AUSTIN, Texas -- South By Southwest offers up plenty of rising new acts every year, and I caught plenty of those at Friday afternoon's shindig put on by Spin magazine: Vaccines, DOM, The Kills, Youth the Giant, and all of them were at least decent. But the SXSW recurrents are a very fine reason to keep coming back, too. One such golden oldie is Jon Langford, venerable U.K. punk godfather as leader of the Mekons. Nowadays Langford lived in Chicago and plays country music, kinda.

Every year, Langford brings his band the Waco Brothers down to SXSW, although that suggests more of a fixed lineup than actually exists. The Waco Brothers are basically Langford and whoever else he rounds up, which means it's basically a different band every time. This year's model had an absolute monster rhythm section, which gave the Waco Brothers' set an R&B-revue feel. The drummer was amazing, playing grooves solid enough to build a freeway on. 'Twas fantastic.

Still, when it comes SXSW regulars, the grand master is Alejandro Escovedo, who pretty much owns Austin this time of year. As always, he's playing multiple shows in various configurations, and Friday night was the orchestral version. Take the set Escovedo played at the Cradle back in January, add horns, strings, backup vocals, a perfect spring evening lit up by a full moon and an adoring throng of locals, and it was a pretty great thing to witness. The capper was the encore version of "Miss You," the Rolling Stones classic -- a song Escovedo was born to sing; with help from that adoring throng, of course.

Onstage Thursday night at Cat's Cradle, Alejandro Escovedo told a very funny story about asking his teenage son Paris what he thought of his old man's music. "It's old music," Paris reportedly replied, "for old people."

Well, maybe so. But you still can't find a better example of rocking gracefully on into one's later years than Escovedo, who turned 60 years old this month and is still out there offering rocked-up pearls of wisdom. That anecdote introduced the song "Down in the Bowery," a fatherly prayer with one of my favorite lyrics from last year: "I hope you live long enough to forget half the stuff that they taught you."

In contrast to some of his lavishly orchestrated bands of tours past, Escovedo's current band is a streamlined four-piece featuring lead guitarist David Pulkingham. Long stretches of Thursday's show featured noise, glorious noise, with Escovedo and Pulkingham trading salvos of feedback on a set mostly drawn from Escovedo's 2010 release "Street Songs of Love"; they also fired up the riff to Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog" at one point (and I was only sorry that he didn't actually sing that one).

Still, my favorite part came when they switched over to acoustic guitars for a couple of songs, the instrumental "Fort Worth Blue" followed by the beautifully dreamy majesty of "Rosalie" -- a  sweet song of love. Can't wait for him to come back...

(photo credit: Alex Howard)

The record industry is still dying, and yet very fine albums keep right on coming out. Here are my 10 favorites from 2010 -- that was the year that was.

(1) Arcade Fire, "The Suburbs" (Merge) -- Supposedly there aren't any "consensus" bands anymore, acts everyone can agree are worthy. Except for Arcade Fire, a Montreal band that's easy to love all the way around. Truly great.

(2) Laura Veirs, "July Flame" (Raven Marching Band) -- If you want someone's attention, whisper. Better still, murmur softly and set it to catchy, exquisitely crafted acoustic pop arrangements. Lovely.

(3) Doug Paisley, "Constant Companion" (No Quarter) -- Speaking of quiet, this is the sort of record that might have you holding your breath for fear of breaking the spell. It's sturdy enough to hold up, though.

(4) Robert Plant, "Band of Joy" (Rounder) -- Plant continues his Appalachian Mountain hop, this time with iconic Nashville country-blues guitarist Buddy Miller in charge of the proceedings, yielding wonderfully spooky results. Plant will bring this show to Raleigh in February. You'd be crazy to miss it.

(5) Titus Andronicus, "The Mointor" (XL) -- Screaming bloody murder also has much to recommend it, especially if one is obsessed with the Civil War and Bruce Springsteen in equal parts. Club-sized arena rock never had it so good.

(6) Kanye West, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (Roc-A-Fella) -- You have to give the guy credit for boundless ambition, as befits an ego of West's magnitude, and danged if he doesn't pull it off. West still ain't quite as good as he thinks he is, but he's getting closer.

(7) Carolina Chocolate Drops, "Genuine Negro Jig" (Nonesuch) -- In which the best new old-time stringband in America (not just the Triangle) graduates from cool novelty to serious contender. The aforementioned Buddy Miller is tentatively set to produce their next album, which should be fantastic.

(8) Sharon Van Etten, "Epic" (Ba Da Bing) -- It's only 32 minutes long, barely album-length nowadays. Nevertheless, the cheekily titled "Epic" packs a year's worth of obsession, single-minded determination and emotion into its seven songs.

(9) The Love Language, "Libraries" (Merge) -- Brian Wilson has nothing on Stuart McLamb, main man of The Love Language. "Libraries" is a sonic pop cathedral, both beautiful and terrifying, haunted by McLamb's dead-of-night howl.

(10) Alejandro Escovedo, "Street Songs of Love" (Fantasy) -- Love lost, found, squandered and thrown away is the overriding theme to Escovedo's rippin' new album, a great followup to 2008's equally stellar "Real Animal." Long may he roar.

Sunday night brings Alejandro Escovedo to town, to headline a benefit show for old Raleigh hand Chip Robinson -- who is recovering from a broken hip but does not have health insurance. That's a sadly common situation; and seven years ago, the roles were reversed. Escovedo was ailing, and Robinson's late great band the Backsliders played a one-off reunion at a benefit show that happened almost exactly seven years ago (see this). Since then, Escovedo has recovered and gone on to reach a new peak of mainstream popularity. We can only hope something similar happens for Robinson. Meantime, come on out Sunday evening.

Skip Matheny must never sleep. He leads the excellent pop-rock band Roman Candle (who played a terrific show at Cat's Cradle Wednesday night); he has two young children with a third on the way this fall; and because he apparently doesn't have enough to do, he has also launched a songwriter-to-songwriter interview series called "Drinks With..." Check that link and you'll see interviews with eight acts, including Brendan Benson and Alejandro Escovedo. Matheny also more than 30 other interviews completed, to be published down the road.

Lambchop and Alejandro Escovedo play Friday night in Durham, and we've got loads of verbiage about both. See the click-through for more.

Howdy, folks. I'm back from last week's vacation, and still struggling to catch up. While I do that, take a listen to this and peruse a couple of quick items about upcoming live shows:

New to the TWCMPAWC schedule, redneck gal Gretchen Wilson on Sept. 12 -- because, you know, there just haven't been enough country shows out there this year. On-sale details to come.

Also at the same venue is a show billed as 2009 Soul Music Festival on Aug. 29, headlined by the incomparable Erykah Badu. You can expect her to give an onstage shout-out to our own Ninth Wonder, who produced one of Badu's bigger recent hits. On-sale details also to come.

Over at Duke University, meanwhile, the 2009-10 live-concert season schedule is out, with highlights including Punch Brothers, Rosanne Cash, Los Lobos, Alejandro Escovedo and lots more. Check the complete lineup here.

I long ago accepted that few people are as hung up on Alejandro Escovedo as I am. But I have also accepted that one of my ongoing missions in life is to try and get as many other people as possible hung up on him, too. And so I am delighted to report that Escovedo is headed back our way -- he'll play Duke University's Reynolds Industries Theatre on Nov. 13, according to his tour schedule, on a bill with the outstanding space-country ensemble Lambchop.

That's nearly six months away, so you have plenty of time to make plans.

Lynn Blakey always seems to figure into Alejandro Escovedo's shows around here. The Tres Chicas siren has known Escovedo for years, and more often than not she winds up onstage for a star turn when he's in town. Thursday night at Cat's Cradle was no exception, as she joined him as special-guest vocalist for the encore. First came a letter-perfect cover of "All the Young Dudes," which was stunning. But then came the masterstroke, a duet on "Beast of Burden," in which Escovedo preened and strutted while Blakey played the wide-eyed blushing ingenue to perfection as they traded verses, vamps and glances. It was one of the most wonderful and hilarious things I've seen all year.

The rest of the set included most of Escovedo's new album, played in the key of rawk. In contrast to some of his previous orchestrated lineups, Escovedo's current touring band is a stripped-down twin-guitar quartet that offers up major raw power. But the show didn't lack for range. The other big highlight was a four-song acoustic interluded centered around an amazing rearrangement of Escovedo's ballad "I Was Drunk." He mutated the song into a flamenco raveup, with David Pulkingham's guitar bordering on skronk-jazz -- very cool. It went something like this, only more intense.

ADDENDUM: Excellent recap from Peter Blackstock. 

It's been a good year -- a really good year -- for Alejandro Escovedo, with his first-ever Billboard chart appearance and loads of endorsements from famous friends. But there is one lingering bit of awkwardness, over the song "Chip N' Tony" on Escovedo's new album. It's a tribute to the Kinman Brothers, Escovedo's former bandmates in the early-1980s band Rank & File; but the Kinmans are reportedly less than thrilled with the namecheck.

"I've heard various things, and it's hard to know what to believe about what is and isn't true," Escovedo said last week. "I heard they weren't too happy, that I was on their [expletive] list -- which wouldn't surprise me, since I kind of always felt that way ever since we were in a band together. But that's the way it goes with bands, you know? The funny thing is, that song does not slag them at all. It celebrates what we had at the time. I've always felt Rank & File was never fully appreciated. Regardless of our shortcomings as friends, I learned a lot from them about how to be in a band. They're still phenomally great songwriters and singers and musicians, and I've got nothing but respect for them."

For more, see this interview in Tuesday's paper. Also, Escovedo is playing Thursday night at Cat's Cradle. Go.