I’ve seen Grizzly Bear six times now in six very different location and they’ve yet to turn out a bad show. I’ve seen them play outdoor festivals in the hot Chicago sun, a nighttime show in front of a rock wall, and I’ve seen them do quiet shows in old converted theaters. All were completely [...]

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White Denim An odd thing happened to me during Gorilla vs Booze. I genuinely couldn’t tell if I was having a great time or if my brain only thought that because I was near death. Gorilla vs Bear packed seven cutting-edge bands and a few hundred dedicated fans into The Peacock, what has to be [...]

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Good ol’ Annie Clark. She knew I wasn’t feeling so great, having been hungry and way too thirsty for most of the day, so she played a bunch of new material and my old favorites during the front of her set! Oh, and also she looked adorable. That was another wonderful thing that I’m sure [...]

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I think that, gun-pointed-to-my-head, I was only allowed to pick one guy to soundtrack my life, I’d go with Daniel Rossen of Grizzly Bear/Department of Eagles. The guy’s just packed to the brim with crazy guitar chords and head-rattling riffs. It’s all things that should, by all rights, be too confusing to enjoy without serious [...]

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I feel bad for the other SXSW performers — but mostly for myself — that my time in Austin had to peak so early. At least that’s what I thought in the middle of M. Ward’s solo acoustic performance of “Sad, Sad Song” at the Central Presbyterian Church. And you know what? I might just [...]

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I dig Anni Rossi. She’s got a lot of talent and what’s more, she’s got a lot of guts. Not only does she make some weirdo music that’s going to be a tough sell to anybody not already inclined to listen to weirdo music, but when she’s on stage, she performs most of it alone. [...]

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Poor Vivian Girls. I don’t think they know how good their voices sound. Before they got started, they had to check how much reverb was on their voice. “Can you hear what I’m saying?” one of them asked. When the crowd cheered affirmatively, they all three responded in near-unison: “More reverb.” Eventually we could barely [...]

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I was a little concerned for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart going into SXSW. They seems to have the perfect storm of buzz going — they look and act like Vampire Weekend, they sound like Belle and Sebastian and Ride pulled into the blogging age and they arrived on the scene just in [...]

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I’m hard pressed to think of a band that’s put on a more underappreciated show than Fol Chen’s show at the Force Field/Terrorbird party. It’s not that they were particularly life-changing or anything over the top, it’s just that I don’t think that many people at the show were that familiar with them. They clearly [...]

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