AQ x WFMU x SxSW 2010!

This year's South By Southwest Music Fest in Austin TX is getting underway soon (it runs March 17th-21st, that's next week, I guess you know if you're going already or not). If you are going, don't miss the showcase gig we're putting on, again in conjunction with our friends at radio station WFMU in NY/NJ. And if you go, be sure to look for Andee and say hi!

If you're not going, you'll still be able to listen in via WFMU's live audio broadcast, check their site for info on that, you'll be able to tune in online or get it over the air if you're in the NYC area.

So, here's the details. Our show is on Friday March 19th, at the club now called Encore (formerly Spiro's, which is the place we did it last year too). There's two stages, indoor and out, and a grand total of 14 bands performing. Several of 'em, past AQ Record Of The Week honorees, plus other longtime faves!! They are:

DENGUE FEVER

Incredible Cambodian garage pop from these long time aQ faves, former members of Dieselhed teamed up with vocalist and Cambodian pop princess Chhom Nimol to not only cover classic 'Cambodian Rocks' pop and psych rock gems, but to also compose originals, which are just as fantastic as the songs and singers they pay homage to. One of the best live bands around, we're so honored to have them playing our show!

DRUNKDRIVER

Crusty, filthy, pummeling noise rock, think Brainbombs, Twin Stumps, Billy Bao, Rusted Shut, total crushing noise drenched heaviness, wild, unhinged, chaotic, blown out and plenty fucked up. We'll be highlighting their 7" on tomorrow's list!

EPILEPTINOMICON

Mysterious rhythmic drone / doom outfit, whose sound is somewhere between, tripped out blackened psychedelic kraut doom, and pulsing minimal Chain Reaction style minimal murk, heavy and dense and druggy. We just sold about 10,000 of the two two cd-rs of theirs we listed recently!

HEADDRESS

Texas trippers Headdress, have expanded from a duo, to a four piece, as they've shifted sonically from psych folk to druggy, spaced out heavy psychedelic dronemusic, shoegazey and dreamy, but definitely dense and heavy, think Brightblack meets Earth Meets Nadja...

HOME BLITZ

Super noisy and fucked up, totally irresistible, sloppy, chaotic garage power pop, that actually sort of ends up sounding a bit like noise rock guys unleashing their inner power pop demons. Home Blitz are responsible for one of our pop jams of last year ("Two Steps") and had an aQuarius Record Of The Week.

IRON MAN

Veteran Maryland doom metal legends, heavy and fuzzy, doomy, dramatic, epic and totally metal. Fans of Black Sabbath, The Obsessed, Trouble, Candlemass, Witchfinder General, Saint Vitus, Solitude Aeternus and all of that sort of heavy doomy stuff should worship at the altar of Iron Man (who themselves obviously worship at the altar of Black Sabbath)!

LITURGY

"PURE TRANSCENDENTAL BLACK METAL" from New York City. One of our favorite black metal outfits, whose sound is a strange hybrid of raw blasting blackness, and epic soaring high end trills, which make the songs sound like black metal composed by Arvo Part, sprawling and majestic, explosive, exhausting and incredible.

MOON DUO

This two piece psychedelic drone groove offshoot of psychedelic space rockers Wooden Shjips, treads similar ground, but moves further away from the Shjips overt rocking, exploring a sound much more fuzzy and abstract, sprawling repetitive drone rock, hypnotic and mesmerizing, a sound motorik and krauty, absolute super-rhythmic, dreamy psychedelia.

PIERCED ARROWS

The band formerly known as Dead Moon, Fred and Toody Cole return with a new drummer, but the same glorious stripped down scuzzy retro rock sound, fuzzed out and melodic, catchy and raw, driving and steady, absolute classic sounding Pacific Northwest garage rock.

SHIT AND SHINE

Multiple drummers, multiple bass players, occasionally someone playing lawnmower, crushing, noisy, tribal, hypnotic, a sound equal parts vintage Butthole Surfers, classic Hawkwind, and modern kraut-psych-drone-rock a la Circle or Pharaoh Overlord or Cave. Supposedly performing a new song written just for SXSW, with a phalanx of drummers gathered from all over Austin... Also a former aQ Record Of The Week!

SONNY & THE SUNSETS

Awesomely sunshine-y jangle pop from right here in SF, fronted by local luminary Sonny Smith, backed up by a who's who of local rockers, which sometimes includes Kelly Stoltz, John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees, Shayde Sartin of the Fresh & Onlys, Flying Canyon and Kelly Stoltz's band and Tim Cohen (Fresh & Onlys, 3 Leafs, Amocoma!), from brooding moody lope, to shimmery doo wop flecked surf rock to stripped down classic power pop, to fifties style balladry, to twangy back porch folk...

SPEEDWOLF

A recent discovery for us, these Colorado thrashers totally destroy, a killer mix of Venom and Motorhead (and a little Bad News!), with a vocalist who is a dead ringer for Lemmy, crushing riffage, pounding drums, tracks range from full bore neck snapping frenzy, to loping hooky groove, to pounding almost doom, totally heavy and insanely catchy, dying to see these guys live.

TODD

Riffy and raw, rhythmic and heavy and in the red, a pounding and relentless blowout a la Brainbombs and Rusted Shut and Twin Stumps and White Mice and the Mayyors, howled marble mouthed vox, riffs crumbling with distortion, bowel rattling bass rumble, the drums pounding and frantic, from unhinged Scratch Acid / Jesus Lizard noise rock, to seasick post rock groove, to lurching sludge-y doom, to full on filthy space rock trip out.

TRUE WIDOW

Incredible, totally intense and brooding, nineties style slowcore, heavy and dark, epic and so catchy, one of our most listened to records last year (and even still!), and one of the most freaked-out-over Records Of The Week ever, and for good reason, amazing songs, irresistible hooks, gorgeous production, lush and warm, and so goddamn good. They were awesome playing with P.E.E. at Noise Pop the other week).

Not bad, eh? So you don't miss anything, here's the show schedule with set times for the venue's two stages, indoor and outdoor:

OUTSIDE

7p Liturgy
8p Speedwolf
9p Iron Man
10p Moon Duo
11p Shit & Shine
12m Pierced Arrows
1a Dengue Fever

INSIDE

7p Epileptinomicon
8p Drunkdriver
9p Home Blitz
10p Headdress
11p Sonny & the Sunsets
12a True Widow
1a Todd

Please come check it out or listen in at home. And if you're at the show, we'll have some amazing silkscreened posters for sale, with amazing art by Savage Pencil. We'll post the image on this blog soon so you can see it... Only a limited run have been printed, but we're pretty sure we'll also have some to sell at AQ and via mailorder after SXSW is over.

Thanks again to WFMU for asking us to do this with them once more, it's gonna be fun!! Andee doesn't like to go to shows, but even he's excited (he'd better be!).

Also, we're co-sponsoring a free daytime outdoor party on Thursday March 18th, curated by our pal George Chen of Zum, that we're co-presenting along with LA's KXLU, part of something called What By What-Ever. Some of the bands playing include Eternal Tapestry, Weird Weeds, Total Abuse, Abe Vigoda, Infinite Body, Earn, among others! For more info on that and the other WXWE activities, go check out the WXWE site.