There were a handful of remarkable spectacles I witnessed at SXSW 2010. Most of them were embarrassing, like showing up on time to see the immortal Man or Astroman? and having to wait through the heinous YACHT and a mediocre local Doors cover band because hey, things get delayed. Some were shocking, like the sound guy at the Mohawk falling off a 10-foot wall and cracking his head on Thursday afternoon (and proceeding to finish the show holding a bar towel against his head to stanch the blood). At best, some were magnificent, like the stripped-down version of Joan of Arc playing ten-year-old classics to 25 people at The Parlor Wednesday night, or randomly catching Danish psychobillys Powersolo. And some were just depressing, which brings me to the point of this post: to investigate my experience one fine afternoon with the atrocity known as "chillwave," "glo-fi," "bedroom synthpop" or whatever new term has just been coined by the hipster dorks at Pitchfork to describe it.
I had the misfortune to arrive early yet again to another free day show, this time at the above-mentioned Mohawk on Thursday afternoon--but this time it was intentional. The Besnard Lakes were scheduled to play at 4:20 PM if memory serves (...), with Washed Out coming on before them. I'm an unabashed fan of the last BL album and so far the new one sounds good too--plus, the lead singer looks like a Canadian Joe Elliott, so I figured I had to see the live show. Heck, maybe they'd even play "For Agent 13," but I knew it was unlikely. As a reader of hipster music journalism I had heard of Washed Out and knew they got a good review or two, so I thought I'd check 'em out and see what all the hype is about. I should've known from the characters in line with me that I was in for a cringeworthy afternoon: accident-with-scissors haircuts, tight Tight TIGHT clothing, 80s leotards (on guys), and casting rejects from Duran Duran's "Rio" abounded, all contributing to a general feeling of having been transported to some alternate dimension still working through the fashions of 25 years ago. I overheard a trio of Christian Rockers directly behind me saying something like "we're too secular for the Christians, and too Christian for the secular." They were definitely too something to be in that crowd.
This something became obvious as we entered the Mohawk patio, which was packed with unisex college-age cigarette-smoking hipster fashionistas sipping Lone Stars and slowly baking in the Austin sun, to the accompaniment of the blissful background grooves of Washed Out.
Let me interrupt for a moment to say that the hipster quotient rose a good 500% between last year's and this year's SXSW. Hell, in '09 I even braved the Pitchfork day show at Emo's--a powerful combination of complete pretension--which wasn't nearly as thick with fu**ing hipsters as the scene at the Mohawk on Thursday. What is the cause of this highly noticeable increase in hipsterism? Are Dirty Projecters and Wavves just significantly less hip than this year's indie darlings, many of whom fly the chillwave flag? This genre that seemingly didn't exist only one year ago seems to be the only relevant difference. Did chillwave usher in even more fu**king hipsterism, or did fu**ing hipsters usher in chillwave? Or both? Is there a correlation between increased use of Ray Ban sunglasses and the rise of chillwave? Is it the fault of M.I.A.'s baby? Can I just blame this whole mess on Vampire Weekend?
Fortunately, I was able to find a perch above the stage, away from the mob, for the duration of my stay. Unfortunately, having a clear line of sight to the one dude onstage lightly swaying left and right while triggering samples from a MPC and a set of Boss guitar effects didn't do much to improve the experience. But the visual aspect isn't what really matters to me at a show. It's purely secondary to the sound (I'm looking at you, YACHT). And here is where I'm most mystified by chillwave. "Innocuous" doesn't begin to describe the aesthetic. "Washed out" is too artistic an idea for their sound: "watered down" is more apt. Mindbendingly, when Juan from Juan's Basement and his band came onstage to accompany our lone performer, the dynamics didn't rise in the least. How can so many people make so uninteresting a sound?
Perhaps I'm being too harsh--but really, the music was mostly a backdrop to the spectacle of the crowd, which says a lot about both the music and the crowd. On record, chillwave may be something else entirely; but at heart it seems like it's meant to be party music, and therefore social. It's dance music, or at least groove music--the best of which is always enjoyable in private, but nonetheless is primarily meant for the club, or the stage (err, I guess), or the house party. The mark of a good party jam is how hard it destroys on a full-scale sound system. Strangely, at this show at least, the chillwave jams sounded lost over the PA, and it wasn't for lack of speaker stacks. But it still gave the hipsters something to sway to, which I guess is enough for these cats.
I should say that the Besnard Lakes did a fine job cleaning up the mess left for them. No "For Agent 13," but they did rock "Disaster," and the new songs sounded great. It was tough getting that taste out of my mouth but once my palette was cleansed, it was very easy to forget about the previous hour for the time being and enjoy Canada's best Brian Wilson qua Def Lep harmonies. Oh, and the shirt rocks, man.
