1 The Cotton Jones Basket Ride
SXSW08: Kimya Dawson wants to know if her crowd is OK
March 12, 2008, in Austin
By Erik Adams
Published: March 13th, 2008 | 1:50pm
My first day at SXSW wasn't a whole day, and I'm already exhausted. But it's a good exhausted, made better by the fact that I didn't sleep in because I went to the Lou Reed keynote. We'll talk more about that next time — let's get into Wednesday night instead.
After a surprisingly quick check-in, my first stop was Emo's IV Lounge to see Karl Blau kick off the K Records showcase. Blau had on oddly endearing presence, a shyness balanced with total command over his guitar and looping pedal. The songwriter-with-pedal genre has become incredibly tiresome, but Blau gave it new life, particularly during the Prince-in-thrift-store pants Bret Lunsford cover that closed the set.
I'm trying to use SXSW in the way it's intended — to find emerging talent in a gigantic sea of artists — but I'm also using it as a way to catch up with some great under-the-radar acts I left behind when I moved to Austin from Michigan. Thus the one SXSW performance by Ann Arbor band Canada was a priority. It had all the emotion, group sing-alongs, and cellos I was waiting for — just because it's overly familiar doesn't mean that I can't still enjoy it. Canada's set was part of the Michigan-centric showcase for Quack! Media and Quite Scientific Records. The one non-Mitten-State band on the bill was Qui Sci's Cotton Jones Basket Ride, the swampy country-rock project from Page France's Michael Nau. Soulful and raw with some sweet male-female harmonies, you'd never venture a guess at Nau's past output of glockenspiel-infused campfire ditties.
Returning to the K show, I expected to find Saturday Looks Good to Me's Fred Thomas playing all by his lonesome, but due to schedule shuffling, Kimya Dawson was onstage instead. The room was packed, undoubtedly due to Juno’s success, and the enthusiasm of the crowd seemed to take Dawson by surprise. "Is everybody OK?" she asked between songs, in a voice you can imagine her using during her days working in her daycare center. In spite of songs about alcoholism and death, things got a little too precious, so I split to see if there was any room for badge-holders at the R.E.M. show happening down the street at Stubb's (There wasn't).
Disappointed in my inability to see R.E.M., I wandered through the slowly growing downtown insanity until I spotted the words "Elf Power" by the door of Spiro's. I ducked in and heard the sweet sounds of something decidedly Neutral Milk Hotel-esque. The band was Nana Grizol, and I managed to catch the finale of their set, which as far as I could tell was as gloriously rickety as a flying Victrola powered by youthful, punk energy. Thanks for being my first great SXSW find, Nana Grizol!
After the thrill of discovery, Elf Power was a bit of a let down. I don't know what it is, but I just can't get into their super-peppy power (ha ha!) pop. Mostly, I was transfixed by the astounding melodic bass skills of Derek Almstead, who might have some of the lightest fingers in town this week. One day (OK, night) down, four to go. Time to jump back into the insanity!
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CHECK BACK OFTEN
This is the first installment of Venus Zine’s 2008 SXSW coverage. Visit venuszine.com daily through March 16 for twice-daily reports.
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