SXSW Profiles

Jean Caffeine, Empanada Parlour, 9pm

It doesn't matter that Jean Caffeine has just turned 40. "I wanna rock now more than ever," she proclaims adamantly. "At this age, you get less self-conscious about what people think about you, and I find that gives me a lot of freedom."

Caffeine's last release, Knocked Down 7 Times, Got Up 8, near the top of every local critic's Best Of for 1997, found the longtime local musician moving away from the country-tinged music she had been associated with, and into a decidedly Stones/Faces rock 'n' blues direction, done with an attitude that was both angry and smart.

Preparing for the release of its long-awaited follow-up, tentatively titled Idee Fixe, Caffeine says she's headed in an even more modern rock sound. Where Knocked Down was about passion and physical things, Idee Fixe is about the mind and working things out. According to Caffeine, the title is French for a "fixed idea," a repeated thought or obsession.

"My mother always said that to me, 'My brain can get really stuck like that,'" she explains. "I use music as therapy. It helps me in the middle of those dark nights when I brood -- when I fixate on something."

Produced with the assistance of Lars Goransson and featuring guest appearances by Scrappy Jud Newcomb and Fastball's Miles Zuniga, Idee Fixe may get Caffeine some of the attention she deserves. The way she looks at it, though, fame and admiration is not really an important part of the process.

"This record is about really my own desperation, but in the making of it there was so little desperation," says Caffeine. "I find the process like painting; you add one layer at a time. I take my time and eventually I have a finished product. Besides, Lars is the master of Pro Tools, so this record sounds better than anything I've ever done."

Caffeine started out a middle-class Jewish punk rocker from San Francisco. Then she moved to Texas and started singing Johnny Horton's "Ole Slewfoot" in country bars. Now there's a "real" job (schoolteacher), a house, a car, and a lot of, as she puts it "American debt." She's a grown-up. Grown-ups get to deal with things like anger, obsession, and desperation. Still, she possesses a childlike charm.

"Can you get Patti Smith to come to my gig? Tell her I'm a member of her fan club."