SXSW 2010: Vivian Girls

I've been meaning to see this band for a few years. They always come to SXSW and play several shows; so many shows that I never seem to act with any urgency when I see them listed because I feel I can always catch them another time.

Anyway, they were sharing a bill with someone we had run over to see and I realized my time had finally come. Yes, I just bought another beer and stuck around.



Vivian Girls are a staple of the Brooklyn scene, and their sound is all about gritty three-chord-rock with twee lyrics. There's enough growl and grace, though, to keep things interesting. They have some surprisingly Stereolab-like harmonies, and I really like how the singer sings out of the side of her mouth (not visible in this particular video).

I thought they were pretty good but will need to reinvent themselves when the "girls" become "women".

It's Cold In Outer-Space: Stereolab

For a long time I was stuck.

I didn't shop at record stores, department stores or mega-stores. The internet wasn't the shopping/swapping/discovery paradise that we now know it to be.

I pretty much bought everything, including music, at thrift stores. I have to say it was really great, and I stumbled my way into a good musical education. But my ears were as dusty as Farberware and rusty as a dinette chair (to paraphrase Jonathan Richman).

Then, back in 1996, on the way out to San Diego, I stopped off in Chicago to see my little brother. He was finishing up his BS at the University of Chicago, and was living in a big old house with several roommates. They held a party the night I was there, and someone popped in a CD towards the end of the evening.

Emperor Tomato Ketchup, by Stereolab.

It blew my mind, like the first time you see HDTV. Or taste a really good Cabernet. Or go from dial-up to cable.

Cold and warm; distant and intimate; borrowing from the past but creating the future.

Velvets. Astrud. Nico. Kraftwerk. I could hear it, but it was all in crazy technicolor. (OK, I know you can't actually hear colors.)

Anyway, I copied that thing onto a C-90 the next morning and listened to it over and over, driving through the desert on the way to the coast.

"The Noise of Carpet":



And from Mars Audiac Quintet (1994), "Wow and Flutter":