Friday's SXSW started with an intimate high, and ended with a violent low. Let's start with the positive.

 

Sitting on a rooftop stage with a half-dozen people, a few feet away from one of my favorite musicians, who was performing songs that I knew, was the highlight of my trip so far. One of the "greatest living songwriters," according to NPR, David Dondero and a banjo player (not sure who he was) played a bunch of songs off of his Team Love Records (Conor Oberst) release, Simple Love. These are the shows I come here for. I could care less about Snoop Dogg. 

 

 

I discovered Dondero a few years back on a 7-inch split (Two Boxcars) with folk-punker Mischief Brew. His biting imagery (for example, “butterflies are bleeding in your guts”) and socially conscious material grabbed me immediately. And when I saw that his songs on the split were recorded by Mike Mogis in Omaha, I became intrigued about his Nebraska connection. Last summer, he played in Oberst's Concert for Equality in downtown Benson. In December, I spotted him at the Mousetrap reunion show at The Waiting Room Lounge — he wasn't there to play, just there to support his friends. After his set, I spoke with Dondero about his love for team Nebraska, Mousetrap and why immigrant rights is important to him:

 

Catch Dondero Thursday, April 7 at The Slowdown with Franz Nicolay (The Hold Steady).

 

Justin Lamoureux and three other members of Omaha folk band Midwest Dilemma played an unofficial show east of downtown in a little grotto area behind Uncorked, a wine-tasting bar. The show was a Paper Garden Records/Lonely Hearts Club showcase — a Brooklyn-based label founded by Nebraskan Bryan Vaughan. (They put out Eagle Seagull's self-titled debut.) The walk there put us about 15 minutes late. But when we arrived, Lamoureux was standing with a beer, chatting with a couple of the probably 40 people in the sit-down, fenced-in area. A vocal duo featuring a women wearing a black tutu was playing poppy stuff on the four-foot-high stage at the other end of the space. Sporting a red SPEED! Nebraska hat, Lamoureux said we didn't miss his band. In fact, Brooklyn indie-pop band Team Genius was playing next. The six-piece featured a frontman on acoustic guitar and accordion, who was flanked by two female musicians playing electric guitar and keys and a third woman who was alternating between accordion, trumpet, and confetti-filled balloon popping. They were fun, and would be a good fit with a band like Thunder Power.

 

Midwest Dilemma was only at 4/9 power — acoustic and electric guitar, stand-up bass and flue — but  few people there knew that. Staring out at the Texas Capitol, the band moved swimmingly through about eight grab-you-by-the-throat folk songs that had people dancing between the tables. The song “The Great Depression” particularly captured the crowd's attention, with its lifting melodies and chorus that you can't help but sing: “Victoria, Victoria, you don't have to give up your land.” They represented Omaha and Nebraska well. I spoke with Lamoureux after the set about playing Austin, representing Nebraska, and on that dirty old SPEED! hat:

 

After Midwest Dilemma, we high-tailed it to an outdoor show at something called Scoot Inn to watch one of my favorite all-time bands, Screeching Weasel. A friend loaned me their album, Anthem for a New Tomorrow, when I was about 15. It was a turning point, getting me into independent music, and punk rock. Their 90-second, three-chord pop-punk songs fit perfectly with my youthful dissatisfaction and attention span. But I've never seen them play live. They've been broken up for more than 10 years, but just put out a new album, First World Manifesto, on NOFX frontman Fat Mike's Fat Wreck Chords. This was a Fat showcase.

 

The band was playing “My Brain Hurts,” the title track off their 1991 album, as we walked into a huge lot filled with a leather and black-clad crowd. Ben Weasel and Dan Vapid were the only remaining members from the original lineup. I didn't recognize the guitarist, bassist or drummer, who were much younger than Weasel or Vapid. After “My Brain Hurts,” the band fired off “Totally” from Anthem, and “Joanie Loves Johnny” from Wiggle.

 

Then Weasel began to rant. Now, I've always heard that he was an asshole. So I wasn't surprised that he when he started talking shit about music journalists, his label boss, his management, his agent, the opening bands, and on and on. Some of it was definitely facetious (some of it was pretty funny) but he made it crystal clear that he hated playing this SXSW show. He said the band only got paid $250, and that the openers made even less.

 

“It's worse than I could possibly have imagined,” he ranted about the festival. “You can take it to the bank that we'll never be at this fucking disgrace ever again.”

 

 

 

This went on and on for at least 10 minutes — apparently there were some technical problem that required a delay — while multiple people yelled, “play your songs!” When Weasel started taking questions from the crowd, someone shrieked, “Get a job, Ben!” 

 

Weasel retorted, “That's not a question, that's a declarative statement. You didn't do very good in English, did you?”

 

Someone behind me shouted, “Very well, asshole!” 

 

Finally, the guitarist started playing the opening notes of “My Right” off Boogadaboogadaboogada. They followed with “Cindy's on Methadone” from Thank You Very Little. Great songs, but the whole thing was incredibly tense — it felt like a fight could break out at any minute. That's not all that uncommon at a punk show. But this one was dripping in negativity — I was always more attracted to the positivity and community that punk rock fostered. It plain sucked, so we left. It wasn't until we got back to our host's house and checked the internet before we realized how much more tense it got:

 

Nice work, Ben.

 

Andrew Norman edits and directs Hear Nebraska. He's glad to hear that after Weasel's violent episode, Dave Hause and Joey Cape lightened the mood. Contact him at andrewn@hearnebraska.org.