Greetings from Big Sky Country, Flagpole faithful. After 20 some odd hours in a far-too-compact car, my pilgrimage to Austin (by way of Dallas) for the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival has been a roaring, if somewhat grueling success. Eager to get right down to business, I hotfooted it over to Empire Automotive to check out synth-rockers Chairlift. Tragically, even the almighty Press Badge - which would function as a virtual side-door opening, velvet rope-parting magical amulet throughout the rest of the evening - was not enough to get me into this indoor/outdoor bash, and so I aimed my gaze through a chain link fence, across a sea of pink mohawks and vintage sundresses enjoying outdoor pool tables, and through a trio of open garage doors as Caroline Polachek belted out her distinctly off-kilter brand of electropop between a sizeable crowd and a wall of shifting, flashing, pixelated red light. Bouncing between dark disco and what could almost be described as dance-shoegaze, the band matched the crowd's energy every step of the way, and a general sense of joy and enthusiasm seemed to waft outward and disseminate into the mobbed streets of Austin. It's going to be a good week.

Though the majority of SXSW venues are in a section of Austin that is only about three times the size of Downtown Athens, navigating from one to the next amidst a highly concentrated glut of musicians, staffers, press, police, and regular old concertgoers is a tricky task - a fact that became fast apparent as I hoofed it up to the Central Presbyterian Church for My Sweet Canary Ensemble. A conglomerate of musicians with a shared passion for the music of Rosa Eskenazi (AKA The Queen of Rebetiko, or the Greek blues), My Sweet Canary Ensemble drew only about forty people to their enormous performance hall, but those two score listeners were treated to an experience unlike anything I'd heard before, or was likely to hear again (which, admittedly, was exactly what I was hoping for when I elected to attend a tribute act for a Greek blues singer). Soundtracking a brief documentary film about Eskenazi's life and times (and translating it into Greek for non-English speakers in the audience), three women took turns at the microphone bringing the largely unknown tradition of Rebetiko music to glorious, soul-stirring life. Backed by a circle of old-world virtuosos playing acoustic guitar, upright bass, banjo, fiddle, zither, and hand drums respectively, the women sang Eskenazi's songs, as well as a few traditionals, exclusively in Greek, Turkish, and Sephardic, giving their already somewhat alien music an even more international melting pot vibe (I recognized strains of Balkan, Latin, Klezmer, folk, blues, and far Eastern music at various times throughout the hour). Each vocalist had at least one featured solo, the first of which was accompanied only by a wandering, mournful zither, and the last of which ended on a gentle, but precise vocal run of such back-breaking length it would put Christina Aguilera in the hospital if she attempted it. Cloistered in the puritanical oak and stained glass of a truly gorgeous house of worship, this incomparably unique and mellifluous music defied language and transfixed with pure emotion, making for a moving experience I won't soon forget.

Venturing back out into the night, I made my way to a club called Red 7 (think the Max Canada, but with the grungy, rock-n-roll lifer appeal of the Caledonia) to catch garage/psych wunderkinds Thee Oh Sees. Sadly, due to bad schedule info, I was instead treated to the painfully mediocre, hopelessly stuck-in-the-90's hard rock quartet Roll the Tanks. The bassist wore a bandana, the drummer a fedora, and the guitarist a golf cap, but no quantity or variety of head gear could save these guys from themselves. Who ever would've guessed that music labeled "alternative" would one day sound so mainstream (one wonders if "indie" will meet a similar fate a decade or two from now).

Across the street at Club 606 (a slightly smaller, and possibly even scuzzier version of Red 7), indie rapper Soul Khan took the mic a refreshing ten minutes early, and absolutely murdered it. Joined by a poor man's Cee-Lo on keyboards and backing vocals, and a sturdy, sure-handed DJ, Khan delivered some of the quickest, cleverest rhymes you're likely to hear outside of an Aesop Rock record (notable favorites were "When I take a shot in the dark the shadows bleed," and "Time's a funny thing/Good thing I've got an ocarina") against a variety of classic funk, soul, jazz, and r&b samples. An a intensely, and increasingly rapidfire, acapella rap played me out, but I could've listened to this winning young MC spit for another hour.

Heading back to church, though this time St. David's Historical Sanctuary, I closed my evening with the utterly charming, apple-cheeked folk songstress Anais Mitchell. Signed to Ani Difranco's Righteous Babe Records a few years back, Mitchell's 2010 album *Hadestown* (my #1 album of that year) put her reasonably close to the map, and with the release of her new solo record *Young Man in America* this year, she is now squarely on it. Backed by a keyboardist, bassist, and drummer/banjo player (yep, that happened), Mitchell showed off a feathery, almost childlike soprano (like Joanna Newsom, but with hooks), and a mature, studied technique on the guitar that lent her music a sense of legitimate history. Clearly, her understanding of folk music, not just as a genre, but as a method of telling stories and fostering community, runs deep. Her bubbly personality was uncontainable as she shared quirky stories in between songs and established a natural, unaffected rapport with the audience. Though more personal than political, Mitchell's intelligent lyrics and honest delivery made it immediately obvious what Difranco saw in her. Surrounded by stained glass yet again, I realized that I had now twice today had a great time in a church. Who would've thought?

David Fitzgerald