Mojo - The Music Magazine

Dateline: Saturday, March 15
State of mind: Barbecued

“I want to move to Austin. Not to Austin itself but here. I want to live at the Mean-Eyed Cat!” gushes an over-excited attendee at MOJO’s Bootleg BBQ on Saturday afternoon. A truly unique venue, the rustic tin-and-timber charm of the Mean-Eyed Cat can have that effect on people.

And yet it’s a miracle that the bar – located on West 5th Street and named after the Johnny Cash song – is still standing at all. Like so many parts of Austin, the property around it is under redevelopment, and only a preservation order on a 200-year-old oak tree abutting the property has saved the Cat from the city’s ongoing gentrification.

Its continued existence has allowed MOJO and our friends at the British Underground organisation to return to this unique piece of Texan bar-lore to host the Bootleg BBQ – a 12-‘til-6pm excuse to drink beer and eat ribs while introducing eight new, MOJO-approved acts to the invited throng. The notion, as is the case with most SXSW events, is that this informal, sun-kissed gathering will spread the word about the acts in question. Indeed, examples from last year’s BBQ include the likes Foals, Bat For Lashes and Fionn Regan – all of whom have gone on to greater fame and fortune in the last 12 months.

Today’s roll call of talent sees Manchester’s Liz Green first on and, despite a modicum of nerves, she strolls into the audience and begins with an arresting piece of acapella blues hollering, forcing the audience to give her a clapped beat against which to sing. Repairing to the stage, original material such as single Bad Medicine confirm her reputation as a latter day Karen Dalton, although Green juxtaposes self-deprecating wit with unnerving confessional songwriting. “I love Johnny Cash,” she says acknowledging her surroundings, “But I wish Dolly Parton was here.” Parton, who was due to play the previous night, is not in Texas due to recurring back problems, but Green performs a faltering version of Dolly’s Joshua in tribute.

If Green is a performer whose lyricism suggests a battle against inner demons, The Felice Brothers are an act clearly fighting the sins of man. Hailing from upstate New York, the Brothers dedicate every other track to the noble art of the barbecue (a prime giggle-worthy example: Run Chicken Run) but there is something darker that drives their wry vignettes of modern American life, while their dishevelled musical inflections recall Townes Van Zant and The Pogues in equally measure. With their new self-titled album out on Loose in the UK and on Conor Oberst’s Team Love in the US, The Felice Brothers are being talked about as one of this year’s breakthrough acts. Certainly today they make new friends with gregarious ease.

“Yours truly is still shocked that America appears to be taking to an outfit so quintessentially British as Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip.”

A switch of mood emerges next as Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip take to the stage. Despite having spent the best part of the previous week doing phone interviews with US radio stations keen to explore and explain the appeal of the post-hip-hop beats and wordplay of the Stanford-Le-Hope duo, yours truly is still shocked that America appears to be taking to an outfit so quintessentially British. But their last two singles – today’s opener Beat That My Heart Skips and closer Thou Shall Always Kill – have garnered significant radio play and the pair now appear locked in a US bidding war. Quite what the Americans make of Tommy C – Scroobius’s touching, James Blunt-bashing ode to the over-use of the word “beautiful” which somehow takes in the onstage death of iconic Brit comic Tommy Cooper – is anybody’s guess. Than again, the pair are armed with the knack for writing insidious melodies that lodge in the brain, coupled with Pip (pictured)’s mordant and knowing lyricism. Today, the pair prove conclusively that theirs is intelligence delivered as pure entertainment. And entertaining they most certainly are.

By contrast, indie-folk types Johnny Flynn And The Sussex Wit get off to a shaky start – a world away from the confident show which your correspondent witnessed at The Mohawk two days ago. Then again, sound problems appear to be overcome mid-set as Flynn and his cohorts find their stride. By the end of the set, they have plucked victory from the jaws of defeat and earned considerable plaudits from the audience.

Having regained his composure and won over the crowd, Flynn and his mob strip down their gear and shuffle into the crowd to watch fellow folk adventurer Laura Marling. Sporting a new haircut and an old Spice Girls T-shirt (ironic, we presume), Marling looks even younger than her 18 years. Her songs, however, seem older than time itself, full of powerful emotions half-whispered. It is a heady and spellbinding set that culminates in the finale of the title track of the Eversley singer’s new album, Alas I Cannot Swim.

While Marling is at times so intense as to be inaudible, then Bristol electronica duo Fuck Buttons are impossible to ignore, Ben Power and Andrew Hung literally overwhelming the crowd with wave after wave of effects-generated drone-distortion on opener Sweet Love For Planet Earth. Inhabiting territory that lies somewhere between Suicide’s pop nous and SunnO)))’s unrelenting grind, Fuck Buttons possess a hypnotic sense of melody and noise that, despite forcing the right hand PA speaker to literally blast out smoke, draws in an audience bewildered at both the sonic avalanche and the fact that Hung uses a Gameboy to generate part of his onstage sound.

Fuck Buttons’ torture of the PA doesn’t bode well for the two remaining acts, not least soul-powered seven-piece Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed And The True Loves. The original aim was simply to have the Boston band’s mainman do a solo acoustic set but, spying the amps available, Reed corrals his men and gets them to agree to playing borrowed gear. The set is short, but the likes of I’m Gonna Get You Back and (Doing The) Boom Boom possess enough soul firepower to underline the fact that for Reed and co, with their debut out Stateside on Q Division at the end of April, surely a UK deal is just a formality.

While the 24 year-old Reed draws on soul’s rich tradition, Kitty, Daisy And Lewis draw on their mum and dad’s record collection of ‘40s and ‘50s music. With their sheer spirit and energy framed by the Mean-Eyed Cat’s wooden stage, the teen trio attract the attention of two local state troopers. Thankfully, it’s their cover of Blue Moon Of Kentucky and not any concern for possible licensing violations that have drawn the heat. It is a surreal episode that, as it turns out, brings MOJO’s Bootleg BBQ to a close.

After four days of endless music, endless booze and endless sleepless nights, the BBQ means that it is time to bow out. First, however, there’s MOJO’s night bash at Stubbs to attend, featuring Duffy as the opening act with Okkervil River and Roky Erickson headlining. At best, the evening’s proceedings provide a blurred series of thoughts and images. A bit like SXSW itself, in fact. It really is time to go home…

Check out Piper Ferguson's Day 4 photos in our exclusive gallery HERE!

Phil Alexander