Mojo - The Music Magazine

Dateline: Friday March 14
State of mind: Alternative

“We want to ask you a question,” begins Tony James. “Where has the counter culture gone?”

The Carbon/Silicon guitarist is sitting backstage at the Austin Convention Centre with his partner in crime Mick Jones. In two minutes time the three of us are due to conduct a live MOJO Interview in front of an audience of industry types, eager to hear the former Clash/BAD generalissimo and Generation X/Sigue Sigue Sputnik provocateur being quizzed. James, however, has other ideas.

“You know what?” he smiles mischievously. “That’s what we should discuss during the interview.” Hence, MOJO’s careful research and 30 career-spanning questions go out the window and the dearth of alternative culture does indeed become our topic of conversation. That, and a million tangential anecdotes that appear to shake free from Mick Jones’s brain (topics range from the whereabouts of the lost Alamo gold to Jonesy’s 1977 attempt to create a Rat Pack-styled party pad in his grandmother’s flat when she was on holiday. “The only problem was that she lived on the eighteenth floor of a tower block and I had to tidy everything up the night before she came back!”).

For Carbon Silicon, this visit marks their first trip to SXSW and it has, they believe, proved fruitful. In many ways, for a band whose DIY ethic is so strong, it is the key to them reaching their potential American audience.

“We got off the plane on Wedneday night and then the next morning we were doing interviews at 10,” sighs Tony. “It hasn’t stopped since then.”

Of course, it is this media treadmill that fuels the part-conference/part-festival appeal of SXSW.

“It is pretty unique,” nods James. “It’s like if someone got Glastonbury and dumped it in the middle of the East End. It’s surreal.”

The mention of Glastonbury sparks further discussion of the corporate invasion of music. Gone are the days of Glasto’s free-spirited approach, replaced it seems by ticket registration schemes, ID cards and powerful sponsors.

“Maybe the counter culture’s still there but it’s got a Dell logo on it,” quips Jones, spying the computer firm’s logo on the SXSW backdrop behind us. “Actually, I’d quite like one of their computers.”

Our interview over, Jones and James disappear to play a show at 5.30pm in the afternoon. Mindful of our counter culture discussion, yours truly decides that the evening will be spent investigating just one showcase this evening: Sub Pop’s two-stage jamboree at a venue named Bourbon Rocks. Here we encounter Sub Pop label honcho Jonathan Poneman, a man with a more encouraging take on the state of the underground.

“Maybe the counter culture’s still there but it’s got a Dell logo on it. Actually, I’d quite like one of their computers.” Mick Jones, Carbon/Silicon

“It’s all still there,” says the spearhead of the ’90s grunge explosion. “You just need to look for it.”

Poneman himself is one of the last great bastions of alternative America, and it’s telling that while major labels struggle, his roster boasts an embarrassment of riches. Tonight’s show illustrates the point with a line-up that ranges from Blitzen Trapper (the indie Grateful Dead?) through to Pissed Jeans (the new Tad?) and on to duo No Age (the anarcho-Suicide?).

Kicking off the five-hour marathon of bands are New Zealand’s The Ruby Suns. The band’s Sea Lion album is a truly invigorating debut but live the trio are nothing short of mindblowing, deliver a multi-instrumental explosion of sound and colour that matches post-rave electronica with the melodic swoops of Brian Wilson.

Indeed, tonight Sub Pop’s showcase is defined by US indie rock’s newfound love of late ‘60s and ‘70s-styled melodies. Washington’s Grand Archives delivers a set which openly tips its hat to early Bee Gees and whose current single is the multi-layered Sleep Driving. Kelley Stoltz, too, has mastered the great American song – although, criminally, tonight his performance clashes with post-Bauhaus duo The Handsome Firs, who draw a huge crowd to the outside stage. The Firs themselves finish their set and rush to see Stoltz, watching and singing along at the front of the stage.

If melodic indie rock is very much in vogue, then its new masters are Portland’s Fleet Foxes. Of tonight’s line-up, they are the band your correspondent was looking forward to most, and yet nothing can quite prepare you for the sheer beauty of the band’s harmonic sound.

During their 30-minute set there are moments of sweeping grandeur, near-medieval melodies and almost puritanical folk narratives, their intensity exemplified by the gargantuan, harmony-soaked White Winter Hymnal.

“I was quite hostile to the idea of the SXSW thing,” admits FF frontman Robin Pecknold from the stage. “But I’m glad we came.”

And so they should be, with tonight’s set suggesting that the band’s debut (out on Sub Pop in the US and Bella Union in the UK) should confirm the arrival of America’s next great band. In the meantime, their MySpace site should give you an idea of what to expect (www.myspace.com/fleetfoxes).

After a night in the company of what Robin Pecknold describes “the whole family of Sub Pop geniuses”, the answer to Tony James question is simple: counter culture lives and currently resides on a label that’s still based in Seattle and that has far outgrown its roots.

Check out Piper Ferguson's exclusive Day 3 gallery HERE!