Live Reviews
By Rob Browning

Austin's South by Southwest Festival was my festival of choice when I first started going doing the circuit. It was always a great way to see a million bands and eat and drink a lot while I was doing it. The last couple years had taken me to a slew of other fests, but it was sure nice to be back in Austin for 2002.

DAY ONE:
Arrive in Austin, Texas. Pay a ton of cash to get downtown from the airport and arrive at the Extended Stay on 6th street in swinging downtown Austin. Find that they've overbooked and that we're shunted out to the Studio Inn in the middle of damn nowhere. Spend lots of cash in cabs and miss the Mink Lungs, Pilot To Gunner, and most disappointingly The Dwarves. A hearty fuck you to the good folk of the Extended Stay.

DAY TWO:
With one day lost and a Texas-sized chip on our shoulders, we hit Jovita's early for some grub and to check out our first offering of the festival: Mr. Gurf Morlix, notorious for collaborating with Lucinda Williams for many years. While he drew a big crowd and was playing his ass off guitar-wise, I didn't really connect with any of the songs. Not like the rest of the packed room cared, as they hooted and hollered like it was Friday night. Off to Yard Dog.

God Bless Yard Dog. While they are well-regarded world wide for the art they purvey by such notables as Jon Langford and Rico Bell, they are notorious for the afternoon backyard barbecues they throw every afternoon at SXSW and infamous for the free beer they give away there. There's also the added advantage of being able to see virtually everyone in the alt-country scene play casual outdoor sets. Kelly Hogan was as lovely as always. Cash Audio have never done much for me, but the Sadies followed and were as great as always, no doubt due to the presence of Superfan Alex. Bare Jr. and I rekindled the fires of obsession. They blew me away with a short set that featured most of the songs that will comprise his Bloodshot Records debut. It's a little more laid back than their previous two releases, but should prove to be a hell of a record.

Back to Jovitas for beer and Lonesome Bob, who clocked in with a great set of harrowing songs that came off all the more terrifying when spat from the mouth of the closest thing humanity has produced to a grizzly bear. The bigger they are, the harder you fall in life and love. Lonesome Bob sure knows that. So did most of Jovitas. An auspicious start for a man who must have played a dozen times over the course of the four days. The Damnations closed things out with some Austin styled bluegrass rock that has never done too much for me. Luckily, just as I started to get bored, it was time to dash over to the New West party at Club Deville.

Club Deville is a great bar, with a great outdoor patio/performance area built out of the surrounding cliff. Wouldn't you know they had free beer, too? I love Austin. New West is rapidly getting a name for itself as a straight shooting label that treats its artists well. They also throw a hell of a party. Chuck Prophet and Jon Dee Graham set things off with some textbook Texas singer-songwriter music clearing the way for one of the big attractions of the party: The Flatlanders. The authors of the aptly named More A Legend Than A Band record lived up to the title with a rare ensemble performance. Mssrs Ely, Gilmour and Hancock played all the hits, including Gilmour's most famous work Dallas to a well-lubed crowd. The played a short set, leaving the beer-fueled crowd hungry for Slobberbone, who were closing the evening's proceedings. Do yourself a favor, drag yourself away from reality TV and go see these guys. Brent Best is a hell of a frontman and the rest of the guys are amazing players. They blazed through a set of favorites, closing with a storming version of Soul Asylum's Cartoon that had the packed backyard on it's feet. Not too fucking shabby. After it was over, the only problem was that it was only a little past 8 o'clock and we'd been drinking free beer since 1. There are worse problems.

In all my time in Austin, I'd never been to Antone's but the evening's show wasn't one to be missed. We showed up in time to see Austin locals The Gourds. Their new-school bluegrass vibe had never been one of my favorites, but the third time was a charm. Journeyman sideman Max Johnston (Wilco, Freakwater, etc.) is a great addition to the Gourds fold. Doesn't hurt to be the hometown heroes, either. D/FW was represented by Jack Ingram, a talented honky-tonker who could get himself a Dwight Yoakum-esque niche if he plays his cards right. He also has a big following in the bizarrest of Texas subcultures: the drunk frat-boy crowd. Lotsa baseball caps were going crazy for his set, enough to make us hide at stage right to get good real estate for Caithlin Cary's set. Ingram's got a new record out, check it out if your into some new school Bob Keene/Jerry Jeff country. In the headliner spots, Raleigh darling Caithlin Cary played to a packed room with a hell of a crack band including ex-Whiskeytown guitarist Mike Daly and uber-drummer Jon Wurster of Superchunk. Caithlin's got a great Lucinda Williams meets Sandy Denny vibe that's not to be missed, equal parts exuberance and melancholia and ten times more real than Jewel. Check out the new record on Yep-Roc. Early pressings come with a mini cd that has a duet with the singer from her old band. I hear that he's handsome, too. After drinking for 12 hours, there are few bands that can sustain you for that last hour before bed. Few bands are as good as the Drive-By Truckers, either. Man are they great! They played a bunch of stuff off their new Southern Rock Opera as well as a couple new songs and kicked a hell of a lot of ass while doing it. By 2am the Shiner Bock had finally grabbed a foothold and it was off to bed, head ringing, with visions of Shiner Bock dancing in my head.

DAY THREE:
Got up kind of damaged and hit Yard Dog for a Replacements-approved fajita and beer breakfast. Nothing like hitting the ground running. Kelly Hogan and the Bottle Rockets kicked things into gear, each playing great sets. I don't know much about Kelly, save for her stuff with the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, but she has a hell of a voice, like a more soulful Patsy Cline. Festus, Missouri favorites The Bottle Rockets ran through a bunch of stuff from the new record Songs Of Sahm. Few things seemed more appropriate than being three free Shiners in on an Austin Friday afternoon while the Bottle Rockets play Doug Sahm songs. While I had a great time, evidently guitarist Tom Parr felt differently, as he quit the band and went home after the set. Doh! Richard Buckner and his wife played as a guitar and drums duo and his set was much better for the structure. He was big with the kids, literally, as three or four children got up over the course of the set to dance on the Yard Dog stage. Never thought I'd see that happen, but hey Austin brings out the best in people.

Suitably primed, it was off to Jovita's to see the Atlanta's Star Room Boys play with St. Louis hermits Hadacol. Not a bad double bill. The new Star Room Boys record The World Won't Leave You Alone is full of great songs about beautiful barroom losers. They sound great live, but are much more suited to a smoky club after dark than at 3 in the afternoon. The brothers of Hadacol sounded decent, but the small crowd seemed to work against them. I would have liked to have heard more of their stuff beforehand, but am definitely going to check them out again. They've got a dark country vibe to them and will definitely be heard from in the future.

After dinner at Threadgill's, it was off to spend the evening with 900 of my closest friends at Stubb's. Traditionally Stubb's is the place where my brush with the wonder twins of SXSW, that being Gibby Hayes and Johnny Depp, takes place. For better or for worse, this year we were like two ships that passed in the night, but it's always funny to watch a big movie star and a giant acting pissed off because they are in a huge crowd and people notice them. We arrived just in time to see the tail end of Bare Jr. providing a sound ass kicking to the crowd with a pretty fierce Baba O'Riley. Would have liked to have seen the rest of that set. Them boys is fierce. Following the Bare Jr. is no small task and the men of Marah were not really up to it. They played a decent set of average post-Springsteen rock , but clearly thought they were much bigger rock stars than they are. Had there been less preening and more rocking, they would have come off much stronger. Their closing version of their unreleased Reservation Girl actually lived up to the hype, even indulging us in a lead guitar break and solo. More songs like that could actually get them to live up to the notoriety of who their friends are.

The evening drew to a close trying to get into see Tift Merritt at the Continental Club. It was packed and impossible to get into, which didn't disappoint me at the time, but after hearing her simply incredible new record Bramble Rose, I'm so bummed. If she's even close to being as good live as she is on the record, you'll be hearing Ms. Merritt's name a lot in the coming year.

By Day Four I was jonesing for a little bit more of the rock end of the spectrum. Got up and hustled over to Club Deville in hopes of seeing Kind Of Like Spitting, who had of course canceled. Bummer. I was kind of dragging by the time I hit Yard Dog and wasn't alone. Caithlin Cary rightfully pointed out that Saturday afternoons at SXSW always feel like Sundays. Caithlin was as enchanting as always, and had a damaged Thad Cockrell sing on a couple numbers for good measure. Not too shabby.

That evening I was finally able to scratch my punk rock itch at Room 710. Sub City/Hopeless showcased their diverse and socially-conscious roster, kicking things off with PA punkers Digger. No new ground being broken here, but they rocked pretty hard and had a pretty great break-up song in the Screeching Weasel school of things called I Want My Hat Back that I definitely want to pick up. The bass player does really need to keep his shirt on, though. Selby Tigers batted second and were funny, well dressed and everything else except especially good. The kids loved them and they seemed like good people and all, but they did absolutely nothing for me musically. Sorry. Ditto for scene darling Atom and His Package. Atom plays everywhere all the time, normally just backed by a sequencer (the aforementioned Package), and is met with universal eye-rolling every time my punk friends hear he's on a bill. As I was warned, he was funny for about ten minutes and then he rapidly became the interminable stone in the path that was keeping me from seeing the Weakerthans. Ah, the Weakerthans! One of the main reasons for going to SXSW was to see these Winnipeg greats play. Their last junket south of the border was aborted after September 11th and this show was one of only three dates they were playing, inexplicably all in Texas. There was no way that I was going to miss them, as the Weakerthans are without a doubt one of the best bands playing today in any genre of music. They played a good deal of what will be their next record, equal parts driving punk and soothing lullabies with a poetic bent that is engaging rather that pretentious, a true rarity in punk today. Simply one of the best shows I've seen all year and the second best of the 2002 SXSW.

Wonderfully enough, the best was saved for last. I hauled ass over to the tent at Mother Egan's to see the Waco Brothers and the best damn set of the whole fest. I've seen the Waco Brothers and their leader Jon Langford more times than I care to admit. Hell, I saw Langford every day I was in town and never once was it intentionally. I have been kind of burned out on the Brothers Waco lately. Obviously I had forgotten how great those guys are live. These boys are basically everything that you'd want in a band: funny, great singers (and a lot of them), great songs, the whole nine yards. They blazed through all the high points of their catalog, culminating with a hell of a Baba O'Riley that tore the door off the cell that holds St. Patrick's Day demons at bay 364 days out of the year. By show's end, if Jon Langford started a cult there wouldn't have been a soul at Mother Egan's that wouldn't have followed him. If they could have walked, that is, as most of the crowd had consumed more than the legal limit. Such is the sacrament in the Church Of Waco.

As we shuffled out onto 6th Street well past midnight, not even a 6am flight home looming ominously in our future could chisel the smiles off our faces. God Bless Jon Langford, Austin, and SXSW for four of the best days that you could ever hope to have.