SXSW Friday Night Roundup:

2 pm Atombombpocketknife at B.D. Riley's - bad-fuckin-ass. Way too loud for that little place. I met Minmae and Ted Leo while there, too.

3:30 pm Western Keys at Caucus Club. Lazy and sweet.

4:30 Deathray Davies at Caucus Club. Quite rockin'.

5:30 The Wrens at Caucus Club. Disappointing. I think they're a little overwhelmed by their success.

10:30 Something Something Family Band at Cedar St. Courtyard. Booooo-ring country-rock.

11 pm Knife in the Water at Cedar St. Courtyard. Excellent show and very, very rockin' by KITW standards. The pedal steel player is playing lead guitar exclusively, which is odd. David Fricke was right behind me. I talked with him a bit. Quite a nice guy. I did not tell him that his magazine sucks.

12:10 pm The Bodines at Austin Music Hall. Embarrassing. Especially for the 40ish people shouting woo and doing the rich white folk boogie.

12:30 pm Big Star at Austin Music Hall. Fuckin' cool. I learned three things about Alex Chilton during this set: 1) he's too cool to practice; 2) he's too cool to tune; and 3) he's way too fuckin' cool to sweat, even though he was wearing a white oxford under a Stax t-shirt under a suit jacket. Chilton was playing nice with the audience, and the Big Star tunes were fun, despite the frequent mistakes and tuning problems. They tried to pull out some half-remembered tune at the end, so I left to go catch the end of the Mekons

1:40 am The Mekons at Antone's. The sound in there sucks, but I still dug the hell out of "Now We Have The Bomb," "Last Dance," a majorly rockin' "Hard To Be Human," and "Dan Dare." They seemed a bit chilled and tired. They were also calling themselves the MEEK-uns, which is how the Dutch guys standing next to me during KITW were pronouncing it, too. Odd.

A bit more about Mission of Burma last night. They opened with "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate," followed by "Max Ernst." The set also included:
* Trem Two
* This Is Not A Photograph
* Fame and Fortune (which brought a tear to my eye when they changed Roger's middle part lines to "NEW beginning/Happy Endings")
* Train
* Mica
* several new tracks, only one of which rocked mightily
* one of the tracks on Forget, but I don't remember which
* That's When I Reach For My Revolver

First finale:
Penelope Houston (pay attention: of the Avengers) came out and sang "American In Me" and DOA's "Class War"

Second finale:
* The Ballad of Johnny Burma
* Academy Fight Song