Modern Skirts my pick for SXSW

Another non-pharmacology post:

Mark my words: The "biggest new thing" to come out of the upcoming SXSW Music Festival in Austin next week will be another band from Athens, GA, called Modern Skirts.

Since I'm an old(er) fart, my exposure to new music comes either from postdocs in the lab or the various music rags I get. Frankly, Orac's Random Ten the other day really spanked me because the guy is about my age and I only knew six of the artists on his shuffle from the venerable iPod (which I do not yet own). Fortunately, I got turned on to Paste, a superb new magazine (actually, a merger with "Tracks") which provides a CD sampler with every issue. Great new stuff by Kinks god, Ray Davies, a New Orleans tribute from former military dude and troubadour Shawn Mullins, etc.

PharmPreSchooler and I were riding to work the other day when both of us got jazzed by a little number eminating from the car speakers. Playing it again, I wondered if it was something new from Ben Folds or They Might Be Giants. Instead, the song, "Seventeen Dirty Magazines," comes from this piano-centric guitar quartet from Athens, with a singer possessing a mid-tenor voice. A simple 4-chord progression with a critical key change from E or A major to Am and words, like old R.E.M., meant to provoke emotions rather than tell a story directly (although the words are understandable and not mumbled.). The ditty runs just shy of 2:10, such that the little one can say, "play it again, Daddy," five more times between home and preschool.

With all of the pre-processed posing going on these days, it is a rare and refreshing surprise to have something grab you by the ears the first or second time you hear it. If Modern Skirts aren't going places, they will always have a place in my CD player...until, of course, I join the world and get an iPod.