Mojo Nixon has left this earth, however he hadn’t fairly left the constructing, when it got here to Austin’s Continental Membership internet hosting one final version of his annual “Mojo’s Mayhem” gathering Saturday throughout South by Southwest, serving as a type of raucous memorial six weeks after his premature exit.

There was a second after they may’ve wanted Crisco to get yet one more particular person onstage for the “You Can’t Kill Me” finale of the supposedly last Mayhem. Worlds collided as Jello Biafra, Dan Baird, John Doe, Jon Dee Graham, members of the Beat Farmers, Exene Cervenka, Jon Langford, Sprint Rip Rock’s Invoice Davis and Eric “Roscoe” Ambel joined Nixon’s blazing barroom backup band, the Toad Liquors, for the conclusion to a raging set.

Attempting to clarify iconoclastic raving blues/alt-roots punk turned SiriusXM radio host Mojo Nixon to most individuals is an act of futility. Attempting to rejoice the lifetime of such a singular power of nature, who died from a cardiac occasion on the Outlaw Nation cruise Feb. 7, would appear an unimaginable job.

Go away it to the raving lunatic and social commentator to arrange his personal memorial, having declared earlier than his demise that his 2024 Mojo’s Mayhem — his longstanding SXSW subversion — can be the ultimate incarnation of the principally annual throwdown. Personally booked by the freewheeling songteller, the nineteenth or twentieth Mayhem was hand-designed as a bespoke day of music with each band – all previous buddies — Nixon wished to share a stage with. Designed as a sendoff for the now legendary occasion, the eight-hour occasion finally served as a celebration of life, summit assembly for divergent individuals and retrospective survey of a time when cowpunk, different and school radio have been all the things.

And it was a gathering of tribes, from the surging British-American punks Waco Brothers to Southern-steeped, straight-up rocker Dan Baird & Selfmade Sin to the Texas psychedelic high-plains pummel of James McMurtry. Los Angeles’ Appalachian-raw Knitters, the satellite tv for pc acoustic band that includes X’s Doe, Cervenka and DJ Bonebrake with the Blasters’ Dave Alvin, made their first look in over a decade, as effectively. It was the crème de la scene taking part in with a ardour not only for the songs, however their late pal’s lust for dwelling.

The mayhem began lengthy earlier than the 9:30 a.m. opening of the doorways. A lederhosen-clad polka band oom-pah-pahed across the nook onto South Congress to serenade followers who’d began lining up in earnest simply after 6 a.m. in a chilly drizzling rain, as a large stand-up rendering of a unadorned Nixon appeared on the balcony of the Resort San Jose, instantly throughout the road. The membership hit capability lengthy earlier than the Allen Oldies Band, who’ve appeared at each Mayhem, dropped 50 minutes of ‘60s pop classics in fits, ties and tuxes. That line would final the complete day, 30-50 individuals deep.

It speaks to Nixon’s potential to create an area the place truth-telling is a contact sport. Simply mixing bawdy lyrics, unthinkable allusions and a great deal of consuming and medicines for a cocktail of “take that,” the man who as soon as did unhinged promos for MTV created a world based mostly on puncturing the bloat, the grasping and the self-interested with a throat punch to the apparent and swaggering dose of excessive impression rock ‘n’ roll.

When the Beat Farmers took the stage, taking part in a raging “Riverside,” time cracked open. Whereas Nixon’s greatest pal, “Nation Dick” Montana, had died onstage in 1995, it confirmed the fireplace of the scene that the Jethro BoDean-on-mushrooms revival-style frontman emerged from: fraught, no limits, no filters, but a powerful undertow of power-pop, huge hooks and no worry of an anthemic refrain. To see 2024 Nationwide Endowment of the Arts recipient Rosie Flores, simply the night time’s utility participant — who earlier strapped on Langford’s guitar for the Wacos’ “Folsom Jail Blues” — gleefully step into Montana’s boots for the Dr. Demento favourite “Pleased Boy” was to know how effervescent the cowpunk-and-beyond scene was.

Sure, there have been moments of real respect. Steve Earle joined Baird for a straight-up tackle the Rolling Stones’ “Useless Flowers,” declaring Nixon would “all the time be the voice of Outlaw Nation.” Baird, too, delivered a pungent tackle his direct-from-Mojo request for the Fabulous Yayhoos’ get-on-with-living “What Are You Ready For.”

However these moments have been typically matched by the ribald. Femme duo People Uke, a large Nixon fave and last-minute insertion, provided their tender, minor-keyed “I Gave A BJ To A DJ” with a wink and chuckle, fearlessly delivering each ironic business commentary and angelic harmonies. There have been go-go dancers; girls dressed like bees, manning a sizzling plate and cooking up pancakes on the foot of the stage for the opening set; bartenders in Hawaiian shirts and manly Daisy Duke shorts; and a large Mojo stand-up outdoors for one final selfie with man who howled “OUTlaaaaaaaaw CounTREEEEEEEEE…” on the satellite tv for pc radio station the place he served as afternoon disc jockey.

As outrageous, as muscular, as musical because it was — and it was a day that noticed Creedence, the Small Faces, the Doorways and extra invoked or coated — all the things paled subsequent to the Toad Liquors’ one-last-set-for-the-Gipper. Eschewing the apparent selections (which might have been “Burn Down The Malls,” “Elvis Is In every single place,” “Debbie Gibson is Pregnant” and “Don Henley Should Die”) for a six-song set of the elegant, Pete “Wetdawg” Gordon” on keys, Mike “Wid” Middletone on drums and Matt “Earl B Freedom” Esky introduced it onerous.

If Useless Kennedys founder Jello Biafra dropping a full-on onerous nation lament, “Are You Drinkin’ with Me Jesus?,” wasn’t sufficient to shred the second, Outlaw Nation PD Jeremy Tepper fired up a slamming “UFOs, Huge Rigs & BBQ” that was hardcore, punching into the air above the group’s head. The unvarnished pummeling of each performances demonstrated it’s not the style, however the dedication, that outlined Nixon’s oeuvre.

In the end, it was the prepare wreckage and euphoria of “Tie My Pecker to My Leg,” the many-versed catalogue of familial perversions and delights, that outlined the night time. Arm-in-arm, choking on laughter, the Toad Liquors, Your Mother and Some Different Whore – as they have been billed – delighted within the lewdness that their pal lobbed with gusto. Realizing that this was the type of revelry that had outlined him, it was shouting, hooting and an viewers chanting alongside.

In that second, although now not truly flesh, maybe Nixon had crept again into “the constructing.” If his physique was gone, his spirit was robust, and clearly – like his Elvis-invoking novelty smash – contained in the collected tribe who’d flown throughout America to be there. Some had come for the legendary bands of a sure classic; to relive their coming of age when Nixon gave them permission and even cajole them to fly an excellent freakier flag. Others have been teenagers, twenty- and thirty-somethings looking for the identical frenetic chaos that had drawn Nixon to push any restrict that was urged as he fought any type of censorship that got here his means.

It was sweaty, ragged and loud. Folks have been drunk earlier than midday. Voices have been misplaced. Musicians have been reconnected and jammed. Tales have been advised. It was all the things he stood for, all the things he’d wished his final Mayhem to be. Whether or not it was foresight or plain luck, we must always all have a celebration of life that rocked as onerous as this one.