If you went into 2021 with high expectations, you weren’t alone. Even if it was hard to feel optimistic this time last year, it certainly seemed as if things could get no worse. Live music did return, after all – though with the appearance of Delta, and now Omicron, the joyful noise comes with a caveat. After sixteen months of having to livestream shows (fun, but not the same) little could stop me from attending shows in person; wearing a mask as an extra precaution felt like no big deal, even if no one else was doing it. But luck (and vaccines) feel like the real reason I emerged unscathed from dozens of risky experiences, and with performances on the horizon canceled once again, maybe it’s wise to enter 2022 with slightly lower expectations.
There’s always recorded music, anyhow. Maybe the tumult of the year just has me personally feeling a bit unfocused, but it seems as though I barely scaled the mountain of this year’s musical offerings without getting a bit buried in the avalanche of releases – ones that had been pushed back, ones that were created in lockdown. I’ll be playing catch up well into the new year, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t gems I connected with almost immediately, and very deeply. And that’s what I’ve heard across the board, from those in the industry as well as casual music fans – is that our favorites this year stayed on heavy rotation, as we latched onto music that accurately reflected our moods, which evolved moment to moment and of course happened to be different for all of us at any given time. What does that mean for year-end lists? Audiofemme has always compiled an eclectic list, including favorites from each of our contributors without overall rank – consider any repeats to be the best of the best. But this year, the list seems even more diverse, meaning there’s a wealth of weird and wonderful music below to discover, dear reader. Thanks for sticking with us through another wild year.
EDITOR LISTS
Marianne White (Executive Director)
Top 10 Albums: 1) PinkPantheress – to hell with it 2) Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime 3) Low – Hey What 4) Jazmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales 5) Julien Baker – Little Oblivions 6) Dawn Richard – Second Line: An Electro Revival 7) Indigo De Souza – Any Shape You Take 8) aya – im hole 9) Flock of Dimes – Head of Roses 10) Tyler, the Creator – CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
Top 5 Singles: 1) Japanese Breakfast – “Be Sweet” 2) Loraine James (feat. Eden Samara) – “Running Like That” 3) Hand Habits – “More Than Love” 4) Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen – “Like I Used To” 5) Julien Baker – “Faith Healer (Half Waif Remix)”
Top 5 Albums (in no particular order): Spellling – The Turning Wheel King Woman – Celestial Blues Macy Rodman – Unbelievable Animals Marissa Nadler – The Path of the Clouds Kinlaw – The Tipping Scale
Top 3 Singles (in no particular order): Often – “Deep Sleep” Mannequin Pussy – “Control” Spice – “A Better Treatment”
Top 10 Albums: 1) Wye Oak – Cut All The Wires: 2009-2011 2) Dori Freeman – Ten Thousand Roses 3) Isaiah Rashad – The House Is Burning 4) Fawn Wood – Kåkike 5) Carmen Q. Rothwell – Don’t Get Comfy / Nowhere
Honorable Mention: Mike Gebhart – Co-Pilot
Top 3 Singles: 1) Doja Cat (feat. SZA) – “Kiss Me More” 2) Mitski – “Working for the Knife” 3) DoNormaal – “Baby May”
Top 5 Albums: 1) Deap Vally – Marriage 2) Mod Con – Modern Condition 3) Laura Stevenson – Laura Stevenson 4) Joan As Police Woman – The Solution is Restless 5) Black Country, New Road – For the first time
Top 3 Singles: 1) Black Country, New Road – “Sunglasses” 2) Lana Del Rey – “Dealer” 3) jennylee – “Tickles”
Top 5 Albums: 1) Hackedepicciotto — The Silver Threshold 2) Saint Etienne — I’ve Been Trying to Tell You 3) L’impératrice — Take Tsubo 4) Pearl and the Oysters— Flowerland 5) Nuovo Testamento — New Earth
Top 3 Singles: 1) Midnight Magic – “Beam Me Up” 2) Jessie Ware – “Please” 3) Gabriels – “Love and Hate in a Different Time (Kerri Chandler Remix)”
Top 5 Albums: 1) Dolphin Midwives — Body of Water 2) Sarah McQuaid — The St. Buryan Sessions 3) Low — Hey What 4) Witch Camp — I’ve Forgotten Now Who I Used to Be 5) Full Bush — Movie Night
Top 3 Singles: 1) Maggie Herron — “Sweet Lullaby” 2) Sleater-Kinney — “High in the Grass” 3) ONETWOTHREE — “Give Paw”
Top 5 Albums: 1) Jetty Bones – Push Back 2) M.A.G.S. – Say Things That Matter 3) Lyndsay Ellyn – Queen of Nothing 4) Kacey Musgraves – star-crossed 5) Christian Lopez – The Other Side
Top 5 Singles: 1) Hayes Carll – “Help Me Remember” 2) Jake Wesley Rogers – “Middle of Love” 3) Adele – “To Be Loved” 4) Carly Pearce – “What He Didn’t Do” 5) Kacey Musgraves – “what doesn’t kill me”
Top 5 Albums: 1) Polo G – Hall of Fame 2) Benny the Butcher & Harry Fraud – The Plugs I Met 2 3) Megan Thee Stallion – Something For Thee Hotties 4) Pooh Shiesty – Shiesty Sessions 5) blackbear – misery lake
Top 3 Singles: 1) Benny the Butcher & Harry Fraud – “Thanksgiving” 2) Lil Nas X (feat. Jack Harlow) – “INDUSTRY BABY” 3) 24kGoldn (feat. Future) – “Company”
Top 5 Albums: 1) Kacey Musgraves – star-crossed 2) Snoh Aalegra – Temporary Highs in the Violet Skies 3) Lil Nas X – Montero 4) Darkside – Spiral 5) Blu DeTiger – How Did We Get Here EP
Top 5 Albums: 1) Aly & AJ – A Touch of the Beat Gets You Up on Your Feet Gets You Out and Then Into the Sun 2) Julia Wolf – Girls in Purgatory (Full Moon Edition) 3) Megan Thee Stallion – Something For Thee Hotties 4) Lil Mariko – Lil Mariko 5) Destroy Boys – Open Mouth, Open Heart
Top 3 Singles: 1) daine – “dainecore” 2) Julia Wolf – “Villain” 3) Doja Cat – “Need To Know”
Sam Weisenthal(Contributor)
Top 5 Albums: 1) Indigo De Souza – Any Shape You Take 2) Katy Kirby – Cool Dry Place 3) Mega Bog – Life, and Another 4) Ada Lea – one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden 5) Olivia Kaplan – Tonight Turns to Nothing
Top 3 Singles: 1) Charlotte Cornfield – “Drunk For You” 2) Dora Jar – “Multiply” 3) Joe Taylor Sutkowski, Dirt Buyer – “What Luck, Goodbye”
Top 5 Albums: 1) PinkPantheress – to hell with it 2) Summer Walker – Still Over It 3) Erika de Casier – Sensational 4) Jazmine Sullivan – Heaux Tales 5) Adele – 30
Top 3 Singles: 1) Lana Del Rey – “Dealer” 2) Liv.e – “Bout It” 3) SZA – “I Hate U”
Top 5 Albums: 1) Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams 2) CL – ALPHA 3) My Life As Ali Thomas – Peppermint Town 4) Halsey – If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power 5) Remember Sports – Like a Stone
Top 3 Singles: 1) FKA twigs (feat. Central Cee) – “Measure of a Man” 2) Sabriel – “Pulse” 3) Lexie Liu – “有吗炒面 ALGTR”
Cardi B and Offset make their reconciliation official on the red carpet at the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
Cardi B Makes Grammy Moves
Cardi B made Grammy history on Sunday night with a huge win in the Best Rap Album category for Invasion of Privacy (she had five nominations total). She’s the first solo female rapper to take home the award – the only other woman to have received a Grammy for Best Rap Album is Lauryn Hill, when her group The Fugees nabbed the 1997 honors with their iconic album The Score. Cardi appeared on the red carpet dressed in vintage Thierry Mugler and husband Offset on her arm, signifying the end of a tense hiatus for the couple following rumors of Offset’s infidelity. Cardi also made fast friends with Lady Gaga, who offered support in the face of a backlash D, she also spent time on the red carpet chatting with Lady Gaga, who was quick to support the rapper in the face of backlash from haters following the award ceremony. Cardi took a brief break from Instagram but, never one to rest on her laurels, capped off the week by releasing “Please Me,” a duet with Bruno Mars.
Donald Glover also had a big night, though he didn’t attend the awards ceremony; Childish Gambino’s “This is America” won both Song of the Year (distinctly given to songwriters) and Record of the Year (which goes to the performers, producers, and engineers). It was the first rap single to do so.
Other big winners included Brandi Carlile, who won three of the six awards she was nominated for (Best Americana Album for By the Way, I Forgive You LP and two awards for its single “The Joke”); Kacey Musgraves, who won overall Album of the Year for Golden Hour as well as three additional awards in Counrty categories; Lady Gaga, who won an award for “Shallow” as well as “Joanne” despite it being released two whole years ago; Ariana Grande who nabbed the Best Pop Vocal Album; St. Vincent who won Best Rock Song for “Masseduction;” Greta Van Fleet who won for Best Rock Album; and Best New Artist Dua Lipa.
We’re Not Surprised Ryan Adams is a Creep
“If people knew they would say I was like R Kelley lol.” This is a pretty damning text coming from a 40-year old man who’s soliciting nudes from a teenager, and they came from none other than Ryan Adams, according to an investigative article by the New York Times. The report details the online relationship between Adams and a woman they call Ava, who was just fourteen when the two began to exchange messages that eventually culminated in phone sex less than two years later. The piece has prompted an FBI investigation into the singer-songwriter, though the alleged victim never disclosed her actual age during their relationship and never met in person.
Whether his actions are criminal or not is somewhat beside the point, though, as the rest of the piece establishes a pattern wherein Adams promised young female musicians – including Phoebe Bridgers, Courtney Jaye, and his ex-wife Mandy Moore – a boost in their careers via collaboration, mentorship, production, tour spots, releasing music via his label Pax-Am (an offshoot of Capitol), et al, but then attempted to shift the relationship to something sexual, even exposing himself to women who came to his studio to develop their projects. In instances where consensual relationships resulted from his advances, they often became obsessive and abusive, and he allegedly held collaborative work hostage as a means of keeping contact open. After remaining vague in a profile in Glamour earlier this year that prompted him to refer to her as a “soggy piece of cardboard,” former teen-pop-star turned actress Mandy Moore went into much greater detail about the control Adams wielded over her career and their relationship, admitting that he was psychologically abusive.
It’s no secret that Adams has penned vindictive tunes about his exes; one of his most beloved songs, “Come Pick Me Up,” from his 2000 solo debut Heartbreaker, is said to be inspired by the end of his relationship with music publicist Amy Lombardi (another track on the record is titled with her first name alone). And though his back to front cover of Taylor Swift’s 1989 was critically praised, it certainly raised eyebrows for some. Since the NYT article was published, Liz Phair, Karen Elson, and others have hinted that professional endeavors with Adams went awry due to similar behavior, which through the years has often been seen as erratic, owing to drug abuse an mental health issues. But in an industry that (as manyhavepointedout) still needs to have its #MeToo reckoning thanks to the seemingly inextricable tangle of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, Ryan Adams’ creepitude is a whole new layer of yikes.
That New New
This delightfully bizarre video for “Under The Sun” has got us so pumped for Spellling’s new record Mazy Fly, which drops February 22 via Sacred Bones.
Pecas are all about the smooth grooves on their latest single “T-Shirt.”
Watch an adorable turtle monch some kale in the new Mal Blum video ahead of their tour in support of Lucy Dacus.
This Robyn video is equal parts promotion for her 2018 album Honey and her new clothing line.
Bebe Rexha shared a video for “Last Hurrah” as a teaser for her yet-unannounced sophomore record.
Lizzo shared a video for the epic title track from her forthcoming album, out April 19.
Lydia Ainsworth returns with “Can You Find Her Place,” from the upcoming LP Phantom Forest, out May 10.
Tim Hecker is releasing more music from his Tokyo sessions with Japanese gagaku musicians, which resulted in 2018’s gorgeous Konoyo. The companion album, titled Anoyo, will be out May 10 via Kranky; Hecker will do a series of sold-out performances with the Konoyo ensemble at National Sawdust next week.
Julia Holter shared a video for “Les Jeux to You,” which appears on last year’s Aviary LP.
Hand Habits’ sophomore album placeholder comes out March 1 via Saddle Creek; the video for latest single “what lovers do” follows clips for “can’t calm down” and the LP’s title track.
Flock of Dimes and Madeline Kenney are releasing a split 7″ after working together on the latter’s 2018 LP Perfect Shapes; Jenn Wasner’s other musical project, Wye Oak, just released a track called “Evergreen” for Adult Swim’s singles series.
Potty Mouth are back with SNAFU, out March 1, and have a new video for “Starry Eyes” to get us psyched.
Gangster Doodles mastermind Marlon Sassy shared a collab between Madlib and Oh No called “Big Whips,” which will appear on his curated comp Gangster Music Vol. 1.
Take a listen to previously-unreleased Tom Petty track “For Real,” which will appear on a posthumous collection called The Best of Everything on March 1.
A shooting at Westlake Recording Studio in Hollywood on Tuesday jeopardized the recording sessions of Usher and Rich the Kid; members of the latter’s entourage were pistol whipped in the apparent robbery, but no one was shot.
Katy Perry has pulled a controversial pair of shoes from her website and other retailers after facing backlash from critics who say the design is a little too reminiscent of blackface.
Capcom has uploaded the soundtracks to some of their classic video games, like Mega Man and Street Fighter, to Spotify.
Louisville, KY’s Forecastle Fest announced their lineup for this year, which includes The Killers, The Avett Brothers, Anderson .Paak, Maggie Rogers, Chvrches, and more, and will take place July 12-14.
Ozzy Osbourne is reportedly doing much better after being hospitalized for complications of the flu.
Democratic nominee contender Kamala Harris failed at an attempt to seem cool when she claimed to have listened to Snoop Dog and Tupac while smoking reefer in college… before either had released music.
Record Store Day has named Pearl Jam its official ambassadors for RSD2019. The esteemed position has previously been held by the likes of Metallica, Foo Fighters, St. Vincent, Run the Jewels, Jack White, Iggy Pop, and Chuck D.
When I call Madeline Kenney, she’s almost home – driving back to Durham from a brief West Coast tour after a stop in Austin to drop off her band. On this return trip, she’ll cross the Continental Divide for the ninth time this year. Her first crossing, in January, was part of a move from the Bay Area to North Carolina to record her sophomore album, Perfect Shapes. It had scarcely been six months since Carpark Records put out her Toro Y Moi-produced Night, Night At First Landing, but Kenney was compelled by opportunity – she’d been offered free recording time in Sylvan Esso’s home studio, with none other than Wye Oak/Flock of Dimes mastermind Jenn Wasner as producer.
At the time, Kenney and Wasner had not yet met face-to-face – the match-up came at the recommendation of folks adjacent to the Durham music scene, whom Kenney met while touring behind Night, Night and would later move in with. But it couldn’t have been more appropriate; though Night, Night is a distinctly dream-pop affair, its hazy guitars nearly obscuring Kenney’s presence, Perfect Shapes brings out all of Kenney’s quirkiest ideas, equal parts art rock and indie pop. “It’s not that I don’t like [Night, Night] or am not proud of it,” Kenney cautiously explains. “I think I was pretty naïve when I made Night, Night, pretty eager to please. I think I said yes to a couple of things production-wise that, looking back, maybe I didn’t really mean to say yes to.”
That idea crops up on Perfect Shapes over and over again – that Kenney, at 26, is still learning about and setting her own boundaries, and her songs are a fantastic reminder to anyone listening not to back down from their own. “I can’t go out… I’m in the hustle to my elbows,” she sings on “No Weekend,” describing all too relatably the plight of so many millennials. But over a fluttering sax interlude (courtesy Wasner’s Wye Oak cohort Andy Stack), she concedes, “I’m so good at giving in.” Even before we get there, we have album opener “Overhead,” in which Kenney complains of others “calling me empty / just because I know my own limits.” The following track, “Bad Idea,” dissolves an “In The Air Tonight”-reminiscent intro into a pulsating synth line, its lyrics ambiguous until Kenney cries, “So I showed up, just like they told me to / Drilling it all in my head / So, that’s what the girls do – Showin’ up for you, for you.”
Her interrogation of emotional labor and unapologetic tenacity belies the record’s soothing composition – vocal layers lap softly over one another; relatively sparse braids of springy bass, warbling synths, sped-up samples, and twangy guitar lines give the entire record a swirling, almost aquatic feel, and make it an exceedingly pleasing listen on a visceral level. Lead single “Cut Me Off,” is a perfect example; Kenney sternly advocates for doing things on her “own time” over a nimble, Dirty Projectors-esque riff, kitschy but subtle slurping sounds augment the words “drink it up,” and just as she proclaims she’s “got a good thing going,” the song ends abruptly, as though someone, somewhere, just hit a mute button. It’s equal parts wit, social commentary, and unexpected earworm.
And while Wasner’s sonic thumbprint is certainly visible, Kenney emphasizes the collaborative nature of their working together. Kenney had demoed the songs but most of them were recorded from scratch over a two-week session, with drummer Camille Lewis joining them halfway though the process (Lewis, along with her Dead Recipe bandmate Kyle Albrecht, comprise Kenney’s live backup). “We recorded some things on top of my demos because both of us had this feeling about a couple of them that there was a mood that we couldn’t recreate if we started fresh,” Kenney says. But for the most part, “it was Jenn and Camille and I in a room getting to know each other as musicians, as people, and learning and making mistakes and really exploring a lot of different things and allowing ourselves to just be free in the space and make something that was interesting to us and not affected by anything from the outside world.”
It’s the kind of creation myth told over and over again, from Big Pink to Bon Iver – but rarely are the protagonists women, and Kenney says the experience was eye-opening. “Oftentimes in studios with men… it’s this internalized misogyny where you’re constantly second guessing yourself – like I don’t wanna speak up or I don’t wanna ask this question cause I don’t wanna look like I don’t know what I’m doing. I think we had to learn, literally together, to feel comfortable with that because of how long we’ve been trained by the world to second-guess ourselves.”
Kenney also recognizes that women have been socialized to nurture, particularly in their relationships to men – at one point, she studied neurobiology while simultaneously supporting herself as a baker and pastry chef. “I think the neurobiological predisposition to be a caretaker is a beautiful thing, and I personally get a lot of satisfaction and deep emotional reward from taking care of people,” she admits. “That’s why I loved being a baker – I like making things for people and making them happy. But I just get totally depleted by it, because of how people are socialized to take from women.” It’s a personal sentiment that’s easily applicable in a wider setting, as women all too often bear the brunt of emotional labor professionally, personally, and even politically. Album standout “The Flavor of the Fruit Tree” is both a prod at a relationship that Kenney ended after feeling like she had to be a mother to someone six years older than herself, but she says it’s also “a commentary on how society allows men to act like children.”
It’s here the album takes a turn – on the following track, Kenney announces “I went home, I got tired / of standing up, of giving up my time / Of getting offers, Of being mother,” and its last three songs (including the stellar title track) are concerned mainly with aesthetic appreciation – the shapes, colors, sunlight, art and music that propel Kenney forward. No longer relegated to caretaker, Kenney can become the creator, the observer, the appreciator. While it’s clear that she’s taken efforts to carve out her own space as a musician, Perfect Shapes finds Kenney simultaneously prepared to hold fast to the new boundaries she’s set for herself, but also to share her talent with others. “I think once you make a song and put it out, it really isn’t yours anymore. It’s going to be consumed by another brain who’s been though a different set of experiences and understands things differently,” she says. Through her kaleidoscopic sonic palette, she’s invented a new way of interacting with an otherwise demanding world, and says that working with Wasner left her with the confidence to keep pushing. “I was interested in doing something different and exploring some new sounds,” she says. “I guess I’ll always have a million interests. I’m sure the next one will be different too.”
Madeline Kenney plays Baby’s All Right on November 1. For a full list of tour dates, click here.
Dani Miller and her band of no-fucks-given cohorts make up the Brooklyn based punk band Surfbort. The band has quickly captured the hearts of the musically saturated Brooklyn borough, with their energetic live shows and their quirky take on punk tradtion. “Les Be In Love” is a single off Surfbort’s first EP, released with Cult Records.
Originally released on February 14th, the single is a reminder not to give love just one day a year. Miller says of the song “‘Les Be in Love’ is our anthem, a call to arms to begin the love revolution. It reminds us that love, humor, magic, and the human sitting next to you are the only antidote to the capitalist hellscape.”
The video is Surfbort’s “letter” to the love gods to end our society’s capitalist agenda and allow all to flourish in the state of love. It’s their statement to bring a little more art, friendship, music and love back into a world where idealism is often replaced by corporate greed.
Miller herself plays cupid in the video, and instead of infecting people with romance, her arrows corrupt people with a true sense of weirdness. The magic arrows take these greedsters out of their corporate suits and flashes them into a colorful world of eccentric weirdos – the world in which the members of Surfbort clearly spend most of their time.
In the video we get a chance to imagine a reality where a bunch of flying weirdos are able to transform anyone into the true super freaks that might be living beneath the suit and tie.
From their humble living room beginnings, to their debut album, the musical trajectory of this sister act has been unique. “The Kids Are Alright Film” is a medley of songs off their debut album, released on March 23rd by Beyonce’s Parkwood Entertainment label.
Gretta Kline, aka Frankie Cosmos, is deeply vulnerable about the sensations of heartache and and feeling invisible in her latest single “Jesse.” Her album Vessel is slated for release on March 30th.
From Ivy Lab, a London based electronic music group, the music video for their recent release “Cake” is a visual feast. Figures glide through shadows, choreographed by Brooklyn-based dancer Justin Conte, to glitch heavy bass.
Wye Oak’s most recent release “Lifer” is an intimate recognition of the privilege Jenn Wasner sees in her own life and has simultaneously felt uncomfortable with. The visuals are simple, drawing more attention to her words. The song “Lifer” is from their album The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs, which is due on April 6th.
Another year of South by Southwest has come and gone. It was a landmark year for us at AudioFemme, as we hosted our first ever SXSW showcases. It was certainly a learning experience, to say the least. Just as we have in years past, we met a wide array of musicians, promoters, industry folks, and music fans from around the world, an experience as enriching as ever. But networking and seeing as many bands as one can in five days aren’t the only things that go into the SXSW experience. At its heart is one weird little city redefining the festival experience. Here’s a rundown of our best moments from Austin, TX.
Most Memorable Performances:
Traams
The sun doesn’t shine in the UK the way it does in Austin, and the visible sunburn on these three lads made me feel an empathetic sting. I caught the post-punk trio at El Sapo, a newly-opened hamburguesa joint on Manor Road, hosting showcases curated by Austin local radio station Music For Listeners. The showcase included performances from Dublin-based noise pop quartet September Girls, Manchester rockers Pins, and Mississippi psych-pop outfit Dead Gaze, all of whom were arresting. But there was something especially captivating about the sparks flying during Traams’ frenzied performance, with frontman Stu channeling Alec Ounsworth’s frantic wail. The boys worked up a real sweat blasting everyone with pummeling pop.
Future Islands
The Baltimore synth punk outfit has long had a reputation as a hardworking and talented live band who’ve released some great albums over the last seven years. Singles is out March 25th on 4AD and the band took to SXSW for their first time ever to showcase the material, resulting in heaps of long-deserved attention. I caught their triumphant final performance of eight at Impose’s free Longbranch Inn party, and the vibes were stellar. Lead singer Samuel T. Herring was absolutely brimming with joy, repeatedly stating how good the energy in the room felt, promising to belt it out until his vocal chords gave up. The crowd loved him back, bouncing up and down to some stellar new songs, pumping fists, crowd surfing, and begging for another jam before the bar closed for the night. Future Islands obliged with a hushed version of “Little Dreamer” from 2008’s Wave Like Home.
The Wytches
When we previewed “Wire Frame Mattress” we knew that the UK band were not be missed, and the boys did not disappoint. Blending surf, sludge, and rockabilly elements with a healthy dose of reverb, The Wytches embodied worst-case-scenario teenage angst like we haven’t seen since watching The Craft at sleepovers.
Coachwhips
Jon Dwyer reunited his early aughts garage rock group and it felt so good. Eschewing stages as often as possible, Dwyer & Co. preferred to set up shop in the Austin dust and totally wreck it. I saw them once at the Castle Face Records showcase (that’s Dwyer’s label, which is set to re-release Coachwhips debut Hands on the Controls this month) and again on Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge, after which Dwyer set off fireworks during Tony Molina’s set. Dwyer sings into a mic that looks more like a wad of tape, resulting in a scratchy, unintelligible, yet somehow glorious garble, the short songs every bit as good as those from Thee Oh Sees catalogue but faster, looser, and somehow more primal.
Wye Oak
Another Baltimore act that’s been around for years, steadily releasing unnoticed but beautiful records, Wye Oak’s folk-inflected synth pop impressed many a South by audience. Andy Stack did double duty on drums and keys, using one hand to play each simultaneously. Just think about that for a minute. Try to mime those motions. It’s a good deal harder than rubbing your belly while patting your head, but Stack never missed a beat. Add to that Jenn Wasner’s honeyed voice, and space rock guitar riffs, and you’ve got a template for the galactic anthems of Shriek, the duo’s fourth studio album. It comes out April 29th on Merge.
Our inaugural SXSW showcase was a success! There’s no way we could thank everyone involved, but extra special thanks go out to eight bands who came from all over the world to play breathtaking sets for us and for our fans:
… and CreepStreet for providing goods to give away!
Worst Venue to Throw a Showcase: Upstairs on Trinity
It’s not actual a venue, it’s a wine bar. After reading the fine print on a very misleading contract, we learned that we’d have to rent an entire soundsystem to even have a show. We had to hire our own sound guy too. Even after pulling off both these feats (no easy task considering our out-of-town status), we weren’t allowed to set up until after 7pm, pushing our showcase back an hour. There weren’t even extension cords at the “venue” so I had to haul ass down 6th to a CVS to purchase whatever they had in stock. When psych rockers Electric Eye finally took the stage, their unravelling guitars definitely eased my frayed nerves.
Followed by Cheerleader’s uplifting pop punk, I was starting to feel a little better – until technical difficulties resurfaced. Live, learn and shrug it all off with some whiskey, that’s what I always say.
By the time we worked out our sound issues and Samsaya hit the area where a stage might have been in an actual club, I was admittedly wasted, but not enough that I failed to notice how inventive her acoustic set was, featuring musicians from all over the world, and how everyone in attendance – including the bartenders – responded to it. Leverage Models followed her lead, encouraging some seriously rowdy dancing with their artful antics, only helped by the (still) flowing libations. I didn’t get any decent pictures of the dance party because of the shitty lighting but also because, you know… libations. It all ended with me crying alongside I35, unable to get a cab, unidentified cables draped around my neck like someone’s pet python, ’til a random Austinite took pity on us and gave us a lift back to The Enterprise where I passed out in bed still wearing a leather jacket. We go to pick up our equipment the next day and the venue attempted to overcharge us for an event they had no business booking in the first place and hijacked our rented equipment as collateral while we disputed the bill. The process of getting it back took up a significant chunk of the rest of the week. All in all, it presents a gross example of the worst of SXSW profiteering. But wonderful performances from the bands who played the showcase are what saved the day, so big thanks to them!
Best Random Austin Moment: Salute!
Embattled with the venue from Hell, I was feeling a bit depressed – in part because the show hadn’t gone as planned, we’d inconvenienced Austin friends kind enough to give us rides while juggling insane work schedules, but also because I was missing out on a lot of bands I wanted to check out while going through the whole retracted process. I smoked some weed a bartender had given me the night before, ate a veggie burrito from Chillitos, and stumbled into The Vortex, a theater/bar in a barn hosting a party that featured Italian bands and a Patrizi’s food truck. I sat in the sun and took in the sounds of Omosumo, an electronic outfit that could be the lovechild of Led Zeppelin & Daft Punk sent away to boarding school in Palermo.
Runner Up: When Red 7 played The Hold Steady on the soundsystem right before The Hold Steady played
Queerest Showcase: Y’all or Nothing, Presented by Mouthfeel & Young Creature
Listed as a showcase for “not-so-straight shooters” the bill at Cheer-Up Charlies on Saturday night was stacked beginning-to-end with impressive performers, thoughtfully culled from queer scenes in Austin and beyond. There was a palpable feeling of community and camaraderie in the air and the evening was all about fun. Gretchen Phillips’ Disco Plague opened the night on the outdoor stage, situated in a white-stone grotto that forms the venue’s patio. Her improv dance-punk got the entire crowd going. Meanwhile, performance art duo Hyenaz brought glammed up electro to the inside stage, and it only got crazier from there. Austinites Mom Jeans‘ quirky pop punk had me beaming; they dedicated songs to John Waters, weed, and Satan. Leda introduced her band Crooked Bangs with the declaration “I’m a woman, and I don’t know what that means” before proceeding to mesmerize everyone watching with bass playing so nimble I still can’t get over it. BLXPLTN’s industrial punk-meets-hip-hop vibe is every bit as brutal as Death Grips, their lead single “Stop & Frisk” lambasting the racist practice. Big Dipper rapped. Ex Hex rocked. We deeply regret missing performances by TacocaT and Christeene and Sharon Needles due to some ongoing drama that needed taking care of. But we wish we could’ve stayed forever.
Not because I’m a stalker, just because they got to play early slots on some really rad bills. They were on point every time. Hopefully this means a lot more attention for the Philly-based trio in the upcoming year.
Best SXSW Tradition: Bridge Parties!
Night one I saw Perfect Pussy throw a bass into the Colorado while Meredith Graves wore a sparkly ball gown, followed by bang-up performances by Nothing and Ex-Cult.
Ex-Cult on the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge
Night two was the aforementioned fireworks display courtesy of John Dwyer while Tony Molina played. The cops don’t seem to care and I want to be friends with everyone on that bridge forever.
Best Venue for Charging Phones: Cheer Up Charlie’s
Newly inhabiting the former Club DeVille compound as Wonderland has taken over its old East Side location, this is a haven for anyone with a near-dead battery, though Hotel Vegas was a close second. Both had multiple outlets that were conveniently accessible (rather than behind a bar that forced you to bug your bartender every time you wanted to Instagram something), often times in full view of a stage where bands were playing so you didn’t have to miss the fun.
Worst Venue for Charging Phones: Red 7
Home of Brooklyn Vegan’s day parties, not only was capacity over-policed after Tyler, the Creator incited a riot at Scoot Inn, but Red 7 has a peculiar sparseness that makes finding outlets nearly impossible. And you couldn’t just hand your phone over to the bartender without paying a $5 charging fee. A particularly hostile sign on the sound booth discouraged the uncharged masses from inquiring therein. Now, I know you don’t have to be able to snap a selfie at a show to have a good time. I was content to simply watch these lovely performances with documenting them. But ranting and raving about newly discovered bands enriches that fun and hopefully generates some buzz for the artist, which is kind of the whole point of SXSW. And communicating with friends still waiting in lines outside is pretty paramount, so cell phones at shows count as a necessary evil and everyone kind of has to get used to it.
Best-Kept Secret: Chain-Drive
This little-gay-bar-that-could is hunkered on a quiet street off the main drag of Rainey District. Met Christeene and Gretchen Phillips and Big Dipper on Tuesday, but the venue hosted out-of-control, unique line-ups every night.
Most Inflated Price: $6.99 Non-Bank ATM fee at 7th & Red River.
As in, $2 more than non-badgeholder admission to a show steps away at Beerland, where I caught Connections before heading to Hotel Vegas for Forest Swords.
Number of Chase ATMS in the immediate downtown area: 2
That were able to dispense cash: 0
Best Food: Gonzo
Every year I have to stop by Gonzo’s food truck at the East Side Fillin’ Station for a “Pig Roast” – sweet pulled pork topped with provolone, tangy carrot slaw, and spicy brown mustard on Texas toast. As I ate my annual sammie I literally found myself thinking about how ingenious Texans were for inventing really thick white bread grilled with butter on it. Austin’s first-ever In-N-Out location was a close second, because a Double Double Animal Style really is a life-changer.
Best Metal Band We Stayed With But Didn’t See Live: Christian Mistress of Portland
They were all very nice but their hair made us jealous.
Best Movie We Saw While Charging Phones/Re-Charging Selves At Jackalope: Daughters of Darkness
Best Austinites: It’s a tie!
Jenn from Guitar Center rented us four monitors, two speakers with stands, six fifty foot cables, a sixteen channel mixer, two DI boxes, and two mics with stands within a days notice, and didn’t change us extra when a snafu with the shittiest venue in Austin forced us to keep it longer than we’d planned. In general she was super understanding, knowledgable, professional, and friendly.
Chris English of Haunted ATX gave us a lift whenever we needed it in a hearse tricked out into a six-seat limo. We flagged him down out of a cab line a mile long trying to get from the downtown Hilton to the South Lama for Ground Control’s famed Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge punk party. The TV in the back was playing Dune. The next night, after another bridge party was announced, we texted him for another ride and he showed within fifteen minutes, giving us the same deal. Then he came in with an assist in The Great Equipment Rescue of SX2014 when none of our friends were able to help us schlep our equipment from venue to where we were staying, and he gave us a mini-tour of an Austin cemetery because that’s what he normally uses the limo for – haunted tours of Austin.
Best Non-Austinite: Giselle from Vancouver
…who came to our Tuesday showcase. Bowled over by our line-up, she proclaimed it was one of the best at SXSW and couldn’t understand why anyone would “wait so long to see Jay-Z ” when they could have been partying with us. Giselle is a little older, probably in her 40’s or maybe early 50’s. Having recently entered my thirties, I’ve often wondered if I was too old to be so invested in such a youth-centric industry. Giselle gives zero fucks about that. She isn’t even in the industry; she told me she “just likes to go to shows”. She makes trips to Austin each year (as well as to New York for CMJ), travels for other events and festivals and attends shows at home, where she uses her iPhone to snap pics of up-and-coming bands she started finding “when the internet came around and made it easier to discover bands”. It might be that Giselle is actually myself from the future, sent to the showcase to give me the hope and reassurance I need to keep going. If that’s so, I’m here to tell you that based on her outfit, normcore will be bigger than ever in fifteen years.
Best Almost-Brushes With Celebrity:
I was invited to go to Willie Nelson’s ranch and was hoping to hang with the country legend, but thanks to the showcase debacle didn’t make the limo. Annie almost interviewed Debbie Harry of Blondie but the Queen of New Wave rescheduled and switched to over-the phone.
Number of Wrist-bands Accrued: Only one.
A friend said to me, “That’s kinda sad and kinda really amazing.” But between putting on our own showcases and going to everyone else’s, I didn’t have time to wait around in lines for wristbands, then wait for lines to get into a venue, then wait for lines to get to the patio of the venue where bands were actually performing. And in what little time I did have, I chose to attend smaller events that lacked the corporate sponsorship necessitating said lines and said wristbands. So someone else was the one to Instagram Lady Gaga getting puked on; meanwhile I got to see shows unobstructed by big-box advertising that felt way, way more personal and memorable. For instance: I closed out SXSW at The Owl, a DIY space on the East Side with Eagulls, Tyvek, and Parquet Courts headlining.
Eagulls at The Owl. Phone died for the last time at SXSW shortly thereafter.
Number of Messages on Thursday morning asking if I was safe:
Lots & lots; truly felt loved. Our hearts go out to those that didn’t get a message back.
An Alphabetical List of Bands I Saw:
Amanda X, BLXPLTN, Big Dipper, Big Ups, Bo Ningen, The Casket Girls, Cheerleader, Coachwhips, Connections, Crooked Bangs, Dead Gaze, Eagulls, Electric Eye, Empires, Ex-Cult, Ex Hex, Far-Out Fangtooth, Fenster, Forest Swords, Future Islands, Gretchen’s Disco Plague, Guerilla Toss, Habibi, HighasaKite, The Hold Steady, Hundred Waters, Hyenaz, Jess Williamson, Juan Wauters, Kishi Bashi, Leverage Models, Mom Jeans, Nothing, Parquet Courts, Perfect Pussy, Pins, Potty Mouth, Residuels, Samsaya, September Girls, SOLDOUT, STRNGR, Tony Molina, Traams, Tyvek, Vadaat Charigim, Warm Soda, Weeknight, Wild Moccasins, Wildcat Apollo, Wye Oak, The Wytches, Young Magic[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Ticket Giveaways
Each week Audiofemme gives away a set of tickets to our featured shows in NYC! Scroll down to enter for the following shindigs.
