Details May 2001 By: Barton Blasengame Austin Powered-The Black Crowes With a sonic boost from Led Zeppelin and a whole lotta love, The Black Crowes are flying high again. In Austin, Texas, a band called Fuck is shaking asbestos from the ceiling of the Red Eyed Fly. Down Sixth Street, the Urinals are playing to a crush of standing room only at the Buffalo Club. Just around the corner at the Empire, a collective of chain-smoking German hip-hoppers are torching vinyl like digital never happened. This is Day Three of South by Southwest, rock and roll's answer to Camp Hiawatha. Here, in the left ventricle of the big, burly, heart of Texas, ratty gypsy caravans representing every musical subgenre imaginable have arrived for the annual festival, each one trying to hammer the hook that'll make the world spin a little faster-or at least earn them enough money for a flight back to whatever piss puddle they crawled out of. But the musty meatheads and sunburned frat boys snaking out of Stubb's BBQ down Red River Drive and around the corner to East Ninth aren't interested in new blood. IN the land of beer Koozie and dripping barbecue, folks love a sure thing-even when it's not necessarily the coolest thing-and the Black Crowes do not disappoint: Their greasy soul and playful cock-rock go down like icy bourbon on a South Plains summer day. Chris Robinson, fresh off a riotous sound check, surveys the social muscle. "It reminds me of the festivals we'd have in Little Five Points," the singer says. "Bands playing everywhere, everybody drink by 10 A.M. By the time it got dark, the skinheads starting kicking people's asses." He laughs. "That was back when Atlanta was fun." Six hours before showtime, there are no skinheads in sight. "Oh, the interview, it was going so well/Until my brother walked in the room/He sat down/He was angry." Chris Robinson has temporarily hijacked the tape recorder to sing "Rich Robinson's Lament"-an impromptu ditty about his guitar-playing brother, a man known for loathing anything not directly related to his Stratocaster of his wife and two kids. "Hey, Rich ," Chris cackles at his brother. "Why don't you ever smile?" "My face is paralyzed on the left side," Rich deadpans. "What's wrong with the other side?" Chris fires back. His baby brother just rumples his brow. For a second, all the bloody knuckles and tyrannical screaming matches that made the Robinsons Atlanta's answer to the Kinks seem like they're just an insult away in Stubb's dimly lit back room. But then Rich flashes that rare smile at his smartass brother. "Awww, fuck off," he demurs. Seventeen years after the brother's first gig as a neo-folkie duo in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and nearly twelve years after their formal debut as the Black Crowes, the sibling tension that nearly destroyed the band appears to have been kneaded out. These days it's good to be a Crowe. After a spotty two-album wallow through swampy psychedelia in the mid-nineties, the Crowes transcended their tie-dyed fan base with "By Your Side," a damn-near catchy blast of southern rawk that moved massive units. The Crowes followed their unexpected chart success by touring with former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, until a back injury forced Page to cancel the final month of dates. Now, for the first time since their sophomore album, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, debuted at No. 1, there's an air of anticipation surrounding the band's latest disc, Lions. "I'm curious to see how things go," Chris says agreeably, plopping a battered pair of laced clogs on a nearby table. "I mean, you can only get by so long on charm and talent." Any doubts about Robinson's charm ended on New Year's Eve, when the lanky singer plighted his troth to Oscar-nominated actress Kate Hudson. While you can thank Jimmy Page for Lions' ass- shakin' metal boogie, it's Hudson's love that gives the new CD its soft and gooey center. "It's the most profound thing to ever happen in my life," Robinson says like a dutiful husband. "She's the most incredibly soulful and talented woman I've ever met." The power-coupling has put the bullshit-wary singer in the unusual position of having to mingle with Hollywood's plastic jet set ("Most of them are dicks," he reveals) and make appearances at self-aggrandizing award shows. Chris insists that despite his paparazzi-pic captions as Mr. Kate Hudson, there will be no Tinseltown closet cleaning-he's sticking to his beat-to-shit thriftstore garb. "There's a fine line between being this hippie rock dude and becoming Molly Hatchet," Robinson explains. Besides, Robinson and the Crowes have their own second honeymoon planned for this summer. After a brief stint of solo dates, the group will team up with Oasis, joining Britain's battling Gallagher brothers-Liam and Noel-for the "Tour of Brotherly Love," a tongue-in-cheek nod to both clans' feud-fueled past. Shows in L.A. and New York have already sold out, but certain questions remain: Will the crowds be lining up to hear power chords, or are they just hoping for a little onstage fratricide? "I don't understand the idea of spending money to see if something goes bad," Robinson says, his quickly overheating verbal engines calmed by the arrival of a pinkie-thick joint. "I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. I can watch things go bad from my home every Sunday." The Austin stars tonight are indeed big and bright-or is that just the mirror ball over the stage? It's hard to tell as the sweet stink of ganja engulfs the crowd. Just past midnight, the Crowes hit the stage to a burst-eardrum's worth of screams. Rich plows in to the feedback caterwaul of their new song "Midnight From the Inside Out," and Chris begins to shimmy, a raggedy pipestem bathed in purple light. Above the stage, a likeness of Stubb himself-a black, Depression-era farmer-smiles down on the proceedings, and I remember something Chris said earlier that day" "Music is the most wonderful and incredible experience on so many different levels. I don't think you can put a dollar sign on the way it feels." As the good gospel vibes of rock and roll wash over the crowd, it's hard to disagree.