SXSW: Holy Sh-t!

Sadly I can't claim credit for that great headline, the honor goes to the Village Voice's Sound Of The City blog, though I have to say I share the feeling. I'm down here in Austin with Tom Morello, the political expert and thoughtful activist, deft songwriter and singer, and of course absurdly badass guitarist of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave -- now making his solo acoustic debut as The Nightwatchman.


Tom's 'One Man Revolution' is breathtaking in its simplicity. Sparse and anchored by a lone nylon string guitar and Tom's low, earthy voice, it's as dark and gripping to me as Springsteen's Nebraska or Johnny Cash's later period Rick Rubin albums but with a storm the walls and turn over police cars point of view.

So anyways, after a long day of music and eating (highlight: watching Matt lustily await the arrival of a plate of fried pickles) I headed over to Tom's show at the Parish a little early and soon noticed the unusal sight of several of the worlds most formidable axe wielding monsters (figuratively speaking) hanging around backstage. I heard Tom say at one point that he's learned that acoustic guitar can have the same power as a wall of amplifiers, but I wasn't expecting such a startling demonstration as this:


Tom decided to kick off his solo acoustic debut by taking the stage with friends Slash, Perry Farell, Nuno Bettencourt and Wayne Kramer. And the line "We're going to kick this off with a bang." Once everyone's minds were suitably blown Tom cleared the stage and settled into a set of material from his new album.


After a few of the new songs (my fave of the night was "Road I Must Travel") Tom started inviting his friends back (including Les Claypool and Alexi Murdoch on the second go around) for a steadily escalating dose of mayhem that started with Kramer fronting on the stone classic "Kick Out The Jams" and finished up around 3am with a nearly 10 minute long punk rock take on "This Land Is Your Land" complete with the Guthrie verse that they never taught you in school.

I though Michael Endelman summed it up pretty well on the EW blog this morning:

In the middle of this chaotic mess was Morello, who, after being just-the-guitarist for so many years, is coming into his own as a frontman. He's got a booming, espresso-rich voice, a nice way with traditional Americana, and most of all, a genial, funny, stage presence that makes a big club feel like a small living room. "Have a nice weekend," he ended the show, "But you won't top that s---!" He might have been right.

And that was just Thursday night. It's going to be an interesting weekend...