I asked Jim Shearer (perhaps best known as the long-time host of Subterranean) to share some of his experiences at this year’s South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas. These are the highlights from Saturday, March 17th, 2007:

Against Me! @ Town Lake
An excitable set from the boys of Against Me! They followed the old rock n’roll saying, “Less talk, more rock!,” as one song rolled right into the next, making good use of every second in their 40-minute set. Tom Gabel’s voice sounded great, screaming out the band’s politically charged anthems. One of the highlights of the set was drummer Warren Oakes smiling away while pummeling his drum kit. He looked like he was having the time of his life.

Mastodon @ Town Lake
The great thing about SXSW is one night you can go see Sondre Lerche, a couple nights later you can see Mastodon. People may disagree with me, but I classify their sound as post-grunge. Imagine if they came around in the mid to late 90’s instead of bands like Creed. There might still be alternative rock radio stations. Anyway, Mastodon displayed their many musical talents tonight, mixing true musicianship withbackbreaking power riffs. I actually preferred the “backbreaking” part of their set. Many of Mastodon’s
songs either began or ended with an extended jazz-like instrumental jam out. Sometimes those got too hard to sit through, when all I wanted to do was bang my head. That’s why I think their current single “Colony of Birchmen” is so good. It’s got just enough of both elements to make everyone happy. By the way, they did play it, and yes, it made me very happy.

Cursive @ Beauty Bar
Beauty Bar is not the greatest of venues at SXSW. It’s a tent in a small parking lot and for some reason, it smelled like puke all week long. Cursive got the privilege (if you’d call it that) of closing out the evening there tonight. Let me begin by saying this, some people come from the school of indie rock music, and some come from the school of Diamond David Lee Roth. I guess my education lays somewhere in between. Because I’m a fan of Cursive, I enjoyed their set tonight, however, the other half of my brain didn’t feel the performance was all that dynamic. I did enjoy their shot selection (this will probably be my last March Madness reference). Cursive opened with “Dorothy at Forty” and ended their one-song encore with the ever so brief “Some Red Handed Slight of Hand.” Short, but sweet.

Girl Talk @ Elysium
Taking a page out of Peter Brady’s playbook, halfway through the Cursive performance I ran over to Elysium (about a half a block away from Beauty Bar) to catch Girl Talk, the one-man, mash-up DJ from Pittsburgh, PA. Upon entering the packed venue, I looked on stage only to find 50-60 people dancing away. Amidst the flailing body parts I spotted a shirtless young man bending over his laptop. After Girl Talk triggered a new sample with a click of his mouse, he would blend in with his peeps on stage and dance right along with them. Girl Talk was also equipped with a microphone, just in case he needed to give the audience a little advice, “C’mon, you can do better than that!” Girl Talk WAS dynamic and Diamond Dave would have
definitely been proud! Equipped with just a laptop, a mic, a mouse, and bare-naked chest, Girl Talk whipped the crowd into his own personal disco. My only wish is that he would have let some of his more well-known instrumentals play out a bit more. During one part of the set Girl Talk teased in Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two,” only to never fully drop it into the mix. Another time he mixed in the Smashing Pumpkins “1979.” The song elicited a big pop from the crowd, but instead of riding it out, he mixed in another beat. I’m sure in a club set Girl Talk would have the presence of mind to let these songs breathe, but when you’re only given 45-50 minutes to play, you’ve got to leave it all out on the floor (sorry, THIS will be my final March Madness reference of SXSW 2007). NOTE: After catching a good portion of Girl Talk’s set I hustled back over to Beauty Bar to catch the end of Cursive’s performance.