Full review coming soon…

See Laura Lea’s full gallery of SXSW 2011 here.

Photos by Laura Lea Nalle, all rights reserved.

There are, naturally, tons of Austin artists worth seeing, and if you’re in from out of town, please take the time to see some of the awesome talent we enjoy in Austin year round!  Among our favorites are Guy Forsyth, Carolyn Wonderland, Gary Clark Jr., Sahara Smith, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, T Bird & the Breaks, Suzanna Choffel, Joe Ely, Eliza Gikyson, Lincoln Durham, Ray Bonneville, and Gurf Morlix.  Our friends over at Music Fog hold it down all weekend at Threadgills showcasing some of the best local talent, so stop by, grab some food and enjoy the show.  And of course there is an abundance of awesomeness coming in from out of town.  Some of the ones we look forward to seeing the most are Fitz & the Tantrums, Ivan & Aloysha, Raphael Saadiq, The Head & The Heart, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Lupe Fiasco, Charles Bradley & the Menahan Street Band, and Yoko Ono.  Alex Ebert, front man of the eleven piece ensemble Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, is performing under a new solo project called Alexander.  We still remember with vivid fondness seeing Ed Sharpe for the first time at 4am on the last night of SXSW two years ago.  No one outside of LA knew who they were, and clearly their flavor of musical magic proved to be infectious beyond belief.  They have blown up like wild fire, and we look forward to seeing what they do in various other arrangements and incarnations.  There are, of course, hundreds of bands we haven’t mentioned, and we look forward to randomly happening upon their showcases and being blown away.  In fact, our favorite SXSW moments are the ones that spontaneously and serendipitously happen in the midst of all the craziness.  Have fun, stay in touch, and we’ll see you around town!

Photos: Alex Ebert of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Gary Clark Jr., Raphael Saadiq

Written and photographed by Laura Lea Nalle, all right reserved.

See Laura Lea’s galleries of SXSW 2010 highlights and SXSW 2009 highlights.

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See Laura Lea’s full galleries of The Head & The Heart and The Walkmen.

See Laura Lea’s full gallery of Mumford & Sons photos here.

See Laura Lea’s full gallery of Art Outside photos here.

Video coming soon.

We kicked things off Thursday night at Spoon’s sold out preshow at the Mohawk. Aside from the really awful opening band, it was a great show.  Spoon is selling out shows everywhere they go, and whenever they come back to their hometown, they are always greeted with a very enthusiastic crowd.  Britt Daniel started their set with a solo acoustic arrangement of The Mystery Zone and ended two hours later with a five song encore.

The young and talented Sahara Smith kicked things off down at Zilker park on Friday morning.  She’s been touring extensively and getting a lot of attention following the release of her debut album Myth of the Heart.  There are many good things yet to come from this rising star and her band (Jake Owen on guitar, Will Sexton on bass and guitar, Mike Meadows on percussion).  Later in the day, local favorites Carolyn Wonderland and Band of Heathens heated things up with their unique, soulful blues.

I tried to get close enough to really experience The Black Keys’ set but they had attracted a sea of an audience and all I could see was the jumbo tron.  The crowd was so big I couldn’t get close enough to really get inside the music, one of the hazards of such a large festival.  No worries though, I was set up to photograph their aftershow on Saturday.  So I wandered over to see Ryan Bingham and caught the tail end of Angus and Julia Stone who I’ll keep an eye out for in the future.  I wish I had seen more of their set.  Ryan Bingham has had a trememdous year.  Hot off the tails of his Grammy, he’s selling out shows all over the country.  He’s a huge talent and I hope to see him again soon.

On Saturday we caught Broken Bells, the awesome collaboration between James Mercer of the Shins and Danger Mouse.  We saw them this year during SXSW when they performed their entire new album live during their showcase at Stubb’s.  This time around, they performed tons of unreleased material along with a few tracks from their debut release.  I hear a second album is in the works, and we can’t wait to see what else this amazing collaboration cooks up.  I also caught parts of sets by Gogol Bordello, Beats Antique, Monsters of Folk, Mayer Hawthorne, and Kinky.  All great bands with Mayer Hawthorne and Kinky being obvious standouts.

Saturday was a night of much anticipated aftershows all over town, most of which were sold out within minutes of tickets going on sale.  The Black Keys aftershow at Stubb’s was completely off the hook!  Foals opened the show.  They’re a solid electro pop band, not really my favorite flavor of things, but a good band nonetheless.  The Black Keys duo consisting of Dan Auerbach on vocals and guitar and Patrick Carney on drums are musicians’ musicians.  Testament to that fact, amidst the totally packed house, I spotted Britt Daniel of Spoon, Danger Mouse, Brian Aubert of Silversun Pickups and a slew of other who’s who from around town. The Black Keys played tunes off their newest and hugely successful full length album Brothers and then brought a bassist and keyboardist on stage to debut some new material.  It was a seriously awesome show, one of the best I’ve seen, and it was followed by another remarkable sweaty, funky madhouse inside with Trombrone Shorty & Orleans Avenue.

Sunday was a day for being reborn over at the gospel tent.  Between The Relatives and Trombone Shorty, I think the crowd was baptized in booty-shaking, soul shining sweat and born again.

Another Sunday highlight was Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.  Despite frontman Alex Ebert losing his voice, the eleven piece ensemble brought the mojo they’re known for.  Ed Sharpe’s following has grown in tremendous proportions in a very short time.  I’m already finding myself ‘remembering when’ I saw them at 4am in a funky little makeshift SXSW venue on the final night of the festival a year and a half ago.  They were still months away from releasing their debut album and no one knew who they were.  Everyone wondered why there were so many of them crammed on this tiny little stage.  It seemed to take an hour just to get them set up and sound checked.  Edward Sharpe and the who?  But upon one listen, you can’t help but be hooked.  Their music challenges the unflappable glazed over hipster stare and offers up an unrepentantly blissful, feelgood interaction and experience reminiscent of some time that is not clearly past or future.  It feels holy.  And judging by the sea of people in their audience at ACL, it’s an experience people are thirsty for.  When we first saw them two SXSWs ago, we described them as a “transcendental-spaghetti-western-hippie-gospel-rock” ensemble, and as we’ve seen them evolve for the last little while, the label seems more fitting than ever, so we’re sticking with it.

Other big highlights of the day include (there were so many!) Devandra Banhardt, Flaming Lips who we reviewed just before SXSW this year (and thank you Wayne for not spewing confetti all over our park!), local funky soul favorites T Bird & the Breaks, and of course the one and only Richard Thompson.

In addition to perpetuating Austin’s reputation as the Live Music Captial of the world, event producer C3 is making progress on their green initiatives for ACL.  This year they had free water refill stations which saved somewhere around 200,000 water bottles.  The run off from the refill stations was captured and diverted to misting fans which were quite delightful to stand in front of during the heat of the day.  The Rock & Recycle program gave trash bags to festival goers to collect recyclables, and once the bag was full, they could turn it in for a t-shirt.  There were also recycling bins next to every trash can.  And the efforts to maintain the grass on Austin’s Great Lawn are evident to all of us who live here and enjoy Zilker Park throughout the year.  While there is still more that can be done, we really enjoy seeing the progress that is being made and look forward to even more innovative developments for future festivals.  For that and all the great music yet to come, we’re already looking forward to next year.

Written and photographed by Laura Lea Nalle, all rights reserved.

See more of Laura Lea’s live music photos here.

See Laura Lea’s full gallery of Michael Franti & Spearhead photos here.

Have we told you lately how much AustinLiveMusic.Org loves Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings?  Probably not since we saw them at SXSW back in March, so it’s worth reiterating.  We LOVE them!  And not just SJDK, but everything coming out of Daptone Records. In case you missed it the first time around, here’s what we had to say about SJDK when we saw them during SXSW:

“Each [Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings] performance is a unique experience to behold.  Sharon Jones is a spectacular vocalist and performer, her dance moves evoke the spirit of James Brown, and the Dap Kings bring the funky soulshine like few others.  Led by Bosco Mann, this group is unbelievably tight, they can – and often do – turn on a dime while leaving plenty of space for Jones to do her thing.  They dance the fine line between sophisticated complexity and simple elegance, and they do it with loads of style.

Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings are the most well known group off the Daptone Records label which is co-owned by Dap King bandleader Bosco Mann and tenor saxophonist Neal Sugarman.  Every single album released on Daptone is well worth your time – and if you are a vinyl enthusiast and funky soul lover as much as I am, I highly recommend getting every Daptone LP and 45 you can get your hands on!!  Seriously!  I am particularly fond of the releases by Sugarman Three, Poets of Rhythm, and Naomi Shelton.  I also have to give a shout out to Dap Kings guitarist Binky Griptite who produces the Ghetto Funk Power Hour radio show which is included in some of the Sharon Jones deluxe cd packages.   He is smart, hilarious, and brings the deep funk back with impeccable class and style.”

We love what Gabriel Roth (aka Bosco Mann) has to say about soul in the liner notes of Naturally, “Where have we gone wrong when something so simple and inherent in all of us has become so illusive and difficult to communicate?  Somewhere between banging on logs and the invention of M.I.D.I. technology we have made a terrible wrong turn. We must have ridden right past our stop. We should have stepped down off the train at that moment when rhythm and harmony and technology all culminated to a single Otis Redding whine. That moment of the truest, most genuine expression of what it means to be human.”  Thank you, Bosco, for communicating that soul so clearly in your music.

It’s testament to SJDK’s excellence that we ran into some of Austin’s own finest musicians at the show.  Speaking of, we caught up with the phenomenal JJ Johnson (John Mayer, Doyle Bramhall II) and found out that in addition to touring with Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi, he’s recording a new album with them.  We are looking forward to hearing more from JJ and all his various projects, he’s not just an awesome drummer, he’s a f’in force of nature!  When he’s not on the road, you can catch him playing around town with some of our favorites like Gary Clark Jr. and Ephraim Owens.

Opening for SJDK was an afro-beat funky soul ensemble out of LA called Orgone.  Keep an eye out for them, they’re worth checking out next time they come through your town, with or without Sharon Jones.

See Laura Lea’s full gallery of Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings photos here.

Written and photographed by Laura Lea Nalle, all rights reserved.

Citizen Cope played two nights to packed houses at Stubb’s this past weekend.

See more of Laura Lea’s photos from the show here.

Matisyahu recorded Live at Stubb’s Volumn 2 this past weekend to a sold out crowd.
See Laura Lea’s full gallery of Matisyahu photos here.

Photos by Laura Lea Nalle, all rights reserved.