SXSW: Can't Fader Me
| By Kriston Capps - Mar 15th, 2008 at 5:45 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog | Live Blogging the SXSW Music Festival |
I felt my heart break at SXSW last night. Lykke Li—whose first single, "Little Bit," frankly inspired this writer's trip to Austin this year—canceled her show. Granted, it was her third show of the evening, and she is only 21. But all was forgiven the next day, when a short set by Li at the Fader Fort party electrified the crowd.
Last month, the Swedish ingenue released Youth Novels, a full-length record on her own LL Recordings label. She's recently signed to Delores but has yet to find a true foothold on U.S. shores. No question—it's only a matter of time. The artist's single will be filling up both rock clubs and discotheques, following on the footsteps of fellow Swedish rockers Peter, Bjorn, and John.
Their hit song, "Young Folks," was an inevitable smash that whistled its way along radio waves and through dancehalls. Li's "Little Bit" is similarly irresistible: catchy, down-tempo dance, even a bit sultry. And Li's live performance was sultry to match. Despite all the comparisons Li is bound to draw with Lily Allen, another out-of-the-box sensation, Li's live performance is nothing like Allen's. Allen, live, seems flippant and bored; she smacks gum and delivers meandering asides. Li's livelier, and, well, with her furrowed brow, projects sexy even in candid performances. Live, Li is looking to make the show a party.
The chances of that happening at the Fader Fort party were slim. The outdoor tent wasn't exactly set up to support a disco, but free Stella Artois and half-price "happy hour" Levi's jeans are the sort of giveaways that smooth out rough edges. The intolerable DJ sets in between, however, are the sort that can put a stop to a dancefloor faster than a skip in the vinyl. I'm not sure which of the DJs on the schedule were to blame, and I didn't want to find out. (It's as if I were shot by a firing squadron: I don't want to know who fired the actual bullet that did it.) It's truly too bad that the Cool Kids didn't hop in for a set or four—especially after they sold short their performance last night at Whisky Bar, where fans waited through hours of bad hip-hop in order to see them merely spin a twenty-minute set.
David Banner, however, was an especially worthy followup to Li. Minutes into his set, he hushed a fairly roaring crowd to silence. He said that rock music and rap music faced the same problem: cookie-cutter bullshit. He explained that SXSW was an antidote to that, a place where he could plays the songs that Universal Records doesn't want him to play—the songs he likes from his own album. Barely pausing to shift gears he explained that he'd gone through a depression and that, yes, black people get depressed, too. (They just can't afford psychiatrists, says Banner.) He praised Fender for hyping his album with a cover article at a lowpoint in his career. But gratitude is easy come, easy go: Banner teasingly slammed Fader in the next breath for not including his cover in its 50 greatest covers list. After that, the things he had to say and sing were mostly punctuated by shouts of "David Banner!" and the occasional fountain of bubbling Stella springing forth from the moshing crowd.
Last month, the Swedish ingenue released Youth Novels, a full-length record on her own LL Recordings label. She's recently signed to Delores but has yet to find a true foothold on U.S. shores. No question—it's only a matter of time. The artist's single will be filling up both rock clubs and discotheques, following on the footsteps of fellow Swedish rockers Peter, Bjorn, and John.
Their hit song, "Young Folks," was an inevitable smash that whistled its way along radio waves and through dancehalls. Li's "Little Bit" is similarly irresistible: catchy, down-tempo dance, even a bit sultry. And Li's live performance was sultry to match. Despite all the comparisons Li is bound to draw with Lily Allen, another out-of-the-box sensation, Li's live performance is nothing like Allen's. Allen, live, seems flippant and bored; she smacks gum and delivers meandering asides. Li's livelier, and, well, with her furrowed brow, projects sexy even in candid performances. Live, Li is looking to make the show a party.
The chances of that happening at the Fader Fort party were slim. The outdoor tent wasn't exactly set up to support a disco, but free Stella Artois and half-price "happy hour" Levi's jeans are the sort of giveaways that smooth out rough edges. The intolerable DJ sets in between, however, are the sort that can put a stop to a dancefloor faster than a skip in the vinyl. I'm not sure which of the DJs on the schedule were to blame, and I didn't want to find out. (It's as if I were shot by a firing squadron: I don't want to know who fired the actual bullet that did it.) It's truly too bad that the Cool Kids didn't hop in for a set or four—especially after they sold short their performance last night at Whisky Bar, where fans waited through hours of bad hip-hop in order to see them merely spin a twenty-minute set.
David Banner, however, was an especially worthy followup to Li. Minutes into his set, he hushed a fairly roaring crowd to silence. He said that rock music and rap music faced the same problem: cookie-cutter bullshit. He explained that SXSW was an antidote to that, a place where he could plays the songs that Universal Records doesn't want him to play—the songs he likes from his own album. Barely pausing to shift gears he explained that he'd gone through a depression and that, yes, black people get depressed, too. (They just can't afford psychiatrists, says Banner.) He praised Fender for hyping his album with a cover article at a lowpoint in his career. But gratitude is easy come, easy go: Banner teasingly slammed Fader in the next breath for not including his cover in its 50 greatest covers list. After that, the things he had to say and sing were mostly punctuated by shouts of "David Banner!" and the occasional fountain of bubbling Stella springing forth from the moshing crowd.
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