GOP's Kristin Gundred / Photo by Melissa Goldstein

San Francisco's Birds and Batteries played the Bay Area Takeover showcase Thursday morning at the Beauty Bar, with the quintet peppering their setlist with B&B's finest, among them aching electro-country anti-lullabye "Never Sleep Again." After frontman Mike Sempert issued the obligatory "We're real happy to be here," a neighboring band took it as their cue to make him regret the statement -- starting an inconveniently timed, extraordinarily loud set from the venue next door. Not one to let the takeover theme go to waste, B&B responded with a competitively volumed-up rendition of "Ocarina."

Riddle me this SXSW: who crinkles her nose like Samantha on Bewitched, looks and sounds like Karen O's little sis, and knocks a crowd over without ever standing up? That'd be Grand Ole Party's drummer-cum-vocalist Kristin Gundred. Sipping tea between songs and flanked by guitarist John Paul Labno and bassist Mike Krechnyak, Gundred sweetly snarled through set highlight "Insane," offering a badass piece of live-in-the-now lyrical advice to the Levi's Fader Fort afternoon audience: "We are all going to die here, might as well say goodbye dear."

Birds and Batteries / Photo by Melissa Goldstein