SXSW: Blitzen Trapper and No Age

Saturday's day party sponsored by Paste magazine and the au courant blog Stereogum featured a pair of bands worth watching.

Blitzen Trapper plays roots rock as viewed through a cracked mirror, where none of the parts quite line up. That's very much a compliment: The Portland, Ore., band's songs are unpredictable and a little chaotic, with the contrast between pretty harmony vocals and bursts of guitar noise, lurching drum fills or insistent maraca shaking capturing, and holding, attention.

Experimental noise-pop No Age attracted some buzz last year for "Weirdo Rippers," a collection of no-fi singles. Although it's a strangely compelling record, the Los Angeles duo makes more sense live. The shuddering, ambient noisy bits are more concise, and the human element of two musicians on stage lets you see where the sounds are coming from. The band also had a wry sense of humor, best demonstrated when guitarist Randy Randall (pictured) introduced the new song "Eraser" by poking fun at the various corporate sponsors.

"Y'know, Stereogum and Paste and Southern Comfort and XM Radio and ..." Randall paused to look around the room for more logos, before continuing, "Miller Lite are such good friends of ours, we wanted to share some new songs."

Comments

[Steve]

Blitzen Trapper is excellent, though I feel the band owes quite a bit royalties to Jeff Tweedy for the title track to "Wild Mountain Nation." Seriously, it's uncanny how much it sounds like Wilco.