When you plan your night around seeing three bands you've never heard of before, you know things could go horribly wrong. When the first of the three far exceeds your expectations, the good news is that the "horribly wrong" bomb has been defused; the less-than-good news is that the odds are now stacked against the other two acts.
So, after being fairly blown away by random pick No. 1--The Hourly Radio--I was pretty jaded by the time New York rock quartet The Blacklist hit the stage. It didn't help that they literally followed The Hourly Radio; the groups had back-to-back slots at The Elysium.
It's not that The Blacklist didn't play well; they're clearly quite capable musicians. It's just that, following a moody, textured, great-sounding performance from The Hourly Radio, The Blacklist's new-wave-tinged, straight-ahead rock seemed less captivating (and, by default, less visually stimulating; who knew that turning on and off some simple underlighting could add a level of ambience that could only be fully appreciated as a result of its absence during the subsequent band's set?). Which is why I bounced in search of greener pastures while killing the time leading up to random pick No. 3.
The beneficiary of my Blacklist-induced ennui was North Carolina rapper Kaze, whose flow sucked me into the Eternal nightclub as I strolled down Sixth Street. Commanding the attention of a couple dozen patrons, the wordsmith, accompanied only by some backing loops, worked through some thought provoking material. On several occasions, the rapper--claiming he didn't want some important words to get lost in the mix--asked his soundman to kill the loop so he could deliver a capella raps about succeeding in the rap game without having a rap sheet and speaking proper English; politics; and the Iraq war. Particularly entertaining was a segment during which he asked audience members to hold up some random objects of their own choosing, then delivered some witty freestyle lyrics about the items, which included an iPod, a wallet, a lighter, a car key and a SXSW badge.
Last up was Sissy Wish, who played the cavernous, upstairs room at Buffalo Billiard's. The Swedish group took the stage with enthusiasm despite having just arrived from its native land shortly before showtime. The band--whose guitarist could legitimately pass as Carmine, a.k.a. "The Big Ragu," from "Laverne and Shirley"--has a solid, bouncy, alt-rock/quirky-pop sound. Frontwoman Sissy Wish (if she has a real name, I don't know it) is the main attraction, though. Imagine an audio-visual amalgam of Bjork, Tori Amos, Cyndi Lauper and Dale Bozzio (Missing Persons). The moral: a fun group worth seeing, even though the mix kinda sucked.
As the saying goes: Two outta three ain't bad.
