Down under and on top

Mobs of Aussies, 20 bands to be exact plus their entourages, represented their home country at SXSW. Along with Japan and Sweden, Australia was one of the top three foreign countries represented at the festival. And why not? The Outback has proven to be a prolific breeding-ground for hit bands for two consecutive years now (see The Vines and Jet). Not since the introduction of AC/DC into the American mindset has there been this sort of Australian crossover renaissance. This is definitely not your sister's Kylie Minogue.

Indeed, at Club Exodus, Kylie's "La, la, la" was replaced by The Sleepy Jackson's "Nuh, nuh, nuh." The band knows how to strut and swagger rock 'n' roll style as it fashionably blew out the club's amps multiple times. Hazy vocals and a trippy disposition made for a sound somewhere between stoner and synth rock as they strummed their guitars in rapid-fire and swayed back and forth. Explaining the Down-Under rock aesthetic, the publisher of the Australian Music Guide, Phil Tripp, simply said, "They're born and bred in clubs and pubs. They've got to be exceptional or else the audience will take them off the stage."

Friday at the Australian Music Collective BBQ, I witnessed the do-or-die stage theatrics, as Riff Random frontman Raph Brous yelled wildly into his microphone and then jumped, barreling into the audience, all the while shouting lyrics and various obscenities. Returning to the stage, he calmly finished a set that owed as much to Sonic Youth as to the Aussie forefathers AC/DC, while brazen guitar-plucking and general rock rabblerousing was heard all around.

Gelbison, recently named one of Rolling Stone's bands under the radar, was up next as one of the most talked-about bands at the event. (Alan Light, editor of Tracks magazine and former editor of Spin, was in the audience.) Psychedelic folk-pop is their sound, and that night they rocked out with soothing melodies and lilting riffs.

The real find of the BBQ, however, came earlier in the day with female rapper Macromantics--an Aussie who weaves her own one-of-a-kind and oftentime, politically-charged flow into her set, whether she's rapping under a bassline-driven beat or a cappella.