SxSW weird international bands

I went to my first show at SxSW. It isn't that I have never tried to go to some of the shows of this music festival; it is that since it is more of a tradeshow than anything else, the prices for the wristbands are quite high, and it is sometimes impossible to get into the good shows.

But, this time, somehow, it worked out. Half of my party was able to get in the show at Caribbean Lights, where they were going to have some weird mixture of international music.

It all started with 127, an Iranian band. They have some story about repression and underground rock in Iran that several people tried to explain to me. It sounded kind of contradictory, so I don't know what to think of it. They had a very interesting middle eastern sound with rock and funk influence.

Then I got to see Gecko Turner, a soft-reggae band from Madrid. Fun, funk.

From Russia, Auktyon. The band members looked like each of them had their own idiosyncrasies (mental problems): the bassist ('shrooms), the tuba player (pot), the keyboard-trumpet guy (cirrhosis), the clarinet-sax player (heroine), drummer (strait-edge), the guitarist (cocaine) and the singer (crack, crack, meth, and more crack). This band had a peculiar vision of what rhythm, melody, composition and performance should be. Lets just call them experimental, and be done with it.

Everyone agreed that The Refugee All Stars offered the best show. They met in a refugee camp in Ghana after escaping from the war in Sierra Leon. If the aura of their legend didn't win your heart, their percussion music did. You just had to dance. They had an amazing live show, with all sorts of weird homemade percussion instruments.

Lenine, a rock band from Brazil could definitely rock hard. I hear they are pretty popular there, and it is not surprinsing: they were good. I need to get their music now.

Finally, Dengue Fever, from California, but really from all over the world. Their music with Cambodian Lyrics was somewhat disappointing, or maybe I was just tired and hungry by then.