SXSW: IT’S ON!

Day one from our South by Southwest daily coverage

by Cristina Black

Landing in Austin, Texas, the day South by Southwest commences is like being a kid again. Except this time, you’re wandering into the candy store with ten times your weekly allowance. The annual monster music industry festival has over 1,500 bands playing in its four evenings of showcases, not to mention parties, daytime shows, impromptu street performances and general tequila-drenched good times. It’s almost too much.

It’s a good idea to start slow, so I headed to the large outdoor venue at Stubb’s BBQ for L.A. boy Johnathan Rice’s set. Rice, who has been romantically linked to Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis—his cherry-haired indie-princess was nowhere to be found—played straightforward, acoustic-guitar driven folk-rock songs about life and love and all that. His sounds were easy enough to get into in the balmy, breezy evening, but after a while I went in search of something more exciting. Like maybe a margarita.

At the bar, I ran into Jersey siren Nicole Atkins, who was about to hit the indoor stage for a short set. “Do you have any red lipstick?” she asked frantically. Of course I did, a couple shades, in fact. We headed to the ladies room to make the handoff. When Nicole went on, I sipped some Don Julio and relaxed into the vain thought that her fiery ballads came off that much torchier because of the contents of my cosmetics case.

It was about time I got down to the business of serious rock, so I bee-lined it for the now-bumping Sixth Street stretch, where Louisville, Kentucky’s Wax Fang were rocking the hell out of Maggie Mae’s as their hometown buddies from My Morning Jacket looked on. It’s a good thing I remembered my earplugs, because there was more high octane rock in store across the street at Vice, where Brooklyn trio Earl Greyhound was playing. The band’s bass player, Kamara Thomas, is one of the most stylish ladies in NYC, and she did not disappoint tonight, holding down the low end in tight, white jeans and a billowing peach satin top, her massive hair towering above her gorgeous, grimacing face.

Meanwhile, West Coast sexpot Kristin Gundred was over at Emo’s Annex taking the stage with her San Diego band, Grand Ole Party. Sporting a black vintage blouse and matching eyeliner, she drummed and squawked her way through a set of songs so slinky, you needed a lube job to groove to them. If South by Southwest is a harbinger of the year in music, GOP is going all the way in 2008. Catch them while you can.