1. * with Alejandro Escovdeo.
2. Ryan Adams (vocals/guitar); Caitlin Cary (fiddle/vocals); Phil Wandscher (guitar/vocals); Jeff Rice (bass); Steve Terry (drums).

Locals do just fine at SXSW

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- I'm used to seeing my name in print, but usually with a "by" in front of it. So it felt mighty strange to open the Austin American-Statesman last Friday and see myself dressed down -- for the hideous crime of going to see bands from the Triangle play at the South by Southwest music convention.

"Watching David Menconi ... grooving up front for the Backsliders ... reminded me of an aspect of SXSW that I don't understand," wrote the newspaper's music critic, Michael Corcoran. "Why do people travel from all over the country ... to come to Austin and then go out and see bands that play five times a month in their own back yards?"

Well, since he asked, it's because the first thing everybody back home asks about a convention is, "How'd the locals do?"

Pretty well, for the most part.

Raleigh's aforementioned Backsliders made the most of a great slot. They played on an otherwise slow night (last Wednesday) as part of the Mammoth Records showcase at one of the best clubs in Austin, Liberty Lunch. They played their usual set of songs from the just-released "Throwin' Rocks at the Moon" album in a performance that started slowly but grew stronger as it went along. It peaked with the penultimate number, "Hey Sheriff," a song that doesn't always come across well. But it was mesmerizing this time.

If nothing else, the Backsliders got a heck of a publicity boost from South by Southwest. Their picture ran in the Statesman three days in a row.

Whiskeytown was more hit or miss, but not in a way that will hurt the band. In contrast to the Raleigh group's pressure-packed show at South by Southwest '96, the musicians had little to prove this time. Whiskeytown already has a record deal with Outpost/Geffen, which will release the "Sorry I Said Goodbye" album late this summer.

The band played the kickoff show of the No Depression country-rock tour, outdoors at the Waterloo Brewing Co. Unfortunately, the unseasonably cold dampness caused tuning problems galore. The result was one of those glorious messes all Whiskeytown fans know and love.

Despite numerous technical difficulties, "Drank Like a River" and "16 Days" retained an undeniable power. "Midway Park" sported a revamped arrangement in which singer Ryan Adams did a scary-sounding vocal meltdown on the outro. And my longtime hero Alejondro Escovedo showed up to do a vocal cameo on "Excuse Me If I Break My Own Heart Tonight."

The show closed with a frustrated Adams destroying a guitar at the end of "Faithless Street," right after the line about how he started a country band, " 'cause punk rock was too hard to sing."

The next day, Whiskeytown played a more polished set at a party sponsored by No Depression. Afterward, a woman got Adams to autograph a piece of his broken guitar that she had scavenged off the stage the night before.

The musicians in Raleigh's Six String Drag had a couple of strikes against them going into their Saturday night show. They were stuck in one of the worst-sounding venues I've ever been in, and they had to go to Austin without their horn section. In spite of that, they drew a good crowd and were just fabulous, playing in more of a hard-rock vein than their usual earthy country-soul. The set closed with a stellar punk-velocity rendition of the Texas Tornados standby "Adios Mexico."

During Six String Drag's last few songs, an extremely inebriated woman in the crowd planted herself in front of bandleader Kenny Roby and gyrated. It was unclear whether her hand gestures were meant to praise Satan or the Texas Longhorns. This being Austin, it could've gone either way.

Also representing the Triangle was Chapel Hill's Portastatic, the side band project of Superchunk's Mac Maughan, headlining a Merge Records showcase at Liberty Lunch on Thursday. With Maughan playing moody keyboards for most of the set, it was a good bit like Yo La Tengo. It was interesting to hear Portastatic's "Hurricane Warning (Ignored)" in a faraway place, where nobody knew what you were talking about when you mentioned Fran.

I missed Chapel Hill's Jennyanykind. But the band did earn some praise from the Dallas Morning News, who called the Saturday night show "top of form."

I saw about two dozen of the 700-plus acts that played South by Southwest. My favorite by far was Amy Rigby, an immensely appealing New York singer-songwriter whose "Diary of a Mod Housewife" was one of 1996's best albums. The only revolutionary thing about Rigby is her viewpoint -- a going-on-middle-age housewife singing honest songs about her own life, making bad day jobs and marital traumas into great subject matter. I hope she plays around here soon.

Almost 6,000 people registered for South by Southwest this year, including a number of celebrities. Among those spotted at shows around Austin were director Quentin Tarantino and actors Forest Whitaker, Uma Thurman and Sandra Bullock.

And to think I could have stayed home and watched them in the movies.