Drummer Jason Finn, of the Presidents of the United States of America, Details South By Southwest:
“TEXAS IS A NICE TOWN
We’ve been to SXSW three times in the 15-odd years we’ve been a band. In ’95, we were in the midst of a vicious, old-school style ‘bidding war’ with A&R dudes elbowing each other in the kidneys to get position in the sardine-packed, smoky, sweaty juke joint in the middle of 6th street we played at. I think The Refreshments played right after us. Some major label or other got us a room at the Westin, and a middle management guy from ASCAP gave us our first nuts and bolts of publishing speech. For years afterward, we referred to it as the ‘bean counting speech.’ That’s about all I remember. Then in 2003, right after we had decided to end our five-year ‘break,’ we
got a very weird and excellent gig playing on a huge stage in a field, between The Motels and Joe Jackson (!) with his entire original band, playing all the songs from that one album. There were about a million people there, and I brought down the house by whipping out a U of T Longhorns cap and putting it on mid-song. This year for the first time we got to stay for four days and enjoy the town. For me this was 80% about food — tacos or barbecue, every 6 hours or so, day and night. Went to all my favorite taco shacks (Maria’s, “Taco shack #2”) and some new ones. Went to one BBQ place quite far from the city and all six of us got a ride back from the proprietor, jammed into the back of her pickup. I ran along the river every morning no matter how bad it hurt, partly to work off the brisket, and partly to reinforce that yes, even one little ciggie makes one feel awful the next day. Actually, our Daytrotter session was a little difficult for us, owing to it being a morning session and our poor little heads throbbing from various shenanigans the night before. Ouch. I was going to try to fly home with some ribs in my carry-on for my friend at the airport, but chickened out. Had some beers too.”

A monumental session for me personally as the Presidents were three dudes who really reinforced the creative nature of music making and joyousness at a time when Soundgarden and sludgy moping was all the rage in song. One of my favorite television moments of all time was watching them play a President’s Day show on MTV live from the base of Mt. Rushmore. Would we have just kept tape rolling from the time they walked in the door to the time when they left, you would hear pure entertainment. They love being around each other still, to this day, after 15 years. Jason had his U of T baseball cap on and Chris was patently jockular. I gave them a ride back to their hotel. They were off to take naps. – Sean Moeller

First song
Tiki God (Presidents of the United States) [2.95MB] [3364 downloads]


– original version appears on II
Is a tune from our 2nd album, genius-ly titled II. It remains a live favorite because of the big na na na na part that makes such a good sing along. And it’s sorta about Hawaii…what’s not to love about that!

Third song
Lump (Presidents of the United States) [2.67MB] [3938 downloads]


– original version appears on The Presidents of the United States Of America
Is another song. We usually play either this one or “Peaches” at most radio or studio-type things, because we are GOOD SPORTS.

Fourth song
Love Everybody (Presidents of the United States) [2.66MB] [3435 downloads]


– original version appears on Love Everybody
Is the title track to our 2004 effort, Love Everybody. One of our three or four live favorites from this record, because, after all, we love everybody.