were being preached to. They were too busy dancing, loving every second. As I left the pool hall, I knew I'd made the right choice as to which white rapper would end my evening -- even with Vanilla Ice (!) playing down the way.