Mojo - The Music Magazine

If the credit crunch has truly started to bite then no one appears to have told this year's SXSW attendees. Speculation that the number attending Austin's annual four day grip-and-grin festival could be down are unfounded. In fact, take a stroll down the city-wide festival's main artery of 6th Street any time after 9.30pm and it is nigh on impossible to move among the dense crowds. Admittedly there is a slight sense of dancing while Rome burns, but equally there is a feeling that this year people are here to shake off the gloom and have a good time.

For this correspondent, SXSW is also defined by an unrelated event; Roky Erickson's Ice Cream Social - an annual benefit gig for the former 13th Floor Elevators frontman which is not associated with the festival but which makes the most of the talent it serves up - all in celebration of Austin's finest son. The Ice Cream Social happens, as ever, at legendary venue Threadgills and MOJO has become a proud sponsor of the event.

This year the line-up is customarily varied, ranging from the Swedish folk rock of The Tallest Man On Earth to the art-pop of Toronto's The Golden Dogs (back for a second year running) and on to the local garage blues of Black Joe Lewis, all of whom play to an audience where all denominations of rock fans are represented alongside kids, '60s survivors and industry types. It's a familial gathering with many returning to the event year-in-year out in support of Erickson.

Ohio-spawned, Austin-based Heartless Bastards take to the stage just gone 5.00pm and deliver a set of blues-infused rock that is met with appreciative whoops after every song. With a set culled from their third album, The Mountain, the four-piece (led by the petite-but-powerful Erika Wennerstrom, a woman whose voice sits somewhere between Fiona Apple and Janis Joplin), are clearly on the rise, having recently made their debut appearance on The David Letterman Show and now enjoying critical acclaim from all quarters. Today, they win yet more new friends.

Friends are not something Roky Erickson is short of. Last year he was joined by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. This year, however, Roky is backed by fellow Austinites Okkervil River with whom he has forged a close relationship over the last few years. Their affection for the man is evident as they step out on to the stage, wait for Roky to settle himself in front of the mic and launch into a shuffling version of Stand Up For The Fire Demon. Two Headed Dog and Bloody Hammer follow in quick succession - both songs culled from the late '70s when Erickson was arguably at his most susceptible to the mental health difficulties that have plagued him throughout his life.

Today, the man's beatific smile and assured performance reveals that his recovery continues. He also appears to be enjoying playing and has now begun to notch up an impressive tour itinerary, a major achievement in itself for someone whose psychiatric problems almost completely incapacitated him. Even more heartening is the news that Roky has completed a brand new studio album that features both Okkervil River and Billy Gibbons. With manager Darren Hill currently looking for the right record deal, the album is provisionally slated to appear in the autumn. It's release will complete what has been a truly remarkable resurrection of one of America's most troubled but affecting talents.

Roky's hour-plus set complete, we head back into town. It's close to 8.00pm when we head off to catch rising British troupe Micachu at Emo's Annex. In a rather confused state we arrive instead at Emo's Jr - a venue which, as its name suggests, is the smaller brother to Emo's. It features no annexation whatsoever. As a result we stumble upon Austin neo-girl group The Carrots, perplexed as to why Micachu haven't made it onstage. Emo's Annex it transpires is across the road and our own stupidity forces us to miss Mica Levi (aka Micachu). The Carrots however are rather fine prospects - the kind of band that Phil Spector would sign were he looking to break into indie-rock. Displaying a great love of The Shangri-Las and describing themselves as sounding like "'60s Girl Groups In Love", there is something wonderfully fresh about their pop sensibilities despite their retro stylings.

Finally locating Emo's Annex (a tented courtyard across the road from our previous venue), we prepare ourselves for The Dirty Projectors. The Brooklyn poly-rhythmists have divided opinion with their blend of brain-scrambling time-signatures and post-Talking Heads swot-pop. Tonight, two songs into their set your correspondent finds himself draw into an argument about whether they're a pop band or a prog band. Pop-prog is the final verdict during what is a set best described as challenging.

Having already caught Phosphorescent's Willie Nelson tribute the night before, tonight we feel draw to go and catch Matthew Houck and his merry men once again at a night hosted by Secretly Canadian/Jagjaguwar/Dead Oceans at The Mohawk. Also on the bill are Richard Swift, Bishop Allen, Women, These Are Powers, Akron Family and special guests Dinosaur Jr. We arrive just as Phosphorescent take to the stage and,within two songs are transported by a staggering blend of lush harmonies, post-country guitar interplay and songs of rare warmth and intimacy. If last year's SXSW was defined by seeing Fleet Foxes for the first time, then this year Phosphorescent have made the same impact.

Much of the material is culled from their recent Pride album but the likes of A Picture Of Our Torn Up Praise contain towering moments that are both earthy and strangely transcendental. Tonight Wolves in particular is delivered in an epic manner, simply building to the point of no release, while Be Dark Night culminates in a feast of interlocking guitars and pernicious piano pounding. The airing of a new track, the country-fied I Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down, confirms two things: firstly, in Matthew Houck we are watching the rise of a truly impressive songwriting talent, and, secondly, Phosphorescent have grown from being his one-man project into a true band. And a mighty fine one at that.

Sadly, once Phosphorescent's set is over we have to forgo the option of watching Akron Family, largely because our handy SXSW pocket guide lists Flower Travellin' Band as playing Smokin' Music at 11.00pm. For those unfamiliar with the name, then you may be familiar with the unforgettable balls-out image that graces the sleeve to the Japan hard psych troupe's 1970 album Anywhere - an image that has since graced Julian Cope's Japrock Sampler tome. Of course, it was Cope who placed the band's 1971 progressive monolith Satori at Number One in his countdown of theTop 50 Japrock albums.

Tonight, there is a palpable sense of excitement at the prospect of seeing a band that originally split in 1973 back on stage together and whose freaky legacy has been available to view via an impressive series of YouTube clips and reissued albums. Anticipation, of course, is swiftly followed by a sense of dread at the reality that, after all these years, the five piece could simply be dreadful. Our fears are thankfully unfounded and it takes Flower Travellin' Band all of one song to prove as much.

In fact, the band themselves appear to be remarkably youthful. Singer Akira 'Joe' Yamanaka, once the proud owner of the world's only Japanese afro, now sports a dignified set of dreads, as well as possessing a surfeit of onstage energy that will see him attempt a multitude of mini star-jumps throughout the band's set. Indeed, it's only when he introduces the band - the legendary guitarist Hideki Ishima, bassist Jun Kobayashi and drummer Joji 'George' Wada - that you realise that keyboard player Nobuhiko Shinohara is the only new arrival in the band's ranks after all these years.

Opening track, Satori Part II, with it's tribal stomp and Ishima's snaking guitar part (played on his seven-string sitarla (part guitar, part sitar with a neck twice the thickness of the former) is an arresting slice of heavy hippie-delia. Satori Part I, meanwhile, underlines that Flower Travellin' Band were capable of trading blackened riffs with even the likes of their heroes Black Sabbath.

In fact, tonight's set confirms the band's unique sound and vision remains intact. There are moments when they verge of Can funkoid territory, others where King Crimson spring to mind and where Cream's ghost is evoked. The overall effect is both startling, uplifting and over all too quickly.

As Flower Travellin' Band leave the stage to rapturous applause, there are still bands playing all across Austin. Primal Scream, we are told are playing two blocks away. Someone else wants us to go and see metal clowns Steel Panther. We will do neither. Our minds are too blown for that. Until tomorrow, at least...

Phil Alexander

Photos courtesy of Piper Ferguson

READ MOJO's SXSW DAY THREE REPORT HERE!

AND YOU CAN CHECK OUT ALLTHE ACTION FROM DAY ONE HERE!