Finally Punk
Monotonix
Unfortunately no photos from these great sets (some idiot forgot to recharge camera batteries...)
Mika Miko
The 18th show at SXSW by The Mae Shi
CPC Gangbangs
...so I might as well throw in photos of Zooey, Sharin and Lykke
Happy Happy Joy Joy
Half Japanese at SXSW 2008
How to Play Guitar
by David Fair
I taught myself to play guitar. It's incredibly easy when you understand the science of it. The skinny strings play the high sounds, and the fat strings play the low sounds. If you put your finger on the string farther out by the tuning end it makes a lower sound. If you want to play fast, move your hand fast and if you want to play slower move your hand slower. That's all there is to it. You can learn the names of notes and how to make chords that other people use, but that's pretty limiting. Even if you took a few years and learned all the chords you'd still have a limited number of options. If you ignore the chords your options are infinite and you can master guitar playing in one day.
Traditionally, guitars have a fat string on the top and they get skinnier and skinnier as they go down. But the thing to remember is it's your guitar and you can put whatever you want on it. I like to put six different sized strings on it because that gives the most variety, but my brother used to put all of the same thickness on so he wouldn't have so much to worry about. What ever string he hit had to be the right one because they were all the same.
Tuning the guitar is kind of a ridiculous notion. If you have to wind the tuning pegs to just a certain place, that implies that every other place would be wrong. But that's absurd. How could it be wrong? It's your guitar and you're the one playing it. It's completely up to you to decide how it should sound. In fact I don't tune by the sound at all. I wind the strings until they're all about the same tightness. I highly recommend electric guitars for a couple of reasons. First of all they don't depend on body resonating for the sound so it doesn't matter if you paint them. As also, if you put all the knobs on your amplifier on 10 you can get a much higher reaction to effort ratio with an electric guitar than you can with an acoustic. Just a tiny tap on the strings can rattle your windows, and when you slam the strings, with your amp on 10, you can strip the paint off the walls.
The first guitar I bought was a Silvertone. Later I bought a Fender Telecaster, but it really doesn't matter what kind you buy as long as the tuning pegs are on the end of the neck where they belong. A few years back someone came out with a guitar that tunes at the other end. I've never tried one. I guess they sound alright but they look ridiculous and I imagine you'd feel pretty foolish holding one. That would affect your playing. The idea isn't to feel foolish. The idea is to put a pick in one hand and a guitar in the other and with a tiny movement rule the world.
The folks at SXSW have just posted the list of bands attending this year's SXSW 2008 Music Festival:
SXSW 2008 Showcasing Artists
After a brief glance at the list, here are some of the artists that I'm looking forward to:
The Acorn (Ottawa ON)
Arrah and The Ferns (Muncie IN)
Black Diamond Heavies (Louisville KY)
Carbonas (Atlanta GA)
Clockcleaner (Philadelphia PA)
Crystal Castles (Toronto ON)
Cathy Davey (Dublin IRELAND)
Deer Tick (Providence RI)
Experimental Aircraft (Austin TX)
Frightened Rabbit (Glasgow UK)
Future Clouds & Radar (Austin TX)
Guitar Women w/ Cindy Cashdollar and Sue Foley (Austin TX)
Half Japanese (Austin MI) !!!!!
Headlights (Champaign IL)
The Homosexuals (London UK)
Jarboe (Atlanta GA) !!!!!
Khan (Berlin GERMANY)
Jens Lekman (Gothenburg SWEDEN)
Lykke Li (Stockholm SWEDEN) !!!!!
Naked Raygun (Chicago IL)
Office (Chicago IL)
Petty Booka (Tokyo JAPAN)
The Pillows (Tokyo JAPAN)
The Raveonettes (New York NY) !!!
The Slits (London UK) !!!!!
Waco Brothers (Chicago IL)
We Are Standard (Basque Country SPAIN)
