Entries Tagged With: Brooklyn bands

What It Was Like: The Remolon, Florence and the Machine, Wild Lights, MGMT, Drug Rug, Yeasayer

By Pete Freedman At 08:02pm Mar 14, 2008


Drugrug2.jpg

Drug Rug takes it to the Spiro's crowd. (Pete Freedman)


Last night brought some of the best performances I've seen yet at this festival. Here's What It Was Like on Thursday night...

Band: El Remolon, a two-piece electronic dance act from Buenos Aires
Where: Ninety Proof Lounge
What It Was Like: Stepping into an Argentinian dance club (without very many people there, though--hey, it was only 9 or so). And that was the idea (minus the lack of a crowd), actually. This showcase of all Buenos Aires-based electronic club acts at Ninety Proof Lounge was thrown together by Grant Dull, a former San Antonian who moved to Buenos Aires five years ago to open up a club called Zizek. This Thursday night show was a showcase of the acts that rotate through the club's Friday night performance schedules.
Verdict: El Remolon wasn't bad, actually, although their use of electronic bongos as their back beat was somewhat over the top--but when isn't it in world dance music? Honestly, I kinda dug it and thought it'd be a great soundtrack for a sweaty, people-filled dance-club. Unfortunately for El Remolon, unlike all other SXSW venues, this room wasn't very sweaty or people-filled. So I moved on.
Random Note: The crowd, too, was pretty much all Argentinian, except for a film producer from LA who was there in hopes of Dull allowing him to use some of this music (Dull also runs the Zizek label) for an upcoming feature.

Band: Florence and the Machine, an act from the UK with an amazing female vocalist, a guitarist and a whole lot of piped in sound (hence...the Machine).
Where: The Rio
What It Was Like: Butter, baby. Florence has a voice tailored for old-time AM radio soul and she knows how to use it, updating her sound to showcase flirty, dangerous lyrics. It'll hit me later exactly who she sounds like. Her set saw her drumming away with a snare drum in front of her as she howled away into the mic stand.
Verdict: Dug. It.
Random Note: This was the first of three acts I saw this evening as part of BBC 6's showcase at the festival.

Read more "What It Was Like:..." >>
.