SXSW 2012: Day Three | X-Rated

Photos and writing by Hilary Stohs-Krause

Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by female singers.

Let me explain: The whole reason I started X-Rated was based on an experiment by Inga Muscio, a feminist writer and activist who spent a year attempting to only read, watch and listen to things created by women. As a professional journalist, something that overreaching was impossible for me on a practical level, but I thought I’d give the music part a try.

I created a playlist in iTunes and started dragging all the music I owned by women into it — and before long, I realized I had a problem: My collection was maybe 80 percent male. This discovery and its implications spoke volumes to me as a musician, music-lover and feminist.

And thus, X-Rated: Women in Music was born.

It’s been three and a half years, and the project has grown and evolved since then. But I’ve started to feel like I’m focusing too much on a certain kind of female musician, to the detriment of the project. I welcomed my male music loves back into the fold long ago, after I began to focus on growing my collection of women musicians, but the reality of a weekly radio show and column necessitate my listening to a opus of female singers.

After all, my “rule” for the radio show is that a band has to have a female singer or songs primarily written by a female member. I was striving for more musical diversity in the public sphere, but personally, I’m feeling a little static.

What about female bass players? Female drummers? Those who don’t sing and maybe don’t write the words?

Originally, I’d planned to do an edition of the radio show featuring “Bands with female members who don’t sing,” but last night’s SXSW offerings have made me realize that’s cheapening those women’s musical creations and contributions.

To be sure, there’s something to be said for music explicitly from a female perspective, and I’ll continue to focus on that — but more and more, I’m seeing women fulfilling the role of standard, everyday musician, instead of just token frontwoman surrounded by a male backing band.

Maybe, just maybe, the musical equivalent of “You play like a girl” is ebbing.

I think that’s fantastic. And I think I need to reflect this growing acceptance of women as musicians, not “just” singers, in X-Rated.

We’ll start right now.

Ben Howard

I honestly felt a little guilty for two of the shows I picked last night (being The Magnetic Fields and Ben Howard) because I felt like I should be focusing more on women musicians. But they’re two of my favorites, and I couldn’t help it.


Ben Howard, a male, is the main vocalist, guitarist and songwriter, and based on experience culled from more than a decade of attending rock shows, I assumed his backing band would also be male.

Enter my “lightbulb” moment, or, perhaps more accurately, my “crash-into-a-brick-wall” moment.

The drummer was a dude. But the backup vocalist/percussionst/guitarist/celloist/etc. was a woman, India Bourne. And that surprised me, which I think in itself says something about how far we still have to go.

While listening to Howard’s hour-long set, sitting cross-legged on the ground right in front of the makeshift stage at St. David’s Historic Sanctuary, it became apparent how much this woman added to the performance, how vital she was, and her presence started the wheels turning.

Does this mean I’ll play Ben Howard on my radio show? Probably not. But it might mean I need to rethink some of my conventions.

Howard is signed to the same label that housed Nick Drake, and '70s singer-songwriter influences are obvious. The British songwriter’s voice is expressive and slightly breathy, and the emotional range of his singing is impressive.

The subject matter reminds me of Bon Iver’s debut album — song titles on Howard’s 2011 debut Kingdoms include “Old Pine” and “The Wolves”  — but on most of the tracks, Howard’s guitar is much more delicate, preferring picking over strumming. Tracks “The Fear” and “Keep Your Head Up” are much more pop-oriented, but still arresting.

In terms of presence, the 23-year-old had a boyish earnestness and clear desire to please that was wholly endearing — he grinned shyly but gleefully at the crowd’s wild response to each song, especially “Old Pine,” and when he lead the audience in a sing-along during “Only Love,” Bourne mouthed “Wow!” to him in response to their active participation.

Impassioned, that’s the only word for it. Howard and his band worked the crowd from reverent to ecstatic, leading to two standing ovations as Howard furiously roared his last few songs.

“We’ve got a treat for you,” he said midway through the show, and that treat turned out to be a group-sing with all fellow showcase performers The Staves and Michael Kiwanuka.  They covered “Over the Hill” by John Martyn, a British folk musician who was also on Island Records.

Beautiful show. I’m tempted to catch him again today, since the closest he comes to Nebraska on tour is Minneapolis (on March 22) and St. Louis (on March 24).

Bolzen Beer Band

SXSW 2012: Bolzen Beer Band This punk-polka trio got their start as a duo, busking in Lincoln during Husker football games, and that’s where I found them last night on Sixth Street, the main artery of SXSW. They were surrounded by a sizeable crowd, and all three were intensely sweaty from their rabid polka antics — especially singer and accordionist Dave Socha and halfway-shirtless tuba player Brain Brazier. Drummer Ciara Searight was beating her drum so hard you could  barely hear the lyrics to tunes like “Polka Shots and Beer,” but Socha just had the crowd sing the words instead.

I’m not really sure what it is, but it’s absurdly entertaining.

The Magnetic Fields

SXSW 2012: The Magnetic Fields The Magnetic Fields have a diverse catalogue, but I’m most familiar with their three-volume concept album 69 Love Songs. Most of those are sung by founder and primary songwriter Stephin Merritt — “When My Boy Walks Down the Street,” “The Book of Love,” “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing,” “Asleep and Dreaming,” etc.

I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, when it turned out that half the band is female, including co-founder Claudia Gonson (who sang about half the songs while I was there).

Even though I wasn’t intimately familiar with many of the tracks they played in the first half hour (I had to duck out after that for Ben Howard), I loved it all. The Magnetic Fields’ low-key indie pop is known for songs that bend gender or just ignore it all together — see new single “Andrew in Drag” — irony, humor and a certain bitterness.

I left wishing I could stay and resolving to dust off 69 Love Songs, metaphorically speaking (I’m listening to it right now, actually) and delve deeper into their creations.

Also: talking during a concert is fucking lame. Don’t do it.

Icky Blossoms

OK. Now I get it.

“It” being all the hype about Icky Blossoms, the current talk of Nebraska music, who played yesterday at the Saddle Creek showcase with Big Harp and the Mynabirds.

The band includes veteran musicians Derek Pressnall (Tilly and the Wall, Flowers Forever), Saber Blazek (Machete Archive), Clark Baechle (The Faint), Nik Fackler (InDreama) and relative newcomer Sarah Bohling (Flowers Forever).

They play garage-disco, synth-art-punk, experimental dance. Whatever you call it, it’s catchy, vivacious music, and it’s only a matter of time before they explode.

Perhaps even more fun than listening was watching — recent addition Blazek is know for his insane dance moves on stage, and Fackler matched him with grandiose guitar strums and constant motion, as did Presnall.

Bohling, on the other hand, just seemed unsure. She looked uncomfortable, and wouldn’t make much eye contact with the crowd, almost hiding behind her thick, wavy hair. She reminded me of Lincoln musician Courtney Morrow’s early days with noise-rock band Irkutsk, when she used the microphone as a sort of shield, or would sing facing the rest of the band. And Bohling’s unease was all the more noticeable given her bandmates’ ferocity.

But it wasn’t long before Morrow caught her stride and became accustomed to the spotlight, and last time I saw them, she killed it, dancing and screaming and owning the stage. I’m guessing Bohling will do the same, given time — and when that happens, Icky Blossoms will be unstoppable.

Seriously. This is one bandwagon, so to speak, that you’d be silly not to hop on.

Hilary Stohs-Krause kind of misses living in Texas — if only for the ubiquitous chips & queso. She gets her local music fix through HN and as a cocktail waitress at Duffy's Tavern. For more on Nebraska ladies making music, tune into the "X-Rated: Women in Music" radio show every Thursday from 1:05 to 3 p.m. CST at 89.3 FM KZUM in Lincoln or streaming live at kzum.org. Find it on Facebook at facebook.com/xmusicnebraska.