Japanther @ Mess With Texas 2009 (SXSW) - pics

“We decide to go back to the small stage to see Japanther. They are a regular bunch of cut-ups, those Japanther kids. The two of them sing into reappropriated telephone receivers, although I wonder if they are actually real phones because they are singing into the earpiece end of them. They play along to backing tapes–literally. Their last song is them playing over the Ramones’ “Do You Wanna Dance,” which becomes weirdly disconcerting when they lose the tempo and become noticeably out of sync. I don’t understand why this band exists, but I enjoy them, and so does everyone else. There is a ton of stagediving and crowdsurfing, to almost comic proportions. I quickly see that crowdsurfing is a talent: Some people are very good at it, and stay up for long periods of time, while others are very bad and plummet to the ground almost immediately.” [Portland Mercury]

More pictures from their Saturday Mess With Texas set, below…

Circle Jerks played the bigger stage at the same fest a bunch of hours later.