For part 3, we’re going to do something a bit different and represent one of the best aspects of SXSW. For all the music, the running around, the free-ness, the best part is the connections and opportunity for collaboration. You meet so many people who do what you do (often more successfully or in different ways) and it provides a great spark of inspiration. It’s probably the best and most rewarding aspect of SXSW.
While we have more interviews and videos to come from Kid Sister, Fenech-Soler, Major Lazer, Nardwuar, and others, I’m going to conclude my piece with a final set of pictures from a different pair of eyes.
Lee Dale, from I Need Sugar, had his camera out during much of SXSW and captured great moments featuring The xx, Fanfarlo, Marina and the Diamonds, Yacht, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Efterklang, Minus The Bear, Bowerbirds, Chew Lips and Memory Tapes. Check some of them out, below, and more photos can be found here.
Immediately after one of her sets at SXSW 2010, we sat down with Uffie for a chat about … everything.
Despite the success of one-off tracks like “Pop The Glock,” “Dismissed,” “Hot Chick,” and her song with Justice, “Tthhee Ppaarrttyy” (2006/2007), major interruptions and delays took hold, and we’re now, finally about to see a full, debut album. (Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans, May 31.)
So MCs Can Kiss was a bit like a “Dismissed Part 2″ in a way — like making light of the situation. So, I guess it it’s kind of like, “MCs, bring it. I never said I was one. It’s more to me about entertainment and music in general rather than being an MC.” So it was just making light of that situation.
So are you moreso pre-empting any possible criticism?
I’m trying to bring it!
Like to be on the offense, not the defense?
Yeah, I just knew it was going to come anyway. And with my album — it just got so intense, yet I had started music for fun, and I just felt I could bring the fun back and make light of every situation that I thought would come up.
And is that really you on saxophone at the end of “MCs Can Kiss?”
Do you not hear my mad skills? Haha. No, … I know — everyone’s so disappointed when they find out it’s not me. No, that’s Oizo being a jackass. That’s just a Oizo thing. But, when we’re live, we have a pianist, so I play it there — we have a sax sound. So it kind of becomes real in the live setting.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure who would have a real saxophone sitting around.
Yeah, I know. I wish I could say yeah. Now I should actually start lying and say yeah.
Too late.
Yeah, I ruined it!
So Ed Banger Records fans will be glad to hear you’ve worked with a lot of the crew on this record — Mr. Oizo (pronounced French-like: wah-zoe), Feadz, SebastiAn — …
Definitely. I’ve sucked all their talent dry!
What was the process like in working with them? Would you often work together in the same room or would they create something and send it to you?
Feadz and Oizo are the first guys that I worked with. Mirwais is actually the first guy I worked with outside of them.
Feadz and I — when we first started, we were “together,” so we would record in our living room. And how I would work with Mirwais is he’d send me beats and I’d write lyrics, record and then send it back.
It’s kind of sad because now everybody works through email. Like even if they’re down the street from you. So, you’ve got beats, they inspire you, you send it back. Even if it’s your friend and you’ll see them tonight and they’re down the street, it’s all through email.
And about the other producer on the album, Mirwais (pronounced Muhr-wise) — a lot of people don’t know much about him …
Yeah, it’s funny because nobody knows this guy who like wrote and made all the Madonna songs. So he helped me massively, because he helped me find myself — like my artistic confidence. Because I was working with Feadz since I started, and when we broke up — I think that’s why the album took a bit longer as well — I was kind of stuck because you don’t wanna work with your ex boyfriend, obviously!
So Mirwais and I got together and he really encouraged me to start singing, thinking outside of the box, experimenting a bit more.
How would you describe what we’re going to find on this album that we haven’t heard before from you?
Feelings. There are feelings! When you make EPs, you know that they’re meant to go to clubs, so there’s a bit of a pressure to make them dancefloor-y. Where, what I was thinking about the album, is that it’s an oportunity to think outside the box, push yourself, and create music that people can listen to inside their home. And so I went with slower songs, there are violins, and it goes a bit deeper, lyrically. It’s a bit more poetic. I think people will be really surprised when they hear it … especially the Mirwais songs. Feelings.
I’m not going to ask you a blanket question about the Ke$ha song “Tik Tok” –
Who?!
Oh, maybe I should! — because it seems that it’s been covered, but –
You have no idea …
Do you feel like it’s been covered?
Yeah. My point is that — there are similarities, but the girl is number one, you know what I mean? You can’t fuck with that. I actually feel bad for how much shit she’s getting, whether she copied me or not. Honestly, I don’t like her music, I don’t like the girl, I don’t dislike her — I’m just not fucking bothered.
Here’s a question marginally related to that. There are these two worlds, obviously — the world of people who get on mainstream radio, …
MTV, and the other ones!
Right, and that used to be called underground. And you’ve been called underground.
Yeah, definitely.
But it doesn’t seem like it’s “underground” anymore, because of the web, where music fans will flock to what they like, and…
Definitely. Ten years ago I don’t even know if I would be playing at a festival like this. Because, my stuff… I actually pride myself on being underground. I have no interest in becoming a commercialist kind of thing. Because I don’t want to compromise anything that I do. I love playing a clubs at like 4 in the morning!
About what you were saying about the Internet — I think Myspace really broke this. Because previously, artists that you loved were “stars” way up there that you couldn’t reach. And with the Internet, Myspace, you can email them directly. The Internet made it so you can touch each other one-to-one. So it kind of brought stars from being here [high hand gesture] to here [low], and that change kind of affects everything, because we’re a bit more at the same level.
This is your second SXSW, right?
Yeah, the first one was 2006. I remember I turned 18 the previous December and that’s just when I started doing “Pop The Glock.” And I remember with my DJ — we were like, “we have to get a shitload of songs together, because we have to do concerts.” We were actually making songs back then so that we would be able to do concerts.
But when I played South by Southwest in 2006, it was like at bars, very disorganized. We were just walking everywhere, getting drunk everywhere — we weren’t even booked. People would just be like, “come play my show!” And we were so new and so excited to be invited to play anywhere, that we went to like every party.
Sounds like it worked out pretty well.
It was the best thing — I kind of miss those days. You’ll never have that experience again. It was amazing.
And when you look at the landscape of who’s here at SXSW — it really is dominated by indie rock, so what’s it like to be that representation of electro or rap?
I’ve got to be honest — it’s really weird because besides LA, this is my second concert in like a year and a half. I just had a baby — so it’s so weird to be back.
But people used to ask me a couple years ago, like “if you became commercial, blah blah blah.”
And I was like, “ahh…, but if I became commercial I would be doing it my way, so it’ll be like breaking through. Something new.”
And now, that’s not even the case. I mean, I feel like what used to be — not underground … but indie — is now mainstream. I think people are so fed up with the Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson — that fake poppy image — people realize that’s like bullshit, and they’ve kind of pushed it out, and next in line is the indie, the Bloc Party, that kind of group. So we’re kind of witnessing a transition in a way.
I feel like we’re witnessing a kind of phenomenon. It’s like watching a conveyor belt bringing in the new thing.
What’s really exciting about it is that now, bands that would never have been heard before, they don’t have to shift anything — their image, what they speak about — they don’t have to be censored and they can still become the mainstream number one. So I think it’s an exciting time to be breaking through in music, because your possibilities are endless.
At this point I had to ask Uffie about her baby, and she showed me her BlackBerry background — a photo of the cutest four-month-old girl imaginable in a pink knit hat. Her name is Henrietta.
“It’s my first time away from her,” Uffie says. But when she must travel, her father takes over, watching Henrietta at his home in the south of France.
When we last discussed SXSW (part one of our recap), it was about moments that made you say “wow … only at SXSW,” like the Fader Fort and seeing a band like Broken Bells in a parking garage. It was also about catching bands with plenty of buzz behind them. But now we focus a bit on the unknown and unexpected. I’m talking about smaller bands that you stumble upon and wind up loving, or hear about plenty of times before you finally get a solid listen.
Note: More coverage is on the way, including photos, videos, and interviews from artists including Fenech-Soler, Freddie Gibbs, Major Lazer, Maluca and more! Subscribe via Twitter, RSS or email (top-right box).
Starting with the unknown, I caught Yawn and Everything Everything to start off my Fader Fort experience. Yawn had a smooth little pop sound that went down quite easily in the afternoon sun and Everything Everything brought something a little more dancey to the table. As good of an introduction as that was to the afternoon, Best Coast was the early highlight (her set preceded Neon Indian and Local Natives). I’ve heard the band described as lo-fi pop and while that is true, their live performance really fleshed out the songs adding a nice punch to the tracks. The band also showed off two new tracks “Boyfriend” and “Goodbye.”
Yawn
Everything Everything
Best Coast
Sometimes you catch a band on the way to your next destination and that moment turns out to be fantastic. That happened to be the case when I checked out Drink Up Buttercup, the fun band from Philadelphia. Loose melodies with plenty of energy and some infectious hooks, the band sounded great and I’m looking forward to checking out their new release Born and Thrown on a Hook.
Now we come to the unexpected bands you know you have to catch if given the chance. I chanced on two such bands in The Crystal Method and Man Or Astroman?. The Crystal Method were making kids lose their mind at the Dim Mak showcase at Elysium. The lasers and bass were burrowing their way into our brains and the club had everyone cutting loose. As great as that was, I managed to catch Man or Astroman? when I never thought I would get that opportunity. The noisy surf riffs, fun banter and just crazy infectious songs, it put a spell over me and the crowd after hearing tracks like “Invasion of the Dragonmen” and “9 Volt”.
After all the running around and staying up late you need something a bit smooth. Luckily, The Golden Filter were around and filled that quota with some sweet disco tunes. The full band really enhances the music. The veil cloaking the band in mystery has been lifted and we like the band even more now that we can see their personality.
The Golden Filter
Note: More coverage is on the way, including photos, videos, and interviews from artists including Fenech-Soler, Freddie Gibbs, Major Lazer, Maluca and more! Subscribe via Twitter, RSS or email (top-right box).
More coverage on the way, including photos, videos, and interviews from artists including The Golden Filter, Fenech-Soler, Best Coast, Everything Everything, Yawn, Freddie Gibbs, Major Lazer, Man or Astroman, Maluca, The Crystal Method and more! Subscribe via Twitter, RSS or email (top-right box).
SXSW, we already miss you. To think just last week Austin was the only place that mattered in the music scene. Inundated with all the latest happenings and rumors of special surprise guests (including Muse and Snoop Dogg), there were too many showcases and too many plans that fell through.
That’s sort of the beauty and the charm of it all and in the end, SXSW is and will continue to be the place where buzz happens. Seeing your new favorite band in a half empty bar at noon, waiting for one act and being blown away by one of the bands playing before, or just finally being able to see that band everyone has been talking about, SXSW is one happening place and we have plenty of moments to share with you.
Broken Bells, the brilliant pairing of Danger Mouse and James Mercer, was one of the acts generating plenty of attention before the festival. What better way to kick off Wednesday than seeing the band in a parking garage? The show was sort of a secret and met capacity pretty quickly. The set sounded great with the focus on the music as the band played the album in its entirety.
Aside from surprise appearances another thing that makes SXSW special is the Fader Fort. Love it or hate it, it’s a prime destination for buzzworthy bands and surprises. This year’s lineup included Bone Thugs and Harmony closing the Fort, Nas and Damian Marley being the special guests, as well as performances by Neon Indian, Best Coast, Sleigh Bells, Fucked Up , Local Natives, The Morning Benders, Marina and the Diamonds, First Aid Kit, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Free Energy, Washed Out, Real Estate, The Drums, The Very Best, and Chew Lips to name just a few. One of the best acts TheMusic.FM caught happened to be Local Natives. Their set exhilarated the crowd and included “Wide Eyes”, “Airplanes”, “Sunhands”, and “Camera Talk”.
More coverage on the way, including photos, videos, and interviews from artists including The Golden Filter, Fenech-Soler, Best Coast, Everything Everything, Yawn, Freddie Gibbs, Major Lazer, Maluca and more! Subscribe via Twitter, RSS or email (top-right box).
TheMusic.FM just spent the last several days in Austin for SXSW where we enjoyed some of the best musical experiences we’ve ever had, plenty of great interviews, and also missed out on a lot — because it’s impossible to do it all at SXSW.
While we prepare our coverage — including fantastic interviews with Uffie, Kid Sister, Fenech-Soler, and Nardwuar, and plenty of live show coverage (including some Stone Temple Pilots exclusives, the sounds of our favorite up-and-coming rapper Fashawn, more) and photos of Broken Bells, Local Natives, Man or Astroman, Crystal Method and more — please enjoy these totally random clips of 5 Neat Guys that kept us sane at the end of each night.
