According to her SXSW bio, Jerry Williams is an unsigned, self funded 21 year old singer/songwriter from Portsmouth. Curse those millenials for being so damn self sufficient and driven. I didn’t even have my first job until I was 21 and this girl here is playing showcases at SXSW already. Her tracks, from what I have heard of her, are delightful pop fun and she must have some good friends in film schools because her videos are all of pretty good quality for a self funded artist.
Check her out! She is playing at an unspecified time in Austin during SXSW.
Today SXSW released its list of the next batch of performers for this year’s edition. It’s the biggest announcement yet with plenty of noteworthy names on the list, one of the most intriguing of them being Max Richter. The British composer, who among many other accomplishments has written several excellent film and television scores, (shout out to The Leftovers, one of the best things to ever be on TV) will be presenting the North American debut of his 8 hour composition Sleep. A more manageable 10 minute excerpt is presented below.
I don’t really have a clear notion of how such a piece would even work at SouthBy, where set lengths of 20-40 minutes are the norm, but I am intrigued. Maybe it will be more of an installation piece where people would be free to come and go and those that are up for it and have the stamina could stay for the duration, but who knows? Regardless of what form it takes though, this promises to be one of the more unique and interesting bits of programming for this year’s festival.
Latitude 30 at SXSW always uncovers a few gems and this year was no exception.
With a name like Sundara Kharma, I thought maybe the band would be a Kula Shaker tribute band for some reason, but as per usual, I was completely wrong.
Sundara Kharma are a four piece rock band from Reading and from what I heard, they have a knack for writing big anthemic rock songs that may or may not take them to the next levels, depending on how the dominoes fall. The band certainly has the look of a soon to be big band, with lead singer Oscar “Lulu” Pollock dressing up in a flamboyant white suit and donning enough eyeliner to make Nicky Wire jealous.
With their ridiculously catchy chorus, tracks like “She Said” and “Flame” would have fit right in in the mid 90’s and I was surprised to see people at Latitude 30 singing along. I’m like, who are these people, and why are they so up to date on music? Don’t they have day jobs?
I came away super impressed and it wouldn’t surprise me if these guys became big. Check them out if they roll into town.
Girlpool – Girlpool always put on a fun show and one of the most memorable elements of a Girlpool show is their funny and endearing stage banter, which on this occasion included musings on “the wave,” the band’s drummer then initiating the crowd into doing the wave, sunburns, the Lana Del Rey show the night before (“i’m gonna look at the picture I took with her every day for like, a year.”) and even some food recommendations. For those who might have been hungry during their show at Cheer Up Charlie’s, Cleo Tucker recommended grabbing something from Taco Baby. After her bandmate Harmony Tividad wondered where the food truck got it’s name from (“Is it like a little baby taco?”), Cleo added that “taco baby” sounded like it could be a Lana Del Rey lyric. Stage banter aside, hearing the band’s old tunes with a full band for the first time really fleshed them out quite a bit. And of course the new stuff sounds quite good too.
Dream Wife – One of the most exciting discoveries of SXSW almost passed me by, but luckily I was able to catch an early afternoon set by Dream Wife on the last day of the festival and was blown away by the fiery, energetic punk sounds emanating from these three badass ladies and their drummer (who I’m sure is also pretty badass, even though he did look a bit like My So Called Life’s Brian Krakow).
Idles – By the end of SXSW, I’m usually a little tired of your standard guitar rock, which is why I generally try to seek out anything but that. Luckily, Idles are not quite your standard guitar rock – with a violent, confrontational air to their performance, the band ended the festival off for me on a definite high note.
Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra – With perhaps the most fun and energetic show of the entire week, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra definitely brought the party and often seemed to be having as much fun as the audience themselves. The band’s been around since the ’80s and in that time, they’ve clearly become masters of working a crowd. “You want more? WE want more!”
