My Fun Fun Fun Fest Weekend: Sonya G
A week has passed and the dust, still austerely running ramped within my veins, has possibly settled and another Fun Fun Fun Fest has come and gone. The third installment of one of Transmission Entertainment’s biggest events of the year was a definite success, albeit the clouds of heavy shoes kicking up remnants of a grassless park.
With many of the acts unknown to me, I was perfectly happy to experience a breath of fresh air and attend the two-day event, even if that fresh air consisted of punk music and dirt (not a major punk fan myself, but I’m always open to anything good, which there was plenty of….but I’m not a fan of dirt).
Here is a recap of my personal festival experience.
Naturally, whenever you have a huge event in Austin, one must always begin those events with plenty of smaller pre-events. (And besides, weekends in Austin never start on Friday.) Thursday night I caught the end of Local Music is Sexy IV, with Brothers and Sisters, Foot Patrol, Lovely Sparrows, Leatherbag, Eastern Sea and more at Mohawk. But to be honest, I was being ebulliently entertained by some fellow Sonic-Itchers and guests, and didn’t really pay attention to the music on stage (honesty is such a great attribute in the bloggosphere). But the place was packed and I was glad to see so many supporters of local music, even if some, like myself weren’t listening.
Sunday was the first day I attended the event. (Due to the sorry excuse of physical protection I call my immune system, I popped in early Saturday and decided it would be wise for me not to stay.) It was an early Saturday night for me, so I met all the hung-over faces to the sounds of Ume opening up Sunday morning.
The thing I love about Ume is their ability to completely throw any preconceived notions about bands and how they’re supposed to sound right under the bus. Even in between songs, guitarist/vocalist Lauren Larson, bassist Eric Larson and drummer Jeff Barerra, maintain the most professional composure, keeping their talk to a minimum. However, music-goers attend concerts to hear musicians play, not talk, and Ume always gracefully exhibits that their music is what they came to do.
With Lauren’s honest vocals ranging from slight pleas to intense screams, and the band’s unfaltering weight carrying her through, Ume’s crowd began to grow once the trio took stage. Their gentle and complicated waves of highs and hard hitting slams of lows made me wish there were more bands out there paying homage to the underground sounds of an early 90′s Seattle scene. And I can’t tell you how many times I heard people asking who they were, gladly accepting my position as an already established fan by replying, “This is Ume, they’re badass.”
Look out for their new release set to come out sometime next year and definitely check them out again as they open up for Marnie Stern at Mohawk on November 18th along with local delicious, pop band, Sour Notes. You love guitar goddesses that can damage your hearing and remind you that you need to keep practicing your licks? Then don’t miss this show. Doors are at 9.
Considering my Sunday started off so well, I decided to keep it going, heading over to check out two of the freshest (as in new, aspiring and unbelievably talented) MC’s Austin has seen in a while.
photo: Sandy Carson
Local artists, Zeale and Phranchyze have been hitting the hip-hop scene well before they were able to legally drink, and to me, anytime someone has the power to entertain a crowd on stage at a bar with “X’s” on their hands says something about their focus. And now, at the ripe ages of 25 and 23, they’ve definitely both established themselves as some of the city’s top-rated MC’s (they represented Austin during last year’s World Rap Championship freestyle tournament, going all the way to the quarter-finals in New York).
Their set, which began with the early crowd straggling in, made a believer in me that hip-hop in Austin is still alive and convinced those stragglers, with the help of DJ Kid Slice to even wave their hands and nod their heads in the unseasonable afternoon. In a city where indie-rock and blues have easily become the staple sound, many local hip-hop fans will tell you that the scene is too small. But between Phranchyze’s eclectic rhymes and Zeale’s commanding flow, these two make it exciting to be apart of the hip-hop scene here. Their stage presence is impossible to ignore, their words are even harder to resist (even if they are rapping about customized shoes and robots) and their loops lay anywhere between Pink Floyd and what could only be described as an Alien’s regurgitated resonance. And by the end of their set, no one in the crowd was even thinking about the “Houston, Texas sound” and their slow attempts by the looks of how the crowd grew and moved. Austin has always been different, which is why so many people love it here. And Zeale and Phranchyze are helping Austin stay that way, packing the genuine hip-hoppers all the way to the back.
Check their myspaces for future album releases and definitely catch them opening up for the always-jazzy Digable Planets (you know you loved, “Cool Like Dat” back in the day) on November 19th at Emo’s. Doors are at 9.
Unfortunately, that was all that my allergies could handle.
But to be honest, I was completely satisfied.
Next year, I say we all throw a fundraiser for grass at Waterloo.
