The dB's at South By Southwest Fest

Chris & Peter belt it out in B.D. Riley's at The dB's showcase on March 16.
John Anderson photo / The Austin Chronicle

Sounds like a good time was had by all at South By Southwest, including Chris, Will & Peter (Gene couldn't make it, and Mitch Easter filled in for him on bass). Brett Harris filled out the sound with keyboards and additional guitar.

May 9: Under the heading "better late than never," YouTuber garrde has just posted a video of "The Adventures of Albatross and Doggerel" from the March 16 afternoon show at The Gingerman Pub. Watch it here.

March 29: Just found one more review of The dB's March 16 showcase at B.D. Riley's in the Nashville Scene. The generally sympathetic writer, Mark Gold, was surprisingly whiney about the group playing so many new songs (which I'm pretty sure is what most artists do when they're about to release a new album...). Maybe he was one of the people who kept yelling "Amplifier," which the guys didn't play. In any event, the editors had the good taste to run this nice photo of Peter about to eat the mic, taken by Eric England:

March 22: Wow -- didn't expect to see a professionally-shot video of The dB's at SXSW, but here it is: 5 songs from their March 17 performance at Threadgill's in Austin. (Not just St. Paddy's Day, but also Will's birthday...) Don't know how long this one's going to be available, so I recommend watching it soon ... like now ... I mean, you need to hit that link immediately. BIG THANKS to Music Fog for posting it and to Peter for pointing us to it.
 
March 20: Chris M. Junior of Goldmine magazine posted the photo of The dB's setlist (below, on left) from their March 16 showcase. [MJ, who was on the scene and shot the six videos referenced below, says "If and When" is the only 1 of the 4 encores on the setlist to actually get played. Presumably, the guys were up against the festival's time constraints...] Junior offers some tidbits about the show that others did not in his SxSW wrap-up, here. The setlist on the right is courtesy of Blurt magazine, which hosted The dB's Friday afternoon at The Ginger Man pub. See more of Blurt's coverage here.

Setlist for 3/16 afternoon show

Setlist for 3/16 evening show (showcase)

March 18: Writing for Grammy.com, Chris Thompson had a glowing review of Chris' solo set the evening of March 17 with members of the Tosca String Quartet. Chris' many projects led one blogger to quip that, at least at SxSW, Chris had to be the "hardest working man in show business"...

Thompson reveals something I didn't know: Chris has a forthcoming album called Lovesick Blues! Poking around, I found these two rough mixes from the album that Chris quietly posted a few days ago: "You and Me and XTC" and "If Memory Serves" (later, they were removed from SoundCloud). Those posts indicated the album is being produced by Jeff Crawford. Neither one sounds rough to me...
 
March 18: Here are three great reviews of The dB's March 16 showcase at B.D. Riley's: the first is by Jim Caligiuri of the Austin Chronicle (who wrote the preview story linked at the 3-14 update below), a second by Parry Gettelman posted on Austin360, and a third enthusiastic report by Jim DeRogatis, a Chicago music journalist who's written about The dB's in the past. Teenage Kicks was there and also seemed very impressed.

Here's Jim DeRogatis' photo:
 

Got videos? The blog Musical Justice posted these six videos from the March 16 show. Two are from the new album, including "Kaleidoscope," a title not previously known. YouTuber cstoltze posted "Tomorrow Never Knows" from the same set.

March 16: Thomas Conner of the Chicago Sun-Times offered this description of The dB's March 14 show in his South By Southwest blog for the newspaper. In the same post, he also talks about Chris in his role as musical director of Big Star's Third live performance at SxSW and reviews the performance. (Bob Mehr of the Memphis Commercial Appeal also has a review of the Big Star's Third performance at SxSW with quotes from Chris.) There are 4 photos from The dB's Wed. show here at Austin360 (see photos 86, 88, 89 & 90).

March 15: This story by Gary Graff says that in its first South By Southwest appearance on March 14, The dB's played new songs "That Time Is Gone," "Before We Were Born" and "I Didn't Mean to Say That" (the latter had not been mentioned in any previous reports about the new album). (Love to read these upbeat reviews by guys like Graff who obviously get what The dB's are about...) YouTuber Leemoid posted "Neverland" from this performance.

The dB's (minus Gene, plus Mitch) play The Dogwood on March 14.
Dana Plonka photo / Riverfront Times 

March 14: The Austin Chronicle had a South By Southwest preview story about the band, with a few quotes from Chris & Peter about the new album. Also breaks this piece of news: Gene will be replaced by Mitch Easter on bass for the SxSW shows since Gene can't re-arrange his schedule.