Y! Music Goes Up The Creek At SXSW

For more pics of Y! Music at the Cedar Creek HQ in Austin, click here.

Hey, Lyndsey Parker here, Y! Music’s managing editrix. I just flew back from South By Southwest, and boy is my liver tired. Ninety-six Shiner Bock-soaked, barbeque-gorged, band-filled hours deep in the heart of Austin, Texas, at the industry schmusicfest lovingly nicknamed “SXSW” by us folk in the biz–and all on less sleep than the parents of a newborn typically enjoy–sure can take their toll on a gal. SXSW is definitely not for the faint of heart, eardrum, or any other internal organ you can name.

But it wasn’t all grease-sodden, expense-reported Stubb’s meals and swag-laden Vice afterparties for me this year–oh no, I was there to work. That is, if you call watching SXSW’s buzziest buzz bands perform on command in a private studio for me and a select few of my Yahoo! comrades “work.” It’s nice work if you can get it, I must say. See, Yahoo! rented out Austin’s own picturesque Cedar Creek Studio (more on that in a bit) to shoot performances and interviews with SXSW artists, which means while other conventioneers were sweating it out in around-the-block lines to see, say, Editors or Nine Black Alps or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah play their regular sardine-packed showcases, I was chillin’ like Bob Dylan over at Cedar Creek, with those bands doing their thing maybe about 10 feet away from me. Yeah, real tough work. I may have missed a few hotly tipped parties as a result, but I’m sure none of you ditch-diggers out there are feeling too sorry for me right now.

The Cedar Creek Recording Studio was a real haven away from the all the hand-kissing and baby-shaking going on in the SXSW hub of downtown Austin. This was real Texas, guys. Standing alone in a Blair Witch field at the end of a tumbleweed-strewn dirt road, this unmarked building bore a startling resemblance to Steve Martin’s house in The Jerk. No, not the dream mansion with the S-shaped hedges and clamshell bathtub and stuffed camel that Steve’s character bought with his Opti-Grab fortune…I’m referring to the Deep South farmhouse he grew up in. As we pulled up warily to the studio–after following the charmingly hand-scrawled, purple-inked “This way to Y! Music” signs tacked to trees alongside the road–I swear I half-expected to see Navin Johnson himself dancing arhythmically on the wooden porch with Bernadette Peters and Mama from What’s Happenin’. But instead, that porch would soon be trod upon by many pairs of Chelsea-boot heels and rubber Converse soles belonging to the coolest acts at SXSW–including, along with the aforementioned bands, Elefant, Head Automatica, Lady Sovereign, The Lashes, the Magic Numbers, Persephone’s Bees, The Stills, The Subways, and We Are Scientists. That is, if they could find the frickin’ place…

Well, find it they did, although a few bands probably initially feared that they were being led into the woods under dubious pretenses to be fed into a Fargo-style woodchipper (Clap Your Hands, who self-release all their music, even joked that this was some major-label kidnapping ploy devised to force them to sign a record contract). Once the bands arrived, however, it was good vibes–and good music, of course–all around. Heck, it sure beat sitting through the “New Business Models For Record Labels” or “Music Publishing In The New Economy” panels over at the convention center.

Lots went on at Cedar Creek, too much to mention here, although all the stuff we caught on camera is hotter than Austin asphalt and will start rolling out in Y! Music’s special SXSW coverage starting April 10. In the meantime, here are my top 10 Cedar Creek highlights, in ascending order of overall radness:

10) One crew member–who shall remain nameless–mooning over Angelina Moysov, the doe-eyed, Jeanie Shrimpton-banged Russian chanteuse who fronts the supersuave mod-lounge band Persephone’s Bees. Don’t worry, I think it’s a harmless crush…but Angelina might want to get a restraining order, just in case.

9) Seeing the guys from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah frolic in their perhaps not-so-natural habitat, playing basketball in the gravel driveway in front of the studio. There are a lot of Clap guys, so between them and fellow amateur hoop-shooters the Lashes (see numbers 2 and 4), they could probably start their own basketball league.

The guys from Head Automatica kicking it in the makeshift green room, discussing their respective punk 7-inch collections with increasing fervor until it got to the point where they were sing-shouting their favorite old-school punk tunes at the top of their lungs. Hope you can’t hear them in the background during Persephone’s Bees’ performance, which was being shot at the time–because these guys were practically loud enough to render the studio’s soundproofing insulation as useless as tissue-paper. You gotta admire that kind of enthusiasm, though.

7) Elefant’s reigning Casanova, Diego Garcia–he of the impossibly high knife-edge cheekbones and Latin bedroom eyes–checking out his reflection in one of the studio’s glass panels about a jillion times, and futzing with his hair about every 30 seconds. Hey, don’t hate him because he’s beautiful.

6) Speaking of hair, the mustache belonging to We Are Scientists‘ Chris Cain was a marvel to behold and a SXSW highlight in and of itself. It is perhaps the most impressively lush set of whiskers in rock. Seriously, that thing could make John Oates weep with envy. This guy needs to get a mustache-wax endorsement deal. Any takers?

5) The burgeoning feud between two unnamed bands who appeared at our studio in succession; as one band left in their van, they were heard not-so-subtly muttering that the other band just arriving was a bunch of, shall we say, feminine hygiene products. That come in bags. You figure it out. I’m not going to tell you who said this, or to whom, because I’m a lady–and besides, I don’t want to start some sorta Killers-vs.-Bravery controversy here. But just look at the list of 12 bands above and try to guess who the culprits are. It’ll be fun! And it could lead to all sorts of fake-feud rumors, too. Awesome!

4) Seattle powerpop sextet The Lashes doing the seemingly impossible–improving on the perfection that is “Sometimes The Sun”–by adding a little impromptu snippet of Dem Franchize Boyz’ “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It” in the middle of their in-studio performance. Seriously! Wait until you see it.

3) Accidentally referring to Head Automatica as “Glassjaw”–the name of the lead singer’s other band–right in front of them (and on camera, yet). Luckily they had a sense of humor about my flub (which came in handy when they teased me mercilessly), but I still felt like a total loser. I blame the lack of sleep–and the lack of my drug of choice, Red Bull, at Cedar Creek–for this rare lapse in professionalism. Head Automatica, if you’re reading this…sorry, fellas.

2) Those impeccably pouffy-haired and lavishly accessorized Lashes enjoying their downtime by flying dollar-store kites in the field outside Cedar Creek. That’s right, kites! How cool is that? You know, I wish more bands practiced flying kites. The rock world would be a much happier place. There would be a lot fewer rock feuds, for sure.

1) Lady Sovereign’s studio visit was far and away the high point of SXSW for me. I pretty much fell in love with her (in a totally professional, platonic way, of course), all 5-foot-1 of her, from the top of her cornrowed head to the tips of her Adidas shell-toes. Whether this adorably bratty Brit-hopper was playing basketball with a crew member twice her height (a college team player, no less), attacking our junk-food-loaded catering table with all the gusto of a starving raccoon, practicing soccer kicks with a discarded rock, or best yet, coaxing a crowd of curious neighborhood children into the field for a game of stickball, she certainly knew how to keep herself and everyone around her entertained. And it’s a pretty good sign for her career that in the middle of nowhere, she managed to make a new set of young fans within 15 minutes. Too bad their mother wouldn’t let these new S-O-V fans stay for the taping: When Sov, as she is known, starting spitting her liberally profanity-laced rhymes, the kiddos were quickly ushered out of the studio and back to their stickball game. Classic. Lady Sovereign truly rules.

OK, so that’s all the SXSW news that’s fit to blog. Hope this made it feel like you were actually there–only without the pesky hangover.

Stay gold,
Lyndsey Parker
Yahoo! Music