Seattle's Saturday Knights discovered Friday in Austin

AUSTIN — It's what South by Southwest is all about.

An unknown band, one of thousands playing the huge annual music festival here and hoping to be discovered, is having a blast, playing in a little club for an appreciative audience.

And the most influential rock critic in America walks in.

He's smiling at what he hears! Is he dancing a little bit? He's taking notes! Lots of notes! And he's staying, when he could go out the door and onto packed and busy Sixth Street, where live music is coming from everywhere, and drop into any of the other 50 or so SXSW showcases going on at the same time.

The critic is the venerable David Fricke of Rolling Stone, whose annual report from SXSW can make or break a band.

And the band is The Saturday Knights, the best Seattle group I've heard in years.

At SXSW — the annual music-business gathering/spring break/rock festival, now bigger than ever in its 21st year — the Knights mixed the dance grooves and snarky humor of Outkast/Beastie Boys with a little Public Enemy awareness, and tied it all together with screaming rock guitar.

He came in through the open window, guitarist B-Web did, playing all the while. The window became a door because Latitude 30, where the Knights' SXSW showcase took place Friday night, is like a lot of Sixth Street-area clubs, with big, openable windows, because they're in old, pre-air-conditioning buildings.

The Knights seem steeped in some of the great traditions of Northwest rock — the wild craziness, which goes back to the Sonics and the Wailers in the '50s; the stinging electric guitar, à la Hendrix in the '60s; and the smiling, streetwise, sexy rap of Sir Mix-a-Lot in the '80s.

Speaking of Mix, the Knights' gifted DJ Spence may have been influenced by Mix's "Iron Man," because of his stomping, monster beats that sounded like giants roaming the Earth.

Whether Fricke will give the Knights the nod in the pages of Rolling Stone remains to be seen. But it was still a thrill for the band to see him there.

"I tried not to look at him," said Tilson, the goofier of the two DJs, after the Knights' set. "But you can't miss him, he's so tall, and has that long hair."

"He's the fifth Ramone," Spence quietly added.

"Our manager is more excited than we are," the laidback Tilson admitted. "But it is cool."

The other DJ, burly, bearded Barfly, is quiet offstage, in contrast to his compelling stage presence, where his biting, well-crafted, politically and socially aware raps are delivered with mad intent. (His leftism is but another traditional Seattle slant.)

The Saturday Knights were just one of more than two dozen Seattle bands in official SXSW showcases, including MxPx, Rocky Votolato, Jesse Sykes & the Sweet Hereafter. But they were the one that stood out, because of their special blend of Seattle-flavored hip-hop and rock. Word of mouth made me want to catch the band, and I hope that's what brought Fricke, too.

Seattle was all over SXSW.

KEXP was broadcasting and podcasting from the Austin City Limits studio, with bands clamoring to play live on the air, including The Stooges.

Zune/Microsoft co-sponsored (along with the British rock weekly, NME) the big opening-night party at Stubb's, featuring one of the most talked-about names at the festival, British singing sensation Lily Allen (playing here March 26 at the Showbox). Zune was on location full time at a building near the SXSW convention headquarters at the Austin Convention Center, with live music, demonstrations and giveaways; it hosted several invitation-only breakfasts and sponsored the closing-night party.

Still, there was zero Zune buzz at SXSW.

Barsuk Records, the Seattle label that launched Death Cab for Cutie, had a showcase night; the Presidents of the United States made a couple of appearances; Northwest singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile played in the enormous Austin Hilton ballroom, dubbed Austin Music Hall Ballroom for the fest (the real Austin Music Hall is being renovated); Peter Buck jammed with Robyn Hitchcock at a RealNetworks party; and everybody wondered why Seattle band The Trashies were a no-show for their gig at the wonderfully trashy Beerland (which smells just like its name).

And how will they keep them down in Ballard after they've seen SXSW?

Yes, even our Nordic neighborhood was represented, with a daylong Ballard party at a bar called The Big Red Sun, featuring more than a dozen bands from Seattle.

In addition to Allen, the other name everyone was talking about at SXSW was Amy Winehouse, a dangerous British white-soul belter with hair up to here, a potty mouth and delivery as salacious as it is fascinating. She played one of the biggest clubs in this live-music-capital-of-the-world, La Zona Rosa.

Past bands that have been discovered at SXSW include The Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and Hanson (Austin will never live down that last one).

If all goes well, The Saturday Knights will be next.

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312 or pmacdonald@seattletimes.com