In the Mix

Zachary Lazar's excellent novel of the swinging (on a noose) '60s, Sway, pulls together the stories of the Rolling Stones, the Manson Family, and experimental film maker Kenneth Anger. I reviewed it in Sunday's Inquirer. You can find that here.

The book convincingly brings Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones (as well as Marianne Faithfull and Anita Pallenberg) to imaginative life. And it uses Anger, the director who employed Manson killer Bobby Beausoleil in Lucifer Rising and a Jagger Moog synthesizer score in Invocation Of My Demon Brother, as the Mephistophelean glue that holds the Stones and the Manson Family together. (And speaking of Jones, here's a piece in the Times of London about how the Stones might have turned out if a Hell's Angels plan to assassinate Jagger, as revealed by a new BBC documentary, had succeeded, and he'd never on to star in an upcoming movie directed by Martin Scorsese.)

For the music blog Large Hearted Boy, Lazar put together an annotated mix CD soundtrack to Sway, that you can find here.
The disc can be assembled easily enough from iTunes, except for the songs by '60s psych-folk Syd Barrett-ish mystery man Jonathan Halper, which it took me some Internet digging to find.

Here's Lazar's chapter by chapter song list. For his reasons, go to Largehearted Boy.

1. “Revolution Blues,” Neil Young
2. “Out of Time,” Rolling Stones
3. “Two Headed Boy, parts 1 and 2,” Neutral Milk Hotel
4. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” Rolling Stones
5. “(You’re The) Devil in Disguise,” Elvis Presley
6. “No Expectations,” Rolling Stones
7. “Leaving My Old Life Behind/I Am a Hermit,” Jonathan Halper
8. “Sympathy For the Devil,” Rolling Stones
9. “Sway,” Rolling Stones
10. “You Got the Silver,” Rolling Stones
11. “Death Valley ’69,” Sonic Youth with Lydia Lunch
12. “Moonlight Mile,” Rolling Stones.

Yep, the guy on the left would be Christopher Moltisanti - or rather, Michael Imperioli, the actor, writer, and all around Renaissance man who played Tony Sopranos trigger-happy heroin-shooting nephew on The Sopranos. Like Russell Crowe. Bruce Willis, Scarlett Johansson, and many another thespian before him, Imperioli, it seems, has music in his soul. Tonight, the singer-guitarist brings his rock trio La Dolce Vita - said to take their cues from Richard Hell style New York punk, circa 1978 - to Silk City, along Death of Fashion and DJ Cold Cold Heart. A not-so-good quality YouTube video from the 2006 show in Lisbon posterized above is here.

Devonte Hynes went from being in band with one of the worst names ever - Test Icicles - to being a solo artist with one of the coolest sobriquets I can recall: Lightspeed Champion. Better still, after the shrieky Testies called it quits, the black Britisher split up with his girlfriend, got bummed out, and went to hang out with the Bright Eyes crew at Saddle Creek records in Omaha. The result is Falling Off Lavender Bridge, a pedal steel kissed breakup album packed with fetching tunes with such inviting titles as "Everyone I Know Is Listening To Crunk," "I Could Have Done This Myself," and "All To Shit." He plays downstairs at the World Cafe Live on Friday at noon, and upstairs at 8. Both shows are free.

Stephen Colbert is like an onion. New layers of his genius are forever being revealed. Here he is fighting for Lady Liberty's affection with John Legend on a duet of Michael Jackson's "The Girl Is Mine."

There's a whispering band of five skinny guys from Brooklyn in various stages of beardage playing to a courtyard full of creative types (and the people who blog about them), all with laminated badges dangling from their lanyards as they ready themselves to grab the last empanada from a tray of the passing tattooed waitress.

It must be SXSW.

And indeed, it is, though this was on a sun-baked Tuesday afternoon, just as the Interactive and Film versions of the 2008 South by Southwest Festival were winding to a close, and the Music portion was getting set to shift into high gear. (For a list of Film festival winners, including Mark Webber's shot-in-Philadelphia Expected Ills, which took home a special jury award for cinematography, go here.)

SXSW music kicks up in earnest today, with an ever more sprawling day-party scene and the increasingly anxiety inducing nighttime showcase festival that includes over 300 aspiring bands from all over the world playing at more than 70 venues across the Lone Star State capital sending conference goers into what-to-do-and-when?! panic attacks.

Tonight and every night through Saturday, as the overstuffed fest plays out, and headlines are generated by big name acts like R.E.M., who are launching their souped up new Accelerate with a show Wednesday at Stubb's that's going to be insanely difficult to get into, lots and lots of those bands striving for a higher profile in a crumbling music business will be from Philadelphia, as the city's thriving indie scene relocates itself for the music industry's annual beer and barbecue fueled spring break.

The poster above advertises a Friday night showcase at the Beauty Bar Backyard hosted by DJ King Britt that, if you can read the fine print, features a bunch of Philly acts, including hip-hop rock band Nouveau Riche and skateboarding-punk rock hero Chuck Treece.

Philly indie heavy hitters like the pictured above Man Man - pushing their excellent, upcoming Rabbit Habits - and Diplo are in town, as is Making Time DJ Dave Pianka, Bucks County rockers Eastern Conference Champions and minimalist duo Pattern Is Movement, and for old school blue eyed soul fans, Daryl Hall.

On Saturday at Emo's Annex along Austin's Sixth street strip, there's a lineup hosted by Schwenksville's Park the Van label with Delaware indie-popsters Spinto Band plus their Philly cohorts The Teeth and Dr. Dog, the latter which will also be playing a Thursday afternoon tribute to Lou Reed, at the Fader magazine fort, which also features Yo La Tengo, My Morning Jacket. Reed, who plays the Electric Factory April 19, is doing a keynote talk on Thursday morning with Philadelphia raised record producer Hal Willner.

By the way, the band from Brooklyn - one of the two places, along with Austin itself, that seems to have more representatives here than Philadelphia - was Ola Podrida, and they weren't bad at all, even if the sound man did confide to me that he wished the singer David Wingo would sing a little louder.

Wingo, incidentally, scores the music for director David Gordon Green's movies, including All The Real Girls, which starred Zoey Deschanel, the actress whose band with M. Ward, She & Him, is one of the more buzzed about of this year' SXSW. But that's another story.

Okay, enough with the scene setting. On to the music.

One of the bonuses of getting to Austin a day before the music festival got completely berserk was getting to see Van Morrison on Tuesday at the Austin Music Hall. It was a non-SXSW gig for Morrison - meaning real people had to pay real money for tickets, rather than flash a badge - who plays an official festival show tonight at La Zona Rosa. And for the Irishman who loves to play hard-to-get, the Texas dates are two of only four dates he's scheduled to do in the U.S. in support of Keep It Simple, which comes out April 1.

Like Keep It Simple, the show at the Music Hall was typical of the latter day Van the Man: rich, warm, soulful, with impeccable musicianship from a 10 piece band that featured pedal steel, violin, trombone, and the tootling saxophone and occasional mandolin playing from its 62 year old fedora wearing frontman - and a bit sleepy.

Morrison's music is so deeply relaxed these days as it digs into American vernacular forms, that it can be more than a little lulling. Even though the 90 minute show went off at 7 p.m. sharp, the dude next to me was nodding off during "I Don't Go To Nightclubs Anymore," the blues ballad credo of an aging music lover who sounds like he would rather stay home and listen to his Ray Charles records than come out and play. Morrison is still a master at commanding a groove, however, and his voice remains full of feeling even though he doesn't have the range he used to. He loves to rumble and growl, and placated a crowd eager for old hits with an extended "Moondance," and a perky, Dixieland flavored "Bright Side of The Road," for which he slipped into a Louis Armstrong imitation he also employed on a down and out "St. James Infirmary" I'd lov to hear again.

Michael Caine isn't at SXSW, but AddictiveTV were last night, sandwiched between acoustic guitar phenom Kaki King and a DJ set by chrome domed mixmaster Moby at Stubb's. (Speaking of sandwiches, I'm typing this between bites of my first bar-b-cue of the week, from Iron Works, hard by the convention center - not bad, could use a little more sauce - while flannel shirted singer songwriter David Dondero sings his acoustic ode to lunch in New Orleans, "Stay Away From My Po Boy, Boy.")

But I digress. I brought up Caine and AddictiveTV because the the DJ duo from London specialize in a mix of breakbeat techno, that's cut, spliced and synchronized perfectly with visuals from Caine's super cool flicks Get Carter and The Italian Job. It has to be seen to be experienced, and I haven't s yet found any web clips that capture it. But trust me, it's wildly entertaining stuff, whether the duo (who completely upstaged Moby) are pulling from Caine in his younger coolly murderous days, mashing up Elvis Presley with The Streets. The AddictiveTV MySpace page is here.

I'll get to the run-up to R.E.M. later. But let's just cut to the chase and get to the marquee attraction on the first full on night of music at SXSW. The outdoor show at Stubb's barbecue joint by the trio of Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bass player Mike Mills - augmented by Scott McCaughey and drummer Bill Rieflin - was a text book example of how older revered-as-mavericks artists use the dense-with-media confab to jump start their careers.

In R.E.M.'s case, Accelerate is due on April 1, and it comes at a time in the band's career where they're in danger of disappearing into complete irrelevancy, after the forgettable 2004 album Around the Sun. So the Stubb's show - which was broadcast by NPR and can be heard on NPR.org - was all about answering the question of whether these guys are still worth caring about, more than 25 years down the line.

After hearing the fivesome rip-it-up over a 90 minute, full length set, that was heavy on the punchy, instantly accessible new CD, I'd have to say the answer is yes. If you've heard the single "Supernatural Superserious," you get the idea of what Accelerate sounds like: tight, pedal to the medal stuff that is thankfully without the air of we-can-still-rock! desperation that marred 1994's Monster. "It sounds very R.E.M.-ish," the guy standing next to me happily said as we peered down on Stipe and company from the deck at Stubb's.

There is one solemn sounding slow song on Accelerate - "Until The Day Is Done," which Stipe dedicated to Heath Ledger, and which was part of a trio of political songs that included "Bad Day," which shaven headed singer prefaced with some pointed remarks. He thanked Austin for coming out for Barack Obama in a big way, and directed a shot at Hillary Clinton' red phone ad: "I'm sick to death of politicians telling me what to be afraid of, what to fear." He also took the opportunity to target the Bushes, while in Texas: "Houston" off the new album is a response to the remark made by Barbara Bush after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 that "things are working out very well" for New Orleans evacuees who lost their homes.

But Wednesday night's gig was about music, not politics. It was also a reminder of what a savvy crowd pleasing front man Stipe is, and a chance for the boys in the band to crisply bash out punky tunes like "I'm the DJ" ("Death is pretty final, I'm collecting vinyl, I'm going to be the DJ at the end of the world") and the T.S. Eliot hat-tip "Hollow Man" that emphasizes the bright Byrds and "Within You, Without You"-style Beatles aspects of the band's sound. Once again, they're open for business.

The band's Ninetynites.com is updated with video clips regularly, and their MySpace site is here.

Dr. Dog, that is. Lou Reed's keynote address at this year's SXSW took the form of a interview/conversation with Philadelphia-reared record producer Hal Willner. Reed - who's in town to promote Berlin, the Julian Schnabel directed movie of performances of his 1973 classic album filmed in Brooklyn in 2006, was asked what music he was listening to. He mentioned Japanese noise rock band Melt Banana, Toronto electro-dance band Holy F***, and "the one I really like is Dr. Dog." The West Philly band will take part in a Reed tribute at the Fader Fort here Thursday afternoon.

The often droll Willner-Reed dialog ran the gamut from what instrument Reed wishes he knew how to play (saxophone, because "I'm in love with Lee Allen") to the Velvet Underground's early music making verboten list ("No R & B licks, no blues guitar licks") for its self consciously urban sound, to the nefarious rumors that he once worked as an accountant. ("I was never an accountant. I was a typist. My mother said take typing in high school, so you have something to fall back on.")

Reed, who plays the Electric Factory on April 19, had his tips for bands starting out in the music business. Record labels are "always going to say: 'We want the publishing.' And you must always must say no. That’s where the money is."

And as an audiophile, he also held forth on the mp3-ization of the listening experience.
"With mp3s, there's a lot available, and it sounds bad. It's like David Lynch talking about the iPod. 'Here's a movie, the size of a postage stamp.' Here's your song, reduced to a pindrop. People who like good sound are going to be looked on as some sort of strange zoo animal soon. It's like the technology is taking us backwards. It's making it easier to make things worse"

Now that I'm set to head out on Thursday, here's my pre-R.E.M. Wednesday night report.

For starters, caught two excellent sets at the convention center. Ra Ra Riot, the six piece Syracuse, NY indie rock band whose multi-faceted attack includes the orchestral flourishes - with a cello and violin - plus front man Wes Miles' sax. More undeniably energetic than when they were at Johnny Brenda's last year.

They were followed immediately by Saul Williams (above), the spoken word poet whose The Rise And Fall Of Niggy Tardust, produced by Trent Reznor, beat Radiohead to the give-it-away fro free Internet pirce model last year. Williams flubbed his own lyrics more than once - "I equate f****ing up in public with honesty," he joked - and commanded with genre upending authority. "N***** is a horrible word," he said in reference to his album title. "But Niggy is cute. "What I'm trying to do is deal with all this hate, but through creativeity, not sweeping it under the rug."

Tried to start my evening then, with These New Puritans, the British electro-punk from Southend-on-Sea, England. Line at Antone's to see them and Lightspeed Champion was too long, however. Change of plan. (Here's the video for TNP's "Elvis," however. I'm hoping to get to them at a day party before the fest is out. )

Forced to improvise, moved from there to Bruce Robison, the Austin country singer who's married to Kelly Willis, who, unfortunately, was not hanging around. Moreso than his brother Charlie, Robison's songs are sweetly romantic and earnest. Hus cause is helped enormously when he's got a swinging honky tonk band with him, as he did at the cozy living room like Pangea, in a show that was sponroed by No Depression.net. (Last month, the alt-country magazine went out of business, a casualty of shirking record label ad budget, but they're still publishing online.

From there, on to see possibly the best named band of the festival. (More on them later.) And then on the way across to to R.E.M., heard Tiger! Tiger! calling from the rooftop of The Lite Club. A female fronted swift kicking cowboy booted rockabilly band from Atlanta. Never heard of them. Bears investigation.

Next, rushed over to Stubb's to get there in time for R.E.M., and stumbled upon Nicole Atkins playing in the inside stage. (She's coming to the World Cafe Live on March 25, and I interviewed her today; that story will be in the Inquirer in a week or so.) If you haven't checked out her girl group goes David Lynch lushly pointed pop smarts yet, do so.. That left me only with Dead Confederates, the openers for Stipe and company, who were underwhelming, a more sluggish, far less compelling Kings of Leon knockoff, who didn't earn their drum kit kicking over finale.

The nerve of some people. First it was Rocco DeLuca, who sang with Daniel Lanois last night in Austin - and sounded great, I'm told - and had the temerity to stay in my hotel last year in Austin. Then it was Dan DeLuca, the weary eyed actor who was the academic paired with the great Bunny Colvin in Season 4 of The Wire.

And now it's DeLuka, the four piece from Birmingham, England who played the Tap Room at Six on Wednesday. I kind of wanted to hate them, what for stealing my name spelling it with a K. But it turned out, I couldn't, partly because they've got good taste - their roadie told me they call themselves that "just because it's a cool sounding name." And mainly because they came off in a 40 minute set like a hard rocking, less arty, totally credible spin on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with a touch of glam in silver shoed effects pedal pushing guitarist and singer Elli Innocenti's - now there's a name - banshee wail. Not a travesty after all, even if they don't know how to spell.

With more than 1700 acts playing official showcases, SXSW is an unknowable beast, with everybody's experience different from everyone else's. Besides the Philadelphia bands, there are loads of Philadelphia music types down here seeing what they can see. Among them: Brandy Hartley, talent booker for Northern Liberties club Johnny Brenda's, who reported that Montreal indie rockers Land of Talk were great. And she was slayed by Oakland heavy metal band High on Fire, who played Emo's Annex on Thursday at 1. She took the above photo of singer-guitarist Matt Pike on her iPhone, and had this to say: "I loooove matt pike and his ripping guitar- great solos without being a wankfest. The drummer and bassist are so awesome too- it's
everything I love and nothing I don't- classic metal!" High On Fire play The Note in West Chester on April 24.

Here are more photos Hartley sent over from Mess With Texas 2, the giant free day party at Waterloo Park on Sunday. One is Atlas Sound, the solo project of Deerhunter leader Bradford James Cox. The other is a schedule from one of the Mess With Texas stages.

And here's Memphian Jay Reatard, rocking it at Emo's.

It's funny, it used to be that you came to SXSW in the springtime for a breath of fresh air. The weather's been sweet this week in Texas, I'm not complaining. But the smoking ban in Philadelphia and elsewhere has so transformed the live music experience - for the better, it must be said - that, if you're standing next to the wrong exhaler at Stubb's or the Mohawk Patio or Club DeVille or any of the other outdoor venues in Austin, that you now get something in the bargain that you're no longer used to at a rock show: smoke in your face.

That's what I just had on my breakfast biscuit. It's also the name of this bluegrass band, two thirds of which is from Denali National Park in Alaska, but all three of whom now live in Austin. I caught them on Thursday afternoon, playing outside Allens Boots on South Congress. They don't have a record deal or an official SXSW showcase, but the trio - that's Silas Lowe, Beth Chrisman and Weebee, left to right - sure do a sweet version of "Jolene." (And that's probably the only one I'm going to hear this weekend, because Dolly Parton had to cancel her gig tonight at the Austin Music Hall, du to back problems.)

What with the success of Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones - both of whom rose to prominence last year using Jones' horn happy band the Dap-Kings - there's no shortage of full-on soul revue outfits like Eli "Paperboy" Reed working a nuevo-retro groove at SXSW.

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears are an Austin blues variation on the young guns gone old-school idea. They're an inter-racial seven piece band - there are three other guys out of the photo, to the right of Lewis, who's on the right (sorry, I'm new to this picture taking thing) - who pump out a rough, ready and brassy Texas blues blend, in the tradition of T-Bone Walker, Hop Wilson and Johnny Copeland. I caught them in the Yard Dog Folk Art gallery backyard on Thursday, after similarly excellent sets by Okkervil River and Blitzen Trapper, whose arty roots rock was most impressive, and who play Johnny Brenda's March 26.

From Sixth Street, Thursday, 11 p.m. When I asked who these guys were, was told "they're from outer space."

Whenever I tell anyone they should check out this Cincinnati band, they roll their eyes, or snicker, or say something like: "That's the worst name I've ever heard." Not sure about that. Chuck Cleaver's previous, equally excellent outfit, The Ass Ponys, gave Wussy a run for its money.

But as they like to say in the (dwindling) music industry: It's about the music, man. And the way Cleaver and his fellow guitarist and songwriter Lisa Walker (above, with drummer Dawn Burman) twined their keening voices together, X-style, over a two-guitar churn at Bourbon Rocks on Thursday made all the band's self-deprecating remarks and their not-so-inviting name seem immaterial. "Thanks for choosing us over Yo La Tengo," bass player Mark Messerly said. "I'm not sure we would have made the same choice." Walker and Cleaver are both smart, funny, shrewd songwriters, and they brilliantly nick the riff from the Undertones "Teenage Kicks" in "Funeral Dress," a great, roiling burst of indie existentialism that joyous at the very notion of being alive, "knowing that it won't ever come again." The band is on tour, but the closest they get to Philadelphia is Baltimore March 24 and Asbury Park March 25.

Last year, Amy Winehouse was the the biggest thing going at SXSW, and before long, the rest of the world (and the Grammys) followed suit.

So naturally, there's a run on '60s British neo-soul pop chanteuses at this year's SXSW. And the smart money is on Duffy, the 23 year old Welsh singer born Aimee Anne Duffy who made her U.S. debut at a Friday afternoon showcase at the Parish on Sixth Street.

Let's not take the Winehouse comparisons too far, though Duffy has a throwback hairdo, too. (Bridget Bardot's.) But there are no tattoos on Duffy, whose debut album, Rockferry, is currently #1 in the UK, and whose single "Mercy" has been on the top of the British pop charts for five weeks. (At least nowhere you can see them.)

And on stage in a six song set at the Parish, she radiated composure and wholesome self-assurance rather than danger and self loathing. Her songs conjure up a happier version of the '60s: "Serious" rides a breezy groove that reminded me of Aretha singing Felix Cavaliere's "Groovin'." And without ever getting all that gritty, terrific tunes like "Syrup & Honey," "Warwick Avenue" and "Mercy" sashayed confidently down the avenue, reveling in their affection for Motown and Stax. Around this time next year, they'll likely to be looking for the next Duffy.

That's what Jens Lekman is, if that sobriquet is not an oxymoron. The wry singer-songwriter's packed show at the Mohawk Patio was part of a Swedish invasion, along with dance-pop queen Robyn and the Shout Out Louds. Beneath the stars on Thursday, Lekman - whose Night Falls Over Kortedala was one of last year's most beguiling releases - put on one of the one snazziest shows of the SXSW week. He spiced his lightly bouncing songs with a dollop of disco, and blended gentle irony with open hearted grace, ideal for an ironic generation on the hunt for real feeling.

"No matter what happens, people are going to still want to make music, and people are still going to want to hear music," Billy Bragg said in a Friday afternoon showcase at Club 115. SXSW's way-more-than-all-you-can-eat-smorgasbord makes that abundantly clear. The festival is like the physical manifestation of the digital media glut: 40,000 songs on your iPod, but you can't possibly make the time to listen to them all.

And the question haunting all the music being made at SXSW - and the one being discussed Friday at the Convention Center called "Mobility, Ubiquity and Monetizing Music" - was how the people making it are going to get paid, when there's so much of it available for free all over the Internet. The answer, everybody hopes - but no one knows for sure - will be some combination of touring revenues, corporate sponsorship, licensing fees, maybe a monthly music fee subscription model - none of of which is likely to make many bands rich. But they might, at least, get to have a career like Bragg, whose Mr. Love And Justice comes out April 22, and who's been able "to do what I always wanted to do, and love to do, for the last 25 years." That is, make music and earn a living doing it.

The Philadelphia-centric party hosted by DJ King Britt at the duel venues of the Beauty Bar and the Beauty Bar Backyard on Friday didn't draw big crowds - at least not early in the evening - but those that showed up to see skateboarder-guitarist-Renaissance man Chuck Treece were in for a treat. The leader of McRad fronted a killer band featuring drummer Gary Dread, and Roots guitarist and multi-instrumentalist LaMont Caldwell, who also played bass and that saxophone positioned at Treece's feet. The set moved from crushing hard rock to dub to hip hop and R & B, when Yassa, the New York MC and singer in the corner left stepped to the mic to rap and sing Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine." The whole crew are regulars at Britt's Back 2 Basics Monday nights at Silk City on Spring Garden street.

Began and ended Friday night at Stubb's, which started off with The Ting Tings, the terrific rhythm happy British duo of Katie White and Jules DeMartino whose debut album is due in May, and ended with N.E.R.D., the Pharrell Williams-fronted hip-hop rock band whose well into-the-wee-hours closing set featured two drummers and lots of power chords, and drove the barbecue joint digital camera wielding crowd into a frenzy. Williams gave voice to the crowd exhortation for the Facebook generation: "Put the cameras down, and make some noise!"

(In between, ran into WXPN music maven Bruce Warren at Dan Bejar's Destroyer - who followed a winsome and winning set by Matt Ward and his movie star collaborator, Zoey Deschanel, as She & Him at the Parish. Warren put the Ting Tings and N.E.R.D. as two of his top three at SXSW so far, with the third being The Heavy, the Brit R & B band who are the beneficiaries of a growing buzz.

And speaking of Philly music people purposefully moving up and down Sixth Street, World Cafe Live booker Karl Mullen was the guy I kept bumping into wherever I went at SWSW. His top five: Duffy, Los Campesinos, Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong, Carbon/Silicon, and Daniel Lanois, who he caled "sublime.")

But the point of this post is Santogold, the nom de electro-pop of Philadelphia born and bred and now Brooklyn based Santi White, who's pictured above. With Philadelphia DJ-producer Diplo mixing live beats and a pair of sunglasses-wearing dancers on either side, White more than justified the hype gathering since last fall for her Santogold debut, which is now due in May on Downtown records. White's a crafty songwriter whose tunes have a schoolyard skip-a-rope catchiness, and a skilled reggae toaster and singer, and she commanded the stage at Stubb's with confident swagger, moving to Diplo's percolating, never predictable grooves. I don't know that I saw anybody enjoy themselves as much on stage all week, and I pretty much felt the same way.

Riz MC, Muslim rapper from London, at Latitude 30 on Saturday night. From "Post-9/11 Blues": "Shave your beard if you're brown, and you best salute the crown."

Dan the Box, promo man for North Jersey's Eyeball Records, on Saturday night. "What's your name?" "Dan." "Dan what?" "Dan the box."

Philadelphia band The Teeth, at the Digital Freedom party in the backyard of the Cream Vintage clothing store on Saturday afternoon. They played again at the Park the Van showcase at Emo's Annex later that night, along with Dr. Dog, The Spinto Band and Pepi Ginsberg.

Brooklyn rapper Ohmega Watts, and his partner Braille, at the Club DeVille on Saturday night.

A hot dog, on a roll.

The exclamation point is theirs. Don't hold it against them. They're teenagers, from Cardiff, Wales, wearing short pants. Four boys and three girls. A violin, of course - doesn't every indie-pop band have a violin? And along with a lot of other hyper-active pop songs at the Parish on Saturday, Los Campesinos! singer Gareth sang at least one great one in "You! Me! Dancing!": "If there's one thing I could never confess, it's that I can't dance a single step." They play Johnny Brenda's on May 15.

The exclamation point is mine. Darondo Pulliam more than earns it. No amount of punctuation could do justice to the show the 61 year old soul man and his partner in funk Nino Moschella put on at Club DeVille on Saturday night.

Moschella is a 29 year old Bay Area funkateer of the first order, a bushy haired keyboard player and guitarist with a pretty impressive falsetto of his own who fronts a righteously tight seven piece band. Darondo is something else entirely, a processed pompadoured old-school legend who, after recording three singles in the early 1970s that soul connoisseurs dare to compare to Al Green, disappeared altogether.

In 2005, British DJ Gilles Peterson included Darondo's "Didn't I," on his compiliation, Gilles Peterson Digs America: Brownswood U.S.A. Darondo, it turned out, was alive and well, and in 2006 a nine song compilation, Let My People Go, of his salacious '70s recordings was issued on the Ubiquity label.

And now, here he was at SXSW, being greeted as a conquering hero come back to life, singing "Didn't I" and "Let My People Go" in a fiercely emotive voice, intermingling the spiritual and sexual, and delivering seduction instructions that involved cherries and whip cream. Darondo took the stage like a man desperate to make up for all he had missed, and the funk got harder, and more irresistible. "It's like Christmas!" the woman next to me said, and indeed it was, though considering the resurrection theme, Easter might have been the more apt holiday. The best thing I saw all week, without a doubt.

The Roots are back in action. The Philadelphia hip-hop crew have a new album, Rising Down, due on April 29. The album, which is being touted as the band's most political to date, takes its name from William T. Vollman's 7 volume treatise on violence, Rising Up and Rising Down. It seems that ?uestlove has been doing some reading. Here are two videos, for "Get Busy" and "75 Bars (Black's Reconstruction)."