SXSW DAY THREE: LADIES’ NIGHT

by Cristina Black

Rocker dudes are a dime a dozen in Austin this week. Really, they’re everywhere with their greasy hair and tatted-up chests, wailing on guitars and pounding on drums. That’s why I decided to have a ladies’ night. On Friday, I focused on the amazing crop of women breaking out in music this year. My strategy paid off big time.

I popped over to Spin Magazine’s party at Stubb’s to catch the Raveonettes, mainly because I love Sune Rose Wagner’s current haircut. I mean, I like the band’s music too, but Wagner was awfully fun to photograph with her slim black skirt, deep red ruffled blouse and platinum bob. I caught up with the guy-girl duo again at the Vice party, which was crawling with bearded dudes in atrocious fashions. Get me outta here!

Back to the ladies. Early in the evening, I conned my way into the Fader Fort, where fresh young Brit girl Duffy was playing. If Priscilla Ahn (who I saw last night) is the next Norah Jones, then Duffy is the next Amy Winehouse. Her album is number one in the U.K., where her countrymen are eating up her smoothed-out disco-pop. She looks like a rattier Baby Spice, but she’s got quite a voice on her. However, her stage presence was lackluster. Then again, Lily Allen was a little shy on her first few Stateside gigs too, and we fell in love with her eventually, didn’t we?

After washing down a taco with a top shelf Patron margarita (mmmm!), I hit the photo pit at Stubb’s. Santogold had just gone on, and she had two black-and-white clad dancers flanking her. Let me tell you something about this gal: She’s super bratty, and in the best way possible. Her icy voice and jagged beats are straight out of the future. Something like an M.I.A. style-wise (she personally despises the comparison) Santogold performed in a loud-colored puffy jacket and hipster jeans, achieving a delicate balance of street cool and art-house hip.

Next up, I went over to the Merge Records showcase at the Parish to wait for another femme fatale, Zooey Deschanel, to hit the stage with indie-folkster M. Ward. The pair, calling themselves She & Him, just released a brand new album of pop songs title Volume One. Of course, it’s hard to take an actor seriously on record, but this is different. Deschanel is a wonderful, Linda Ronstadt-like singer and her love songs are little heartbreakers, as is she. Looking great in a grey bubble dress and creamy boots, she handled the heckling with snark.

“Last Christmas!” requested one guy from near the front, between songs.

“Oh…yeah!,” said Deschanel in a moment of feigned sincerity that quickly turned to deadpan mockery. “Ah…no.”

Would you believe that, after all that lady power, I ended my evening among a mass of loud, sweaty men? I went to Emo’s to catch the tail end of Akron/Family’s set. By the time I got there, the oddball band was bare-chested and sweaty, smellable a whole twenty feet back from the stage. They’d launched into some sort of YMCA-style hip-hop chant about different shapes—“Circle, triangle, square,” they sang. “Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!” They marched out into the street on that theme, the whole club following, before segueing into “Auld Lang Syne,” complete with a New Year’s countdown and the ensuing revelry. Boys, they’re so silly…