Kevin Bronson on March 22nd, 2015

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Burgermania (Twin Peaks, the Meatbodies, the Parrots and more), Sun Club, Hinds, Makthaverskan, Mini Mansion, Of Verona

In a span of about seven years, Burger Records has rocketed from a niche business releasing cassette tapes to a full-blown movement, known for its DIY ethos and its artists’ back-to-basics punk, pop and psych-rock. The label was the cover story in the February issue of SXSWorld magazine [flip to Page 16], the monthly glossy of South by Southwest, and as the 2015 festival slogged to a waterlogged finish on Saturday, there seemed no better place to find a rain-be-damned spirit than Burgermania.

Sure enough, the all-day event at the well-worn Hotel Vegas in East Austin — which featured a staggering 52 acts on four stages — was going full steam by mid-afternoon, its attendees dodging raindrops and the bands (to steal a country music line) kicking and a-gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer. (So sue me.) “This is our Woodstock ’94,” Burger co-founder Sean Bohrman said, surveying the muck.

Where else at SXSW can you see 13 bands in a little over three hours? Chicago’s Twin Peaks, L.A.’s the Meatbodies and WAND and Spain’s the Parrots proved to be highlights (honorable mention to Western Plaza guitarist Justin Jacobs**), and by 5:30 p.m. people had lined up down the block in a steady downpour with hopes of getting in.

It was equally squishy at the downtown-adjacent IFC Fairgrounds, where Baltimore’s Sun Club [top photo] got all spasmodic, and the rest of evening was spent battling long lines and spitting rain to check out some new foreign bands. Then my traditional SXSW-ender: Finding some L.A. people (in this case, Mini Mansions and Of Verona, playing back-to-back) and toasting another 85-hour workweek. Here goes:

I’m sure the IFC Fairgrounds — a one-block-square event in Palm Park with a hipster county fair vibe — seemed like a good idea at the time. The weather made a mess of it Saturday, when people were still buzzing Robert DeLong’s set on Friday and many pairs of shoes were ruined. If anything, though, it separated the lightweights from the true believers, and a healthy crowd turned out for spazz-punk quintet Sun Club (and X Ambassadors to follow). The Baltimoreans are one of those bands that seems to be commodifying apoplexy — with spikey synths and guitars, violent rhythms and howling vocals, they sent a few soggy people into a frenzy. And they made great faces, even better than Twin Peaks.

Later, it was off the British Embassy for Hinds, an all-female quartet from Madrid. “We’re from Spain, not Britain, but we feel like this is our house,” singer-guitarist Ana Garcia Perrote said, smiling and dimply. It was the last of Hinds’ 16 shows in Austin, and also bassist Ade Martin’s birthday; wrap that up with the quartet’s oh-so-lo-fi sound and retro-warbling vocals, and you have some serious pajama-party pop. Hinds are the kind of fun you like to have in small doses — in this case, “Bamboos.”

In the 11 o’clock hour, a realization: Makthaverskan is hard enough to say when you’re sober, let alone buzzed. And the young quintet from Gothenburg, Sweden, was most definitely buzzed. Having started their SXSW after-party before their festival was actually over, Makthaverskan was sloppy. Singer Maja Milner wobbled; she cajoled the band’s manager into coming onstage to play tambourine; and the drummer put on lipstick during the set. All in good fun. Still, you could hear something interesting in their music — imagine the Sugarcubes fronting New Order, with driving post-punk bass lines beneath shouted/caterwauled vocals.

Midnight. Mini Mansions. Not much I can say here that I didn’t say in January — except to remind that the trio’s album “The Great Pretenders” comes out this week. And at Buffalo Billiards, somebody unfamiliar asked me what they were like and I couldn’t think of anything except “really bad-ass pop.” Bad-assery, of course, being an asset.

At the end, it was electro-rock duo Of Verona, with Mandi Perkins’ vocals soaring over shimmering guitars and synths as a light show speckled the stage. Hey, SXSW, stay gold.

** Corrected: An earlier version of this post identified bassist Matt Hartsfield as the guitarist.