Austin Sound

Hold your horses there SXSW and Fun Fun Fun Fest, we aren’t done talking about ACL, yet! Today, C3 announced their official after and pre-shows for the early October bash in Zilker Park, and there is some good stuff for those of you that prefer to pass on the heat. We know it will break your hearts to miss those ACL headliners that everyone is so uber-excited about, but hey, here’s your chance to see the Antwoord. For the Thursday pre-shows, you can kick off the weekend with Spoon at the Mohawk (wow!), while Friday our money is split between Emo’s with the Black Lips, Those Darlins, and The Ettes outside, and Givers, Cults, and TV Torso in, while the Black Keys and Foals take on Stubb’s. For Saturday night, we’d probably take Girls with the Soft Pack at Antone’s, but it’s also tempting to see if there might actually be a tune or two that Jimmie Dale Gilmore does with the Monsters of Folk at Stubb’s. Anyway, peruse the schedule below, or here. And tickets for all of these shows will be going on sale August 27 at 10:00am. We suspect that Spoon at the Mohawk will blow out the servers first.

After several weeks of tactical leaks (which apparently has induced us to write in bad rhymes), Fun Fun Fun Fest has finally decided to stop fooling around and dump the full list of bands for their Fifth annual shindig in Waterloo Park this November 6 & 7. We weren’t able to make it down to their press conference (nice touch!), but we really hope that it unfolded like the NBA draft or something. We hear the bloggers were out in full force, and something about fried chicken. Anyway! We have to say, that this lineup is pretty damn astonishing. Bad Religion, Gwar, Devo, Mastodon, Os Mutantes, MGMT, just to name a few. Providing the weather holds and the dust stays settled this year, it should easily serve as the best FFFFest yet, and perhaps we’ll have to quit considering it a little DIY upstart and a full fledged party. Who knows, maybe they’ll actually even make some money this year! Tickets aren’t yet on sale, but you can currently sign up to enter their early bird lotteries. Anyway, here’s list as posted on their website currently.

And, here it is - your weekly Fun Fun Fun Fest band announcements. We think that this came courtesy of Wikileaks, who have obtained the documents and, against the threat of national security, have released the latest round up. Also, Fun Fun Fun Fest apparently wants to have a press conference when they announce the full list, which we find kind of hilarious. Why not? This is clearly press conference worthy. Someone notify Reuters! Will there be an open bar? What’s a press conference without an open bar, we always say. Reporters will also be able to ask their hard hitting questions, if called upon, which means there will be a mad scramble to see who will fill Helen Thomas’ seat in the front. We really feel this press conference needs to happen, because the public needs to know what Transmission Entertainment is doing about shoring up these continued leaks.

Anyway, today we have announced The Hold Steady, with Craig Finn bringing his breathless “oh, kids these days!” ranting to Waterloo Park. Is it just us, or does Finn and the Hold Steady’s songs kinda remind you of that teacher you had in high school who was down with what all the kids were into - you know, the one that wanted to be your buddy, and yeah, knew all about the crazy rave last weekend? It’s ok, we thought he was the coolest back then, too. We’re just waiting for Finn to one day whip out this line. Also on this week’s FFFFest roundup, though: RJD2, Dwarves, and High on Fire. And now you know.

The North vs. South Fest has always had a way of bringing back bygone Austin bands to play alongside the next generation thanks to the work of Mike McCoy, but the fest usually takes place up in Kansas, meeting point for the lineups that are packed with bands from Texas and Minneapolis. So we were pretty excited when we heard that this year’s North vs. South Fest would actually take place here in Austin, and at the Hole in the Wall, no less. The three night lineup from Thursday, August 12 - Saturday, August 14 is packed with good stuff, but the kicker is the chance to see Eighties Austin luminaries Doctors’ Mob reunite for the gig! Doctors’ Mob were often lumped into the New Sincerity scene back in the day, but more because no one knew exactly what the hell to do with their brand of melodic, post-punked-up rock. The lineup for the reunion will consist of the members from the band’s second album, 1987’s Sophomore Slump, which is Don Lamb, Glenn Benavides, Tim Swingle and Steve Collier. And although Doctors’ Mob isn’t planning anything more in the future right now, Lamb related that they will unleash a few new songs for the show, as well as “a couple we have not done at any of the last few reunions, so it won’t be the same old stuff.” You can check out the full lineup on the Fest’s myspace page, which includes new notables like Leatherbag, Salesman, and Til We’re Blue or Destroy, but also a host of other older heavy hitters like Hickoids, Wannabes, Stickpony, and the new Reivers/Zeitgeist incarnation Right or Happy. Check out the video of Doctors’ Mob that appeared as part of MTV’s infamous The Cutting Edge back in the day below.

Oh hey, look: more bands leaked out for Fun Fun Fun Fest! And we’re slowly getting more and more excited! The Gories! Now that’s the kinda Fun Fun Fun we like to read about. Good job guys. Also, Cap’n Jazz reunion (to be followed by a dual with Li’l Cap’n Travis, because this town ain’t big enough for two Cap’ns). Also announced this week are Snapcase, Dirty Projectors, Airwolfe, and Yelle. The full lineup will be coming in a couple short weeks, so then we can stop all this leaky mess, but we suppose we’ll play along till then. Anyway, that’s all you get. Now stop whining.

As if Austinites don’t have enough music to keep themselves occupied, AustinSound writer Marc Perlman spent Sunday July 18th at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. Set in Union Park with the Chicago skyline in the near distance, P4k Fest is somewhere between Austin’s own Fun Fun Fun Fest and ACL Fest– an eclectic mix of hipsters, young and old folks, punks, and hip hop fans all jockeying
for position in a field. And, just like Austin everyone complains about the heat, the dust, and the camp chairs. Shockingly, there was no Old Style to be found on the festival grounds– can you imagine not
being able to find a Lonestar at Fun Fun Fun Fest?!

Thanks to the kind folks at Pitchfork, Marc was able to shoot some pictures of Pavement, Big Boi, St. Vincent, Lightning Bolt, Surfer Blood, and Girls while downing overpriced Heineken.

It ain’t much, but it ain’t bad. The fifth annual edition of Austin’s little Fest that could has already sold out of their early bird tix - before even dropping any of the bands that are playing. Not that we really have to worry about it, though we already know that the Eagles are booked for another Austin engagement. Transmission SO lost that bidding war. They have, however, just released the names of three artists who will be playing the November 6 and 7 bash in Waterloo Park. Keeping to their eclectic approach, we have a rapper (Slick Rick), an old school hardcore punk outfit (Suicidal Tendencies), and some indie buzz (Best Coast). Worlds be so colliding!!! The full lineup will reportedly be out next month, and they’ll be trickling out more “leaks” (c’mon guys, this really isn’t a “leak” - can we stop calling them that?) over the next few weeks. If you missed the lottery for the first round of cheap early bird tickets, as always Transmission will be rocking tons of social media shenanigans to get tickets into your little hipster hands. Check out their website for more info on that (and probably best be doing the Twitter and Facebook thing, too). And check out their lineup leak video here, which is, well, something.

Well, thank goodness that there is no one playing up against the Eagles on Sunday night! The Austin City Limits Festival released their schedule, and there are really only a few slots that look like potential conflicted, at least for anything we care about. Miike Snow and Girls will have to be decided on Friday, as well as Broken Bells going up against the Black Keys. (Actually, that’s not hard. Go see the Black Keys). And it makes us sad that Vampire Weekend will probably draw more people than Sonic Youth, but you know - kids these days! Saturday doesn’t look too bad, except for the block around 7:00pm that will have LCD Soundsystem, Dave Bazan, Gogol Bordello, and a huge two-hour set from Monsters of Folk going on simultaneously. And Sunday will see Band of Horses go head-to-head with the Flaming Lips. Other than that though, things look to be pretty decently spread over Zilker Park. What do y’all think? What are you not looking forward to having to choose between? ACL goes down October 8-10.

We were kinda surprised at all the folks bemoaning the Eagles being tapped to headline ACL this year. Sure, it’s the Eagles, but what where you all expecting? It is ACL after all. And don’t worry, there is plenty in your indie wheelhouse that you’ll love - like Slightly Stoopid! Seriously though, we have to say that this is one of the better ACL lineups we’ve seen. The headliners are a big batch of big-money MEH, but even locally, the Fest is pulling in acts like the Sword and Balmorhea! Eclecticism! And sure, you can’t go wrong with the Flaming Lips, the Mountain Goats, Spoon, Band of Horses and LCD Soundsystem, but ACL is also bringing back some great lower tier stuff, like the Soft Pack, Girls, Local Natives, and MyNameIsJohnMichael. Sweetness. The 3 day passes are gone, baby, gone, but you can still buy your single day tix here, on sale now. Scope out the full lineup below. ACL will be unloading in Zilker Park on October 8-10.

We’re not going to lie - we love the Church of the Friendly Ghost, but we don’t understand half the shit they do. They’re way too musically advanced for our sad little three chord reviewing capabilities. But we have great faith that the rest of Austin is much more musically advanced than we are (which isn’t really saying much, so don’t make too much of the compliment). With that in mind, however, we encourage all to help the CotFG folks put on a pretty sweet little festival here next month. They’re calling the thing the New Media Art & Sound Summit, which sounds damned impressive! And it’s a whopping 3 day affair they have scheduled from June 17th - 19th. We’re not talking about just some little music showcases here - this is over 30 artists, with full on workshops, speakers and everything. Among the folks currently scheduled are Dr. Eugene Chadbourne, Mark Southerland Trio, Trio Tarana, Tatsuya Nakatani & Omar Tamez, Slow Six, and a ton of awesome local artists. Chris Schlarb will be providing a keynote.

But here’s the thing - the CotFG folks aren’t going to be paying themselves for any of this, and any proceeds will be split between HAAM and SIMS. So they’re asking the Austin community (that’s you!) to help get this awesome little event off the ground. They’ve got a Kickstarter fund going, trying to raise $15,000, and every little bit helps and would be greatly appreciated, we’re sure.

You can donate to the cause and find out more information here.