I thought the fits of coughing on Sunday were because I smoked my way through a pack of cigarettes over the four nights of the SXSW music festival. I can usually make a pack last a month. I thought the coughing would subside by the next day, but it didn’t.
In fact, I didn’t sleep a wink on Sunday night, and come Monday morning, I was running a fever of 100.5. I’ve missed this entire week of work because I got knocked out by the flu.
The only thing I’ve managed to do all week is watch reruns of Law and Order and Star Trek Voyager on cable. I’ve actually managed to stay away from the computer, which is kind of refreshing. Still, it would be nice to feel like something other than total crap.
Fish and visitors stink after three days. I’ve had this flu for five. It can go away now, please.
As a year in music, 1996 was ambiguous. Alternative rock was starting to run its course with grunge evolving into nü metal. Labels were scrambling to find the next cash cow to replace alt-rock’s diminishing returns, and many started to look to underground dance music.
I can’t say I paid much attention. 1996 was my senior year in college, and I was up past my eyeballs with college newspaper stuff. Most of the titles in my collection from that year were follow-up albums by artists to whom I had already been listening. I didn’t really have time to discover anything new.
According to This Day in Music, the following songs were No. 1 on the day I was born:
UK: "Amazing Grace" by The Pipes and Drums and Military Band of The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards
US: "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack
Australia: "Without You" by Nilsson
I just went to Last.fm to stream "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face". I remember hearing the song when I was a kid, and as undeveloped as my musical senses were, I liked it. Hearing it again as an adult, I have to appreciate the minimal arrangement and what seems to be a very modal melody. Flack delivers a spine-tingling performance. I approve.
As for the UK and Australia, I don’t know what they were thinking.
Because Japanese showcases at SXSW draw capacity crowds, anyone who actually wants to see a particular performer pretty much has to commit to sitting through all the bands that come before it. I was glad, then, that toddle was given the 11 p.m. slot — that meant I could leave after their showcase.
Of course, that also meant watching three other performers before then. When I first started attending Japan Nite, I was open to anything. These days, I have a sense of what gets programmed for Japan Nite, and I can tell which performers will interest me. Or not.
Rinka Maki started the evening with a cabaret-style showcase featuring classic songs, some with new lyrics in Japanese. I even heard snatches of Hawaiian music.
Rinka’s recordings are big affairs, with full orchestras and big bands. Her showcase, however, pared that band to a standard piano trio, and her choice of material tended not to be so boisterous.
I’m pretty sure, however, most of the straight guys in the audience weren’t paying much attention to the music. I bet some of them were busting a nut. Rinka’s impossibly blue outfit paid homage to the sailor-suit uniform of Japanese school girl’s while revealing a number of important … assets. Hold up your pinky finger — that’s her figure.
This year marks the tenth Japan Nite I’ve attended. My first was 1999, and that evening introduced me to MISSILE GIRL SCOOT, eX-Girl, NUMBER GIRL and Nicotine.
I saw something in my RSS reader stating Utada Hikaru’s First Love album will turn 10 soon. It had me wondering what other albums by Japanese artists are reaching their their 10th anniversary.
When SXSW comes to downtown Austin, it’s a rumbling of clashing rhythms and a cacophony of dueling bands. Charles Ives might have dug it.
Despite the festival’s best efforts to provide sanctuaries away from all the posturing noise, a reminder of its rock ‘n ‘roll foundation is never far away. A number of shamisen performers at Japan Traditional Nite in 2006 had to compete with the neighboring bands pounding away on a patio. Even at the Steve Reich showcase, quieter moments of a piece allowed the noise from outside to bleed through the windows.
And so it was with Wing’s debut at SXSW. Her showcase was housed in a room above a bar neighboring Maggie Mae’s, where another band made a ruckus. Maggie Mae’s actually hosted two other bands at the same time, so Wing’s performance was assaulted by all sides.
How could she compete with that?
Toward the end of her showcase, the strain of trying to hear over the bleed through the floors and windows was starting to show, and the audience itself, engaged in the first half of her set, were tuning out as well.
I was wondering how some of my SXSW-related entries ended up on a blog-scraping site called X7G. It looks like it’s grabbing the content from Technorati. And it doesn’t seem to get it right either. So I’m going to tag this entry SXSW to see if that’s really the case.
If you pinged content to Technorati, chances are X7G has re-purposed it for its own sleazy ends. Fucking leech.
I have to confess the English Beat is a glaring hole in my music knowledge. I guess it’s one of those bands I should have grown up listening to but didn’t. I only recognize English Beat because of General Public, whose Top 40 hit "Tenderness" actually managed to reach the airwaves of Honolulu in the mid-’80s. I only vaguely remember the connection between the Beat and Fine Young Cannibals.
Despite that name recognition, I wasn’t on planning to go to the English Beat showcase at SXSW. But Thursday night ended up being a nomadic night, and I ended up there because a friend of mine didn’t realize they were playing and wanted to go.
"Mirror in the Bathroom" was the only thing I recognized because of its use in the soundtrack for Grosse Pointe Blank. And yes, Dave Wakeling, who’s essentially using the name, did bust out "Tenderness" toward the end of the set.
But nope — "Save It for Later" and "Twist and Crawl" didn’t register with me at all. It was like the Bob Mould showcase from last year. I recognized only two songs he played, even though his career spans a good few decades and a number of projects.
Wakeling was the only member of note in the line-up. As Wikipedia explains, Wakeling goes by the English Beat in the US, while Ranking Roger goes by the Beat in the UK. My friend dug the show, but all I could do was just shrug.
It was still a good show, but with my lack of history with the band, it didn’t resonate nearly as much as with the rest of the audience.
On more than one occassion, I was standing no fewer than 5 feet from Steve Reich, and in two instances, he was right in front of me. It was the opportunity for a fanboy moment, but I’m not exactly a fanboy. I’ve been an admirer of his work for years and only recently — i.e. with the purchase of the Phases boxed set — did I become a fan.
No, I was content to say nothing. What could I say that he probably hadn’t heard all evening? I was content to revel in one of those SXSW moments where the most unlikely confluence of events just so happens in my general vicinity.
Like sitting next to Tabuchi Hisako before Japan Nite 2000, at a time when I wasn’t really a fan of NUMBER GIRL. Or watching M join the stage with eX-Girl for a rousing rendition of "Pop Muzik". Or seeing ZZTop’s Billy Gibson wandering the crowd of Puffy Ami Yumi’s one and only SXSW performance in 2000. Or almost ringing up Elijah Wood’s purchases at Waterloo Records.
Standing next to Steve Reich at a concert of his own works? This week is prone to such situations.
SXSW alumni Tsu*Shi*Ma*Mi*Re releases a new album titled Tsu*Shi*Ma*Mi*Re to Rock to Beer on May 21, so says Bounce.com. It’s been 10 months since the release of the band’s previous album, Brain Shortcake, and for the new album, the band worked with engineer Saitou Masataka (ART-SCHOOL, MASS OF THE FERMENTING DREGS) and producer Kataoka Taishi (Yaida Hitomi). A domestic tour to support the album is currently in the works.