Party Ends

   Of all the surprises SX2K7 (thats what I'm calling it now, cause I'm way cool) held this year, one of the most shocking and most entertaining was one Mr. Dan Deacon. He was kind enough to grace our indoor stage at Friday Fiasco and his post TMBG, pre discovery-of-extraterrestrial-life music was a sight to behold, and a sound... to, uh, be listened to.  

   Twitching like a malfunctioning robot evangelist minister on crack, and expending more energy than the Chernobyl meltdown, Deacon drew the mixed crowd into his strange world of tin-can beat boxes and vocoder anthems. The seemingly ten thousand BPM back-tracks suffused with Casiotone whines and analog clicks set the perfect stage for his contrasting shouts and whispers, switching between a standard mic and an alien digitized microphone run though all manner of cheap effects pedal and modded keyboards. For a dorky guy and a bunch of wires and knobbs this was an enthralling experience full of manic dancing, joyous smiling, and a fair bit of awkward eye contact.

   Compounding the fun of the set was Deacon's ingeniously random and frantic sense of humor, hyping the crowd between songs into mandatory involvement with off-kilter jokes, a diatribe on the silliness of SXSW, and even a strangely drawn out yet magnetic countdown to one of his explosive tunes. You can see way more pictures of Dan and the other great musicians at Friday Fiasco on our photos page here. Words can't really capture his performance and actually, neither can this recording, but check it out anyway because it's awesome.

MP3: Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat