sxsw recap, decemberists, calexico

Well, I’m back. I think I had more fun at this year’s SXSW than at the last two. That probably derives from the fact that I know everybody by now and don’t have to play the awkward introductions game any more. It was wonderful seeing everyone again, even if it means being photographed far too often (evidence: me with my coat on inside out, me after running through a downpour.)
I’d say something like “more great SXSW-related posts to come!” — but I’ve said that the last two years and didn’t really follow through. Not sure this year’ll be any different.
Anyway, I was so tired on the drive back to Dallas Tuesday afternoon that I pulled over for fear I would fall asleep at the wheel. (SXSW is a full-body workout, let me tell you. My liver got a good workout, at least.) I ended up napping for 40 minutes in a Shell station parking lot north of Waco. I probably would have gone longer had a nice trucker not knocked on my window and asked if I needed any help.
But would I let mere exhaustion stop me from enjoying the rock and roll music? No, my friends, no! Tuesday night meant schlepping up to Denton to see The Decemberists.
One thing I miss about the demise of the CD Mix of the Month Club is my lost ability to proselytize for my favorite bands. And I’m not sure there’s a band I’ve listened to more in the last six months than the Decemberists. If I’d remembered to name a crabwalk.com Album of the Year for 2003, Castaways and Cutouts was the likely winner. (Ignore, for a moment, the fact that it was originally released in 2002.) The followup, Her Majesty The Decemberists, wouldn’t be far behind. As I put it back in September: “Highly recommended, particularly if you’ve ever found yourself thinking, ‘Wow, if only Belle & Sebastian had a nautical/Dickensian thing going on and had Eef Barzelay singing lead!'”
Anyway, they were terrific live — a bit more earnest then I’d suspected, but instrumentally strong and quite the rockers at times. They played their new EP The Tain in its entirety (that would be their 18-minute, five-movement interpretation of 8th-century Celtic mythology), and drummer Rachel Blumberg proved to be an able spot vocalist. (One other note: lead singer Colin Meloy, while a talented singer, songwriter, and bandleader, is perhaps the world’s most silly-looking drummer. He switched back to the kit for one Tain movement. Dude looked like a rusted toy soldier come to awkward life.)
Plus the openers — Scots Clearlake and Oregon jokester Tom Heinl — were both great. An excellent show, all around.
Decemberists trivia: Their song “Billy Liar” is based on the 1963 Julie Christie film of the same name.
Then last night came the followup, long-time favorites Calexico. I missed the first opener (Earlimart) but did get there in time for The Sleepy Jackson. They were awful — big, dumb rock unredeemed by the slightest charm. Not to mention ear-piercingly LOUD — I could feel individual hairs being shaken loose from my scalp by the sheer force of the sound.
Luckily, Calexico came through in top form. They played less of their quiet stuff than normal, but the louder, more mariachi-influenced songs were terrificly buoyant. John Contreras (of Calexico fellow travellers Mariachi Luz de Luna) guested on a few songs, and lead singer Joey Burns was his usual bon vivant self. (His raw animal magnetism was such that one of my companions — a woman whose taste in men runs almost exclusively to Latinos — was moved to say: “Wow, even I’d date him.” Of course, at night’s end, she ended up flirting not with Joey but instead with Calexico’s one Hispanic member, Jacob Valenzuela.) Truly one of the finer shows I’ve seen in a long while.