SXSW Week! Before I go figure out which bands I'm going to see this week, I thought I'd post another show from last year - the Dodos playing a short yet rocking set at Mohawk's outdoor stage at the Hot Freaks! party.

Check out Hot Freaks! line up for 2009 here - I'm personally looking forward to Bishop Allen...

Live MP3 MP3s:
Intro
Fools
No More Patient
It's That Time Again
Jodi
Red And Purple
Outro

Labels: austin, indie, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

Welcome to your weekend (or weekday of your choice if you read this later!). Its been a great week around here, we got to see The Faint & Shy Child on Tuesday (more on that tomorrow) and Cary Piece & Patrick Ryan Clark last night (at a Border's opening no less), and we've got Bitter:Sweet coming up tomorrow.

And for those of you in the Dallas, DFW or North Texas area, don't forget that its KRLD Restaurant Week. A chance for you to take out your loved ones for a lovely 3 or 4 course dinner at some of the best restaurants in the city - and 20% of what you pay goes to charity.

But, enough of the present - here's a lovely little show from Casey Dienel, aka White Hinterland at the Hot Freaks! set at The Mohawk during the SXSW festival from earlier this year.

White Hinterland brought the most creatively-titled and diversely themed songs to this years Hot Freaks show. White Hinterlands fairly difficult to categorrize, but Casey's vocals invoke Regina Spektor and sit atop a bed of electronic piano, bass and drums to create preeminently jazz-flavored ditties. Good stuff - be sure to check out her latest record, Phylactery Factory to hear studio perfect versions of most of these tracks, on if you're in continental Europe, you can see her on tour this October.

Photo Credit: Gorilla vs Bear

Live MP3 MP3s:
Intro
Lindberghs + Metal Birds
The Destruction of the Art Deco House
Dreaming of the Plum Trees
Intro to...
Calliope
Hung on a Thin Thread
Napoleon At Waterloo
Vessels
Outro

Tour Dates:
10/02/08 Dudingen, Switzerland Bad Bonn
10/04/08 Geislingen, Germany Rätschenmühle
10/05/08 Zurich, Switzerland El Lokal
10/06/08 Frankfurt, Germany Mousonturm - Studio
10/07/08 Wien, Austria Szene
10/08/08 Munich, Germany Rote Sonne
10/12/08Berlin, Germany Cafe Zapata
10/13/08 Hamburg, Germnay Knust
10/14/08 Amsterdam, Netherlands Paradiso
10/26/08 Brussels, Belgium Ancienne Belgique

Labels: austin, indie, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw, tour dates

Happy Labor Day weekend! Shut down the PC and go out and play.

Quick post before I do just that - De Novo Dahl just released a new EP - Shout! (buy it here), and announced a new fall tour.

Here's the dates - and their extremely fun show from Hot Freaks! during SXSW.

Speaking of Hot Freaks! - they just announced another 2 day event (read about it all over the web, including here and here) that coincides with another large festival in Austin in the middle of September. Can't wait to see it!

Tour Dates:
De Novo Dahl Tour Dates
Sep 1 Grimey’s New & Preloved Music Nashville, Tennessee
Sep 1 Mercy Lounge Nashville, Tennessee
Sep 2 Download Festival - Charter One Chicago, Illinois
Sep 14 Red Rocks Ampitheatre Morrison, Colorado
Sep 18 Commodore Ballroom Vancouver, British Columbia
Sep 20 Sugar Victoria, British Columbia
Sep 24 Wonder Ballroom Portland, Oregon
Sep 26 Soma San Diego, California
Oct 1 Gothic Theatre Englewood, Colorado
Oct 3 Fine Line Music Cafe Minneapolis, Minnesota
Oct 4 Vic Theatre Chicago, Illinois
Oct 5 St. Andrew’s Hall Detroit, Michigan
Oct 7 Club Soda Montreal, Quebec
Oct 8 Kool Haus Toronto, Ontario
Oct 10 Higher Ground Burlington, Vermont
Oct 11 Paradise Rock Club Boston, Massachusetts
Oct 14 The Theatre of Living Arts Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Oct 15 Rams Head Live! Baltimore, Maryland
Oct 17 CenterStage Atlanta, Georgia
Oct 18 The Social Orlando, Florida
Oct 19 Culture Room Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Oct 20 State Theatre St. Petersburg, Florida
Oct 22 Meridian Houston, Texas
Oct 23 Emo’s Austin, Texas
Oct 24 Granada Theatre Dallas, Texas

Live MP3 MP3s:
Soundcheck
Sky Is Falling
Shout
Sexy Come Lately
Subject Of The Kill
Dance Like David
Wishful Thinking
Make Some Sense
Be Your Man

Labels: austin, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw, tour dates

Asobi Seksu's newest record, Citrus dropped last week in the UK - "an evocative mix of dreamy shoegaze and zesty Japanese electro pop."

I think that says it all. I couldn't understand a word lead singer, Yuki Chikudate sang during their set at Hot Freaks! during SXSW this year, but there was no denying the powerful instrumentation that accompanied her cutesy vocal melodies.

Check out more Asobi Seksu photos from the Hot Freaks! party at Staciaann's Flickr account.

Live MP3 MP3s:
New Years
Strawberries
Pink Cloud Tracing Paper
Strings
Nefi & Girly
Walk On The Moon
Thursday
I'm Happy But You Don't Like Me
Moses

Labels: austin, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

Fantastic photo from Dansays' Flickr account - here.

Very quick post tonight - here's a lovely little set from Sea Wolf. I actually wasn't in the room while this was being recorded. I'd left one of my little taping devices plugged into the board at the Mohawk during Hot Freaks! while I wandered around Austin taping other bands (Bonde do Role, etc).

Imagine my suprise a week later when I listed to the sets I'd missed at the Mohawk - Sea Wolf, De Novo Dahl and Briertone - and realized that all three were amazing.

Enjoy!

Live MP3s:
Soundcheck
World We Live In
You're A Wolf
I Made A Resolution
Ses Monuments
Black Dirt

Labels: austin, concerts, indie, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

I've wanted to see Menomena for years.

I remember the first time I heard their music - it was on October 22nd, 2004. Rilo Kiley was touring and had just wandered through Texas. I had seen them the night before in Austin, and had wandered on to Dallas to see their in-store performance at Good Records. I had arrived a few hours before the show and was checking out the store (it was also my first time in Good Records). Whoever was working the store had the Menomena record on (this was the self released version of their first record, I Am the Fun Blame Monster!).

I was completely blown away.

The musical cynic in me always wonders if I'm ever going to hear something "new" again, rather than a reworking of familiar elements. I remember thinking that Menomena was a ray of experimental sunlight amidst the familiarity of cloudy days.

Enjoy.

Live MP3s:
Intro
The Pelican
Weird
Twenty Cell Revolt
Mucle'n Flo
Wet and Rusting
Evil Bee
Rotten Hell
Outro

Labels: austin, concerts, indie, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

So occasionally you have to make hard, hard choices.

Hard choices like - should I watch Polyphonic Spree or Margot & the Nuclear So So's? Since I had seen Margot just 3 days before at the North By Northwest show in Dallas, I opted to go see the Spree. The choice was made easier by the knowledge that my trusty microtrack was capturing the whole show.

And I'm glad it was - Margot not only played the best tracks off of Dust Of Retreat, including perennial favorite Skeleton Key (one of the most played track on my iPod in 2006) but they also featured 3 brand new (and excellent) songs - Don't You Cry, Broadripple is Burning and Tall As Cliffs. If anyone knows the real title of "Don't You Cry", please let me know. In the absence of official documentation I had to pick something.

Oh, and if you'd like to read a post on Margot at the Mohawk from a blogger who was actually there - check out Chromewaves.

Live MP3s:
Intro
Don't You Cry
Tall As Cliffs
Broadripple Is Burning
On A Freezing Chicago Street
Skeleton Key
Vampires In Blue Dresses
Intro to...
Quiet As A Mouse
Intro to...
Barfight Revolution, Power Violence
Outro

Labels: austin, concerts, indie, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

Darting around town, we were constantly racing againt the clock to make it to the next must-see show. One particularly close call involved Bishop Allen - we managed to make it from the Bonde do Role show at the Victory Cafe, back over to the Hot Freaks! show at the Mohawk, with about 4 minutes to spare. There was a reason our legs felt like they were going to fall off at the end of each day. Back to the story, the good news was that band was beginning to sound check as we walked back, and we sighed in subdued relief.

Putting on a great show, Bishop Allen featured an expanded line up of six members, up from the four piece I saw when they come through Houston a few years ago (listen to that show here). They'd also clearly grown as artists with a subtantialy more musically varied set list. Castanets was definitely the highlight of the show for me.

Our friend Matt at You Ain't No Picasso gave a great recap of this show last week - check it out here.

More great photos of Bishop Allen at the Mohawk can be found at Staciaann's Flickr account - here.

In other Bishop Allen SXSW news - check out My Old Kentucky Blog with an interview with Justin Rice, lead singer of Bishop Allen.

Live MP3s:
Intro
The Monitor
Busted Heart
The Same Fire
Click Click Click
Castanets
Little Black Ache
Chinatown Bus
Flight 180
Butterfly Nets

Labels: audience mp3s, austin, concerts, indie, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw

So Michael Nau and the rest of the Page France kids definitely put on my favorite show at SXSW. (I've said it before, I'll say it at least 10 more times before I'm done. Go Hot Freaks!) There were other SXSW shows that totally blew my mind - either from a performance aspect (Creature, Polyphonic Spree) or musically (Ana Laan, Daniella Cotton) - but Page France is just one of my favorite bands - and nothing beats singing along for 30 minutes to fantastic performances of some of the most oft-played tracks on your Zune/iPod/Zen Micro. So here we are!

Great, great set - lovely mix of tracks from Hello, Dear Wind, Pear/Sister Pinecone and their upcoming disc - ...and the Family Telephone, dropping on May 8th. The mix included some of my favorite tracks - Weatherman, Section 3 (never expected to hear that one!) and Everybody Knows. Other highlights include a killer version of Antartica (love the horns) and Beehive State, a Randy Newman cover (thanks Matt from You Ain't No Picasso, for that lovely tidbit of info!) Last but not least, they played the brand new track - Hat and Rabbit. Good stuff.

If you'd like to hear various tracks from the new record - check out Hype Machine, all sorts of new tracks floating around out there.

Live MP3s:
Intro
Junkyard
Beehive State (Randy Newman)
Antartica
Elephant
Hat and Rabbit
Everybody Knows
Weatherman, Section Three
Chariot
Outro

Labels: austin, concerts, indie, live mp3s, mohawk, soundboard mp3s, sxsw