SXSW Day 2 Vol 1
It was surreal to start the day with a set from the wonderful MOONEY SUZUKI at the Red Eyed Fly. Although it was 3pm it felt like we had only just had breakfast, and next thing we know we are at the front of the crowd for New York City’s finest rock and rollers. ROTR first saw them five years back in a tiny club in Brighton, where we instantly fell in love with them. While some fo their new material lacked the edge of tracks from Electric Sweat or Alive and Amplified, there was not one drop in momentum during their exciting set – and they succeeded in the difficult task of making a daytime showcase feel like a full on rock and roll show.
The next band worth mentioning were the superb GALLOWS at the Tea For Texas party. They hail from London, they are young, skinny and loud as hell. Think hardcore punk, screamed by a red-haired, heavily tattooed really rather angry young man. The frontman’s charm and wit between songs however, not to mention his amusing anecdotes, added a connection with the audience that made the set all the more enjoyable.
Strolling the street after having taken advantage of the free bar at Tea For Texas, we bumped in to none other than Wayne Coyne. We got to give him a copy of issue 3 of the zine (with him on the cover), and he told us he was filming for the Jay Leno show, as some kind of SXSW correspondent.
THE FILMS were a band we checked out at the Dirty Dog Bar on a tip-off from a friend. Four young things from Charleston, South Carolina, they play highly marketable indie pop in the vein of a southern US Libertines, and they look and sound like every other band you might stumble across in Camden. That said they had an appeal, no doubt because they are from Carolina not Camden, and some catchy songs. Sooner or later NME will get wind of these guys, and they’ll be huge.