Dirty Beaches Covers the Stooges at SXSW

At SXSW, time isn't money -- it's music. Going to any one show means foregoing 15 others, and no matter how good an artist is, there's always some desire to see them finish, so you can move on to the next one. For that reason, the question Alex Zhang Hungtai, aka Dirty Beaches, posed Thursday afternoon at Austin's Shangri-La practically answered itself.

"Are you guys in the mood for a fast one or a slow one?" the Taiwanese-born purveyor of "minimalist rockabilly" asked, drawing copious support for the former.

"OK," he said, "I hope you guys like the Stooges."

Again, a no-brainer. The 'Hardly Art Fag' day party, sponsored by the record labels Hardly Art and ArtFag Recordings, drew a decidedly retro-rock-minded crowd, and although Hungtai did the tune in his own unique style, trading the Stooges' sputtering crunch for his cool, mysterious, reverb-laden guitar and vocals, he stayed true to the spirit of Iggy Pop.

Because much of his music is pre-recorded, Hungtai was free to wander into the audience, lower his head and nudge shoulders with a long-haired dude in front of the stage who'd adopted the same stance. It never got violent, and the singer returned to the stage without incident, but for a second, he recreated the unpredictability of a classic Stooges performance.

As it happened, he had time to close with the slow one, 'Lord Knows Best,' his David Lynch-like take on the Righteous Brothers' version of 'Unchained Melody.' The whole set took no more than 25 minutes, and while the audience was happy to see La Sera play next, Hungtai probably could have gotten away with going a little longer.