At South by Southwest, you don’t take a smoke break, you take a shooting break. When the line-ups and crowds on Sixth Street start to make you so agitated that you just want to open fire, the best thing to do is actually open fire — at Red’s Indoor Range, located 20 minutes outside of the downtown core in suburban Oak Hill. Unfortunately, the friendly hotel concierge who recommended this particular location to EYE WEEKLY neglected to tell us that all gun rentals require proof of US residence. Land of the free, my ass. (It should be noted that shooting guns is not usually on the top of my list of leisure activities, but then neither is eating sausage burritos every day for breakfast, and that counts as normal behaviour down here, too. SXSW does things to a man.)

So, despite a $50 return-trip cab ride, our bloodlust went unfulfilled. A big waste of time, sure — though no more so than watching Vampire Weekend.

High Places (Emo’s Jr., 12pm): With line-ups now routinely forming outside clubs at the break of noon, SXSW has become less about club-hopping than club-squatting. And fortunately, the annual Pitchfork party boasts a roster that brings you instantly up to speed on the last six months of web-buzzed bands, kinda like a real-life RSS feed. Contrary to popular belief, an 8.0+ rating from Pitchfork (full disclosure: I’m an occasional contributor) doesn't make every band's career, however, in the case of a fledgling act like Brooklyn duo High Places, it can ensure a full house for a noontime set. Ten years ago, turntables were touted as the new guitars; this year at SXSW, the new guitar appears to be a suitcase full of electronic effects boxes and synthetic drum pads tangled in a spaghetti of wires. But band member Robert Barber puts them all to good use, fashioning a pillowy bed of Konono-style Afrotronic grooves and carnivalistic Animal Collective chaos on which Mary Pearson’s lilting vocals rest — the sound of bygone ‘60s girl-group hits beaming through a static-soaked shortwave-radio transmission.

Lykke Li (Emo’s, 12:30pm): If High Places’ Pearson seeks sanctuary in her band’s sound-world, you get the sense that Swedish singer Lykke Li would be prancing about Emo’s singing a cappella if she had to. Which is to say she belongs on a stage — her Fiona Apple eyes are the first thing to grab your attention, but it’s her lovelorn lullabies that seize your heart, boasting the same seductive allure of fellow Scandinavian sirens Annie and Robyn, but with the icy electro veneer melted away.

White Williams (Emo’s Jr, 1pm): The New York electro-rock crusader’s debut LP, Smoke, hitches him to a venerable lineage of glam visionaries (Brian Eno, Sparks) however, on stage, that irreverent spirit seems more difficult to transmit — instead of playing to the crowd, White mostly sings to his side, safely ensconced behind his keyboards.

Jay Reatard (Emo's, 1:30pm): This is actually my second time seeing the ’Tard this week, but you can never have enough of the Memphis miscreant: his 15-minute sets — the buzzsaw blur of Wire’s Pink Flag, as covered by Motorhead — all but ensure that. But when you consider what Jay Reatard leaves out — stage banter, tuning breaks, stoppages of any kind— no one’s getting ripped off.

Fuck Buttons (Emo’s Jr., 2pm): Never mind trip-hop; Bristol avant-tronica duo Fuck Buttons are all about the trip — a deeply, deeply unsettling trip where deceptively gentle drones yield to blood-curdling screams, re-purposing their Fisher Price microphone set into a direct line to Satan. Meet the Unholy Fuck.

Fanfarlo (Fader Fort, 5pm): After the previously mentioned foiled shooting-range excursion, British indie-pop ensemble Fanfarlo are about as far away as one can get from Texan gun culture: cheery, charming and ineffably polite. Clap your hands, say, “yes please.”

Working for a Nuclear Free City (Fader Fort, 5pm): Broad daylight and a lack of strobe lights prevented these rave-rockers from achieving a full-on recreation of the Hacienda’s halcyon days, but their resurrected “I Am the Resurrection” grooves were potent enough for the audience to demand a last song that was denied by schedule-watching stage hands, resulting in more than a few disappointed 24-minute party people.

Santogold (Stubb’s, 9pm): Searching Santogold on Google yields over 300,000 hits; searching “Santogold + M.I.A.” yields over 167,000 of them — which offers but a microcosm of how the New York singer (formerly the singer of pop-punk also-rans Stiffed and a one-time Sony A&R rep) is being positioned. Hiring M.I.A.’s former go-to guy, Diplo, to drop her beats won’t dissuade the inevitable comparisons, but in her early evening Stubb’s slot, Ms Santo distinguished herself through the flexibility of her voice, which could you could imagine just as easily wrapping itself around a roots-reggae classic like Althea & Donna’s “Uptown Top Ranking” as the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps.” And instead of the percussive abrasion favoured by M.I.A., Diplo’s Santo productions put the synths on simmer — less in your face, more below the belt. However even with a pair of rigorous back-up dancers (who bust moves without ever breaking their stern-faced expressions — sorta like her own S1W crew), Santo’s set is still a work-in-progress. And, being a former music-industry flack, she’s the first one to note it; after introducing a new song, she cuts it short, acknowledging an energy dip in the crowd. You can take the girl out of A&R…

Pissed Jeans (Bourbon Rocks patio, 9:30pm): Recent articles commemorating Sub Pop's 20th anniversary have dwelled on the fact that the Seattle label is no longer just known for being Nirvana’s first sugar daddy, and that recent, big-selling releases by The Shins, Postal Service and Iron and Wine are the label’s real moneymakers. Conspicuously absent from discussion of the label’s good fortune are South Carolina foursome Pissed Jeans — and god love ’em for that. Drawing from a storied tradition of anti-social punk-rock bands with fearsomely unhinged frontmen (The Stooges, The Birthday Party, The Jesus Lizard), Pissed Jeans will never be featured on the soundtrack to a teen soap, will never score an iPod commercial and will be lucky to sell 5,000 albums. You know, like indie-rock bands used to be.

X (Bat Bar, 10pm): There’s barely anyone under the age of 35 here (save perhaps for Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox), suggesting that the legacy of these recently reunited LA punk legends belongs more to a time capsule than the here and now. But if that’s the case then nobody told X, who rip through this TV-taped set with an impressive vitality, John Doe and Exene Cervenka’s signature harmonies still carrying a discordant edge that sounds like nothing else in rock ’n’ roll. And, as my colleague Dave Morris noted, the rape ‘n’ roll rave-up “Johnny Hit and Run Pauline” is still the creepiest song ever, not just because of the way it hitches its horrifying sexual-assault narrative to a cheery Chuck Berry riff, but for the shit-eating smirk that’s still splashed across guitarist Billy Zoom’s face after 30 years.

Born Ruffians (Ninety Proof Lounge, 11pm): The Toronto trio played their third and last SXSW showcase in an inauspicious venue — a sleek cocktail lounge with a small corner stage — but as drummer Steve Hamelin quipped, the open window-front made them feel like they were one MuchMusic. The hyperactive Ruffians are still probably a few Ritalin shots away from making it to MuchOnDemand, but tonight’s run-through of their recent Red Yellow Blue debut posits a much more powerful band than their winsome on-record persona suggests, climaxing with a late-set, seamless double shot of “Kurt Vonnegut” and “Hummingbird” that displays a keen knowledge of proper setlist science. Also: lots of dancing girls up front — always a good sign.

Health (Flamingo Cantina, 12:20am): There’s a palpable sense of anticipation in this cramped courtyard, intensified by a prolonged set-up to facilitate multiple drum sets, bass and guitar amps, and the de rigeur multitude of effects pedals. But the sonic particulars became a moot point once the L.A. quartet hurtles themselves (quite literally) into their set, turning in a fiercely physical performance — with the guys not so much dancing as convulsing — that stays true to the Black Dice/Boredoms school of electro-skronk therapy. (At times, the guitarist appeared to be singing actual melodies, but that was the one element of the mix that my earplugs effectively submerged.) With any luck, their upcoming Toronto appearance March 28 with Crystal Castles will end in tears, or a club evacuation.

Robyn (Pangea, 1am): So there is justice in this world — as the scene outside of Pangea proves, Perez Hilton still has to wait in line at SXSW just like the rest of us. But if his presence prefigures a mainstream breakthrough for the Swedish teen-idol-turned-blog-buzzed-electro-queen, she’s primed for it, rolling out signature tracks “Who’s that Girl” and “Konichiwa Bitches” early, and dropping in bits of Salt N Pepa’s “Push It” and Snoop’s “Sensual Seduction” as aperitifs. (And just to prove she means business, Robyn's even got her own floor tom to beat the shit out of.) However, it would probably be a good idea to place her voice higher in the mix than her pre-taped backing harmonies.

Constantines (Antone’s, 1:30am): The Toronto quartet (or, make that Toronto/Montreal, given Bry Webb and Steve Lambke’s recent relocation to the latter) were faced with one of the more thankless timeslots of the festival, going on after the more buzzed Vampire Weekend, leaving them to play a half-full room comprised mostly of Canadian well-wishers (including members of Blue Rodeo and The Weakerthans). In turn, the Cons honoured the faithful, downplaying new release Kensington Heights in favour of old standards “Arizona” and “Justice,” and finishing off with a cover of AC/DC’s “Thunderstuck” that fell firmly in the Cons tradition of transforming rock ‘n’ roll cliché into righteous expression. So even if our day began with a rejection at the shooting range, in the end we got our “thunder of guns.”