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South by Southwest is over. It was a slower year for me. I wondered the town and spent a lot of time with Alina Simone, who doesn’t like to go to too many shows. Alina is the type of person who convinces you to start doing drugs after a long hiatus or get back together with a girl who nearly ruined your life. In her own life she holds down a marriage, a job, does yoga, and works. Her life is so well put together people follow her advice because she must have it figured out.

The main thing I would tell you after five days of rock n’ roll is check out Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. There’s lots of good music at SXSW, like Battlehooch, playing in the street in their pajamas, jumping up and down around small amplifiers, a couple of horns, a drum set made of buckets. Battlehooch is a good band. The Postelles is a good band. But then there’s Sharon Jones, wearing a tight yellow dress and sounding straight out of Motown in its finest moment, belting, “She ain’t a child no more” and “Why’d you do me wrong?” I’d never heard of Sharon Jones. We stood near the stage, in the shade of the half-shell, amazed.

“If more shows were like this I’d go to a show every night,” Alina said.

Sharon was followed by Courtney Love, who I was there to see. Love came out smoking a cigarette. “Is she pretty on this inside, is she pretty from the back?” Her voice was raspy, defiant, but I understood, this was just nostalgia. Love had made some great music, ground breaking rock n’ roll, but this was not that.  The songs had some good lyrics but Love didn’t believe any of it. Love was dressed in gauze, and she placed her foot on the speaker, leaned into the microphone and growled and between songs she said, “We’re Hole, like it or not,” though in fact she was the only member left from the original band. Love has her place in rock history, and if you were there she does it well enough to bring back some memories, but you’re not going to learn anything new. One thing rock n’ roll is not about is nostalgia, even if that’s where the big money is. Sharon Jones is eight years older than Courtney Love, just breaking out.

Alex Chilton passed away four days ago and his band Big Star decided to play its show anyway as a tribute. First we heard from Chilton’s widow, who’d sent a letter detailing Chilton’s kindness and curiosity. What is rock n’ roll? Chilton believed in life. Death didn’t interest him at all, Chilton’s widow said.

The band was joined by a parade of guest singers, including Mike Mills from REM, John Doe from X, Chuck Prophet, the Watson Twins. None of them said anything, nobody made pronouncements. They just got on the stage and sang the music.

“I don’t need to think with my baby beside me I don’t worry.”
“Nothing can hurt me. Nothing can touch me.”
“People round will tell you what they know. There’s places that they send you, and it’s easy to go.”
“Sitting in the back of a car, music so loud, can’t tell a thing, thinking ’bout what you say, and I can’t find the lines.”

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