Austin Sound

Jack Wilson splits his time between the comfy, southern warmth of Austin and the cooler, sopping city that is Seattle. While he’s in Seattle, he’s backed by the Wife Stealers, and elsewhere, it’s pretty much just him. On his latest self-titled, Wilson zig-zags between full-on Americana rock, and solemn, poetic lullabies about places and people of timeless impact. He opens his album with the sound of footfalls on loose gravel — a sound that is immediately evocative of distance and mindful wandering — a more than appropriate prelude to an album that looks to transport the listener to the image of Americana locked away in Wilson’s head.

Well how ’bout that? Don’t know about y’all, but yesterday certainly was pretty awesome on our end. What with Jack White and Dave Grohl running around town, there’s bound to be some awesome stuff that pops up, no? Looking over our lists for today, though, seems the best bets are away from the downtown fray, which has become increasingly the case over the past few years. In fact, you could probably do much worse than spending your day bouncing from the East Side between Pitchfork’s show at the East Side Drive-In and Dig for Fire’s lineup at the French Legation Museum. And then for the evening, why not hit up the $5 Night of Rage III on up the road at Baby Blue Studios? That should pretty much have us covered for the the next twelve hours or so through into tomorrow, but we have our favorites listed below for your consideration. What’s been the best you’ve come across so far? Sharon Van Etten and Jessica Lea Mayfield were both stunning and highly recommended, and Country Mice provided some much needed heavy lifting for our first day. Keep up the good work, guys; there’s still lots of music to plow through.

If you survived the pre-partying (and you better have as we’re just getting started!), then you’ll be out there flooding the streets and back alleys today as we officially kick off this little catastrophe we call SXSW. Wednesday Dayshows are generally the best to catch the bands you really want to see if they are playing, as not all the yahoos have yet arrived in town. Below, we’ve thrown down our top choices of shows that are going on, though we recommend also cherrypicking a few of your must sees and knocking them out today if you can. Among our top picks for Wednesday are (of course) the Midgetmen’s annual SXSW Jump Start party, The Austinist’s teaming with the Windish Agency, Forcefield and Terrorbird’s show at Red 7, and Fat Possum, who are taking over Club DeVille. In fact, the venues look pretty much like our typical Red River weekend rounds, with the exception of the local off-the-grid, but sure to please showcase by those kids over at Skanky Possum. C’mon and jump, you know you wanna.

And here we are again, this ol’ rodeo. Some of us have already got almost a week of SXSW under our sleeves, others are just gearing up for the best part, which is obviously music. This year, the official SXSW showcases extended into Tuesday, because they can, but doesn’t really kick off until Wednesday. Needless to say, though, there are some awesome events going to kick off the music side of the fest, and below our are picks to help you kick off the week right. From this point on, expect awesome music, free booze, and hipsters run amuck in our fair city. We’re not gonna bother with the biggest or most ridiculously branded and sponsored shows, or the official badge crap - we’re just looking for a good time and don’t want to stand in stupid lines. Sorry Fader Fort. So today we kick things off with the amazing and sure to get you sweating Ice Cream Man party at Club DeVille, an awesome showcase at Red 7 that will blow your face off, and the 12th incarnation of everybody’s favorite SXSW starter, the Art Disaster Party at Beauty Bar. Check below for lineups and tastes to get you going.

This Wednesday, Austin Powell and I will be hosting the official release party for The Austin Chronicle Music Anthology, being held at Antone’s with all proceeds benefiting HAAM. The lineup spans over three decades of Austin music, with reunions, special guests, and one-time-only collaborations (see below). Yeah, this is gonna be one helluva night.

So what is this book, you say? Well first off, it’s a thing with pages that you can actually hold in your hands and flip through, kind of like an iPad or Kindle except heavier, and only holds a single volume’s worth of content. I know, weird. But it’s also the product of over 3 years of work on the part of Powell and myself, digging through every issue and piece of music writing in the Austin Chronicle archives. Online, the Chronicle currently only extends back to the late Nineties, one of the reasons Powell and I were interested in surfacing some of the amazing history contained in the paper’s pages as it celebrates its 30th anniversary.

Things get dark and heavy on the Gary’s second EP, El Camino. With these six songs, recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in mid 2010, it sounds like the weight of the world is pressing down on the band. Coming hot on the heals of their criminally overlooked debut full length, Logan, El Camino burns slowly with most songs feeling more like “Hurricane Sunrise” than “QSB” (both Logan standouts). And make no mistake; sounding like the product of a long haul Austin-to-Chicago roadtrip is not a bad thing. The Gary have consistently excelled at making songs for the darkest hour of the night, when the last drops of beer have run dry and it’s time to go home and face our realities. El Camino is no exception.

Over two albums and the past five years, Wiretree has grown from the solo project of Kevin Peroni into one of the emerging acolytes of power-pop in Austin. Behind Peroni’s ranging and easy tenor, the quartet brings touches of the Pernice Brothers and New Pornographers, with a twinge of pedal steel twang and shades of both classic Eighties and contemporary indie pop. It’s a melding of influences and sounds that seems to finally come together in Wiretree’s latest effort, the band’s third LP tentatively titled Make Up, and currently being recorded at Hot Tracks! for a release later this year. You can check out some their new material in their recent ACL Satellite Set, or catch them this Saturday, February 26, at the Hole in the Wall with Digital Antique and The Lennings.

As they say, with a name like the Magnificent Snails, it better be good. Luckily for the local trio, who drops their debut EP, Baby Acid Trips, this week, they brandish a kind of pop flair that manages to be both catchy and continually interesting. With touches of horns and experimental torques, the Snails can ripple with softly gleaming harmonies, bounce with a kind of Vampire Weekend punch of infectiousness and even cut funky, garage-glam with an effective relish. Despite the fact that the trio includes Austin Sound contributor Chris Galis, we still recommend checking them out this Friday, February 18, at Club 1808, for their EP release show with Waldo Wittenmeyer and the Natural. Get a taste of Baby Acid Trips below.

On their sophomore LP, Candi and The Strangers jives out powdery synth-pop blended with muted disco and causes one to beg, “More Moog.” 10th of Always purveys movement through space, and its done remarkably well through fleshly synthetic melodies and vibrantly blurred rhythms. Because of all the dripping fuzz and boomeranging reverb on 10th of Always it’s hard to know whether Samantha Constant is saying ‘glide’ or ‘dive.’ But somehow it doesn’t matter. Part of the fun of the album is the ambience, and part of the ambience is traveling on a space ship or Milky Way vessel, as the Strangers beckon, “welcome to my dream, relax and float downstream.” The album is true mood music — much like Al Green or Radiohead — it changes the tone of a room. After succumbing to it, the listener buys into a new world of possibility. At times the album is uncannily reflective of shoegaze greats while simultaneously referencing pop culture icons like Nico and Candy Darling. These retro-familiar elements paired with a coded musical and vocal rhetoric craft an album that is otherworldly but altogether mellow mosh crowd ready.

Any conversation about the best new bands in Austin has to include Marmalakes, a trio that on the strength of last year’s debut EP, Wonder Winds, and charmingly buoyant live shows have helped galvanize a scene of unassuming, earnest and impressive young artists. On songs like the anthemic “Vittoria”, the band catches a perfect pop folk-pop hook that shadows elements of Local Natives and even Vampire Weekend, while winding through detailed landscapes with an alliterative laden wit. Marmalakes will be releasing their second EP later this year, but you should catch them as soon as possible, which happens to be this Thursday, February 10 at the Mohawk along with Austin heavy-hitters Fastball, and rising starts Quiet Company.