Last month it was a shiny new Grammy for her mantle, this month it's a shiny bauble for her keychain. No, Lucinda Williams isn't getting a new SUV; she was given the key to the city of Austin during her South By Southwest keynote address on the second day of the festival. What she really could have used was an umbrella. Pounding rain would dampen the spirits of some revelers, but that only made finally getting into your favorite show all the more sweet. |

You would have thought George Lucas was previewing Phantom Menace at La Zona Rosa last night. A rain-soaked line of concertgoers sporting soggy newspapers, bags and purses on their heads stretched the length of the block. Bouncers were flirted with mercilessly, their tattoos complimented by gatecrashers hoping to sneak into the over-capacity club. Every few seconds somebody claiming to be somebody more important tried to talk his or her way through the cold metal barricades and into the warm, beer-soaked club.

The Jedis creating all this mayhem were Boise, Idaho's Built to SpillOld 97's, two bands that put some of the brains back in rock's skull -- and the cajones back in its trousers.

Playing to an adoring home state crowd, the 97's played a pounding set of material from Too Far to Care and their upcoming Fight Songs. When Rhett Miller slung himself at the mic, face red and veins popping with lovelorn conviction, to spit out pop gems like "Time Bomb" and "Great Barrier Reef," there wasn't a fan in the house not singing along. Among the worshippers: Exene Cervenkova of X, who joined the cowpunks for a gloriously messy "Four Leaf Clover" to bring the set to a string-breaking, windmilling close.

It would be a difficult act to follow, but lumbering Built to Spill frontman Doug Martsch and his seamless band -- smartly rounded out by Delusions guitarist Jim Roth -- didn't come a thousand miles to disappoint. With a set rich in the gutsy guitar symphonies from 1997's Perfect From Now On and their latest offering, Keep It Like a Secret, Martsch and Co. blasted the crowd with tidal waves of sound. "Kicked It in the Sun" kicked the crowd in its collective ass, and there wasn't a lull in the set save for Martsch's late-in-the-game plea, "Will someone please tell me how much time we have left." Not nearly enough, it turned out.

Nothing like a nightcap of apocalyptic electronica to shake the foundation after the verse-driven countrified rock of Joe Henry. At least that's what the doggie-bags'-worth of Henry fans experienced with Great Britain's Freestylers at Liberty Lunch. The group -- think Prodigy, with a street-edged MC in place of a firestarter and a black and white break dancer combo in lieu of no-talent mime Leroy Thornhill -- release their debut We Rock Hard next month.

Earlier, Columbia records dropped some coin -- free quesadillas and wine and spirits for all -- on a showcase for new artist P.J. Olssen in a dark room filled with beanbag chairs and SRO onlookers. Olssen displayed a vintage Seventies prog-rock psychedelia with plenty of sensory enhancements. A tad over the top even for a stadium filled with beanbag chairs, Olssen (on acoustic guitar and backed by a drummer, bassist and tons of samples), provided a big, boisterous sound for the small room, but failed to deliver a decent melody or memorable hook, and the applause got more and more polite as the half-hour set wore on. Good quesadillas, though.

Fine Mexican food was also to be found at the tiny Las Manitas restaurant, where Freddy Fender, Joe Ely, Rick Trevino, Ruben Ramos and Joel Guzman of the Grammy-winning Tex-Mex group Los Super Seven were joined by Rosie Flores and other guests for a spirited Conjunto hootenanny. Spotted in line for tamales, guacamole, beans and queso was yet another Grammy winner, Lucinda Williams.

Tiny indie label New West Records didn't offer a buffet at its showcase at Jazz Bon Temps, but when you've got talent like Shaver and Jon Dee Graham to plug, there's really no need. Graham, formerly of Austin's late, great True Believers (alongside Alejandro Escovedo), reminds one of early Tom Waits -- if early Tom Waits slung a guitar and rocked like an absolute bastard. Regretfully, we arrived late and missed "Big Sweet Life," the standout rocker from his forthcoming Summerland, but the remainder of his too-short set was more than enough to make believers out of us.

As for Shaver -- composed of sixty-something honky-tonk legend Billy Joe Shaver, his fearsome son Eddy on guitar and a rhythm section -- nobody else playing this week-long shindig is going to come closer at capturing a perfect marriage of the two sounds that put Austin on the music map: blistering roadhouse blues and outlaw country at its most lonesome, ornery and mean.

BLAIR FISCHER, JOE ROSENTHAL, HEIDI SHERMAN and RICHARD SKANSE(March 19, 1999)