Heavenly Texan chanteuse Annie Clark learns,
the hard way, that caffeine is a hell of a drug

PLAYING: SASQUATCH! / BONNAROO

The strangest festival experience I ever had was playing Pukkelpop in Belgium when I was in the Polyphonic Spree. They had just banned Red Bull in Scandinavia, and my bandmate Brian Teasley, who recorded the drums on my first record and is awesome, drank ten of them. It was a mellow scene backstage—the Roots and Franz Ferdinand were there—but then Brian went supercrazy and started a food fight. Well, he was throwing food, but nobody was throwing any back. The tour manager had

to run him around the bus, literally, to calm him down. He had blood on his robe and was foaming at the mouth. He really took it to the next level. I usually get lower-back tattoos at every festival. Just kidding. I think I went to something called Edgefest in Dallas in 1994, one of those big radio things you go to in junior high, and some other one I went to with my sisters at the Texas Motor Speedway. And that was just an excuse to do some underage drinking, of course. I don’t remember who played; I just remember that it was the style to wear cutoff shorts and bikini tops. But not

me, no ma’am—I was pale and modest. The thing I’ve learned about festivals is that you gotta bring the rock. “Your Lips Are Red” [from 2007’s Marry Me] is usually a pretty rough-and-ready tumbler. The kids like the shredding, so that’s what they shall have. My favorite meat on a stick? That’s a little personal. I usually go for the funnel cakes or the elephant ears. There’s a barbarism to eating something on a stick. Even corn on the cob—how can anyone eat that in public?

St. Vincent’s second album, Actor (4AD), is out this month.

Annie fancies the shag.

Mpumi Mcata (third from left), guitarist for the South African genre-mashers, awaits his first red Range Rover

PLAYING: SASQUATCH!

Get together: We played the Soweto Arts Festival [in Johannesburg] last December. It was really hot and started raining, and people were dancing and jumping around—this was the first time I really saw what could be possible for our music. The crowd was just into it. Sharing music in an open-air situation is, to me, the ultimate—we should all be sitting there, listening, feeding each other grapes. Someone might throw up on you, but it’s still all wonderful.

Ignition: Growing up in South Africa, there was a late-night TV show where we’d see all these R. Kelly videos and think, “Wow, what a life, those Americans—all those Range Rovers! And they’re all red!” Then they’d show “Come Undone,” that Duran Duran video where they’re under water. I just saw a lot of cars and boats and money and girls and mermaids, and when you’re young, it’s like, “Wow, you can do that?” That’s how we found ourselves in, and I hate to say it, “ alternative” rock. This sound we have as a band allows us to explore different things. Hip-hop, reggae, rock—you can adapt them to any genre.

FROM TOP: MONICA OROZCO; DAVID LEDOUX

Cool beans: Sasquatch is gonna be incredibly fun. We’ll be walking around backstage with these people you only see in, like, SPIN magazine. And suddenly, there they are, coming out of a trailer, smashed out of their minds! It’d be interesting to get conversations going just to get their perspectives on life or, coming from South Africa, how I see their music, how I understand—or misunderstand it. Or just to ask someone why they don’t have Ethiopian coffee beans in the U.S. Somebody needs to do something about getting some of that Abyssinian, man.

BLK JKS’ debut EP, Mystery, is out now.

MUSIC STUFF! ON SPIN.COM! NO KIDDING! / MAY 2009 63