Three's not a crowd for Ogden's Porch Pounders

AUSTIN, Texas - The Legendary Porch Pounders hail from Ogden, but they are making themselves at home, deep in the heart of Texas.

The band is the only Utah group playing at the South By Southwest Music Conference and is just one of more than 1,300 acts performing during the four-day jam. Thursday night, the country-blues duo delivered a set for a modest crowd of several dozen people that showed that Texas and Utah aren't that far apart, at least musically.

The Pounders - guitarist/singer Dan Weldon and harmonica ace Brad Wheeler - already had a link to the so-called "live-music capital of the world" before their showcase here at the Hard Rock Cafe. Austin-based guitar legend Bill Kirchen, the man who gave the duo its name after playing with them at a Sun Valley arts festival last summer, sat in with Weldon and Wheeler for the 50-minute porch-poundin' joyride.

Not that the Pounders needed help. The combination of Weldon's down-home songs, his crafty guitar work and Wheeler's blues-fueled wailing is a crowd-pleaser. But adding a player of Kirchen's caliber turns the performance up a notch. Or, as happened several times Thursday, it becomes magical.

Wheeler knew it - he took off his hat several times to wave it at Kirchen's hands, trying to cool his fleet fingers before they combusted on his fret board. Kirchen felt it, too, describing why he likes playing with two Ogden cats.

"I don't ever get to play with anyone like them because there aren't any people like them. They're unique," he said. "And I love playing with people who love music, you know?"

Wheeler spent the better part of his 36 hours in Austin before the show posting stickers advertising the gig and hitting some shows, including a blues showcase where he met Elvis Costello (who plays Salt Lake City's Kingsbury Hall on Sunday). While that was a highlight of the trip for him, playing with Kirchen tops his list.

"I love playing with Bill," Wheeler said. "We threw him a couple of curve balls, but there's just so much going on, it just happens."

The Porch Pounders' live audience members were not the only people to hear their music. Weldon attended a songwriting workshop at SXSW (one of 10 musicians chosen from 70 applicants across the country and beyond). "They like the music," Weldon said. "That's all they could really say. They like the music."

More notable moments from SXSW:

A Taste of Home: On Wednesday, the doorman at Emo's, one of Austin's biggest live music venues, was sporting a T-shirt from Salt Lake City's own Heavy Metal Shop.

Another taste: Austin residents vote in May on a smoking ban for bars and restaurants, much like the one proposed for Salt Lake City during the recent legislative session. Austin's debate is a bit more confrontational. A newspaper ad run by the pro-smoking crowd states: "No smoking? It's a bar, Stupid . . . Save live music!”

Third taste: Only at SXSW can you walk down a street looking for a place to buy a bottle of water and run into Cracker (who visited Park City three weeks ago), playing two-guitar roots rock on a street corner.