BY BILLY ALTMAN >LA.COM

---

Every year at South by Southwest I get up on Saturday thinking I'll try and take it a little easier - and every year the festival's
fourth and final day brings its own agenda, and it's back to the races.

Saturday found me catching a dozen more acts (nine of whom I'd never seen before), including a trio of international performers:
Amsterdam's Do-The-Undo, with chord changes right out of the Shocking Blue playbook; Malta's Beangrowers (sticker on the lead singer's guitar read "If I Had A Mullet"), and Wales' Duffy, yet another UK chanteuse poised for American success , with more pop (and presumably less baggage) in her sultry sway than last year's breakout star, Amy Winehouse.

I somehow also shoehorned in a viewing of the terrific documentary on drummer Hal Blaine, guitarist Tommy Tedesco, bassist Carol Kaye and the rest of The Wrecking Crew, LA's legendary '60s session musicians. (A tip of the Hatlo Hat to the inimitable Art Fein - of Art Fein's Poker Party, of course – for materializing out of thin air at just the right moment at the Convention Center to shepherd me and ace SXSW handicapper Charlie McCardell into the screening.)

I'd actually gone to the Convention Center to try and see ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones' new band, Carbon/ Silicon, but by the time the
film ended, they'd finished. So, naturally, who shows up to play a little guitar in the middle of the acoustic set by England's Alabama
3 later that night at La Zona Rosa than Jones himself. The song? Oh, just this little dirty blues ditty written and first sung by A3
leader Rob Spragg about ten years ago that you might know: "Woke Up This Morning." As in "Woke up this morning/Got yourself a gun." As in…Nothing like South by Southwest, is there?

Random observations from SXSW 2008:

Nicest single image: Steve Earle's beanpole son Justin Townes Earle in his cowboy hat, hunched over the microphone in full Hank Williams mode.

Strangest single image: Jandek, the, er, singer-songwriter with about fifty self-released albums under his phantom-like belt, facing away from the audience under the big cross at the Central Presbyterian Church and blowing dissonant notes into a harmonica like some avenging prairie preacher. They really should have had him do the music for There Will Be Blood.

Act that clearly didn't come here for the money: Athens GA's psycho-babbling Dark Meat, whose lineup included four guitars, three
trumpets, two saxes, two drummers, keyboards, bass, violin, flute and a backup vocalist. As they told the befuddled sound guy: "We need everything to be louder than everything else."

Act that also clearly didn't come here for the money: Johnny Rivers. Sitting in with Buddy Miller at the New West party, he played only one old hit , "Mountain of Love," opting instead to do "Red House" and a slow "Hound Dog" and noodle around with really, really long guitar solos. Guess he's annoyed that Dion's getting so much attention for returning to his blues roots, and wants his props, too.

Best covers: Tampa's Ronny Elliott and Rebekka Pulley pulling a hard country take on Johnny Tillotson's "Talk Back Trembling Lips;" Athens' Elf Power Byrding up the Rolling Stones' "2000 Man;" Belfast's Foy Vance getting away with a serious acoustic version of
AC/DC's "Back in Black"; Lubbock's Joe Ely's not-a-dry-eye-left rendition of Billy Joe Shaver's "I'm Gonna Live Forever"; Denton's
Brave Combo polka-dotting Enest Tubb's "Waltz Across Texas."

Best Six Degrees of Separation Moment: Spotting Steve Buscemi sitting at the counter for breakfast at Las Manitas, it occurred to me that, like Syd Straw, Buscemi also played a teacher on The Adventures of Pete and Pete TV show.

I really do need some sleep.

--Billy Altman