You’ll have to forgive me, dear reader, for treating this SXSW blog a bit like a diary. I hope it gives you a sense of what things are like here in Austin. But really, I hope that it saves me some fretting over form and presentation. There’s a ton going on here, and it doesn’t leave much time for blogging. But blog I will. All times are approximate, all experiences are the best I can remember them under the circumstances.
Wednesday
6 am
I’m on a plane half-filled with the women’s lacrosse team from the University of North Carolina, who wear matching baby blue hoodies and sweatpants with the team logo emblazoned on them. They travel coach, and the question keeps coming up: “How did you do?”
“Well, pretty good, we won 14-9.”
It strikes me that very few people, even sports fans, follow women’s lacrosse. The likelihood of any of these passengers giving a shit is very slim. But I must hear the question a dozen times. It’s often followed by a diminutive “good for you!”
I’m hung over, and I pity the North Carolina player who waited in line for the bathroom behind me. I mostly just needed a little quiet time.
So yeah, I decided it would be best not to sleep last night and, instead, hang out with the boys from Leicester, UK’s Pacific Ocean Fire before heading to Austin for SXSW. It turned out to be a really good and really horrible idea.
Noon
Houston airport, where it becomes evident that about 10% of my first flight is headed to Austin with me—the stylish ones, mostly. We bid farewell to the Lady Tar Heels with plenty of “good luck” wishes and a final “How’d you do?”
The crowd for the 1:30 pm flight looks like the crowd at a Yo La Tengo show (complete with a middle-aged guy in a suit, who rides first class). I spot a handful of British accents and a couple speaking in German.
I have enough time to grab a Charley’s sub, which is grilled and delicious and the woman behind the counter calls me “darlin’” with a Texas drawl. Then the guy in line after me says “If y’all got any ah them halleeepeeenyos, throw ‘em on there.” It’s the highlight of my day, and almost as pleasing as the buffalo chicken sub, which cements the alcohol in my system pretty well, readying me for another flight.
2:30 pm
Everyone is taking cabs into Austin, which I’ve been told in advance is a mistake, and besides I really don’t have a budget. I grab the 50 cent bus, and it takes me exactly where I need to go. The girl sitting next to me is studying environmental studies at the university, and says her own mom calls her a tree-hugger. She also says, very sweetly, that Austin is “really diverse” and adds that she “really didn’t like that” when she first got to town. I glance around at the brown faces taking up the rest of the bus, and no one even gives her a look. “I love it,” I reply loudly.
3:30 pm
I thought I understood what a big deal SXSW was, but I didn’t. The check-in area has about a dozen desks in which bands, writers and the like pick up their photo passes. They pull this off in slick fashion. My photo looks stretched and ridiculous, which I think makes my real-life face look all the more attractive.
Outside, the downtown streets are already teeming with hip haircuts and ironic T-shirts (2008, ironic T-shirt is still in fashion). There are street performers on almost every block, and music pours out of almost every door. I know Austin isn’t like this year-round, but the number of venues here is still staggering, especially because of their close proximity to one another. Imagine the corner of 2nd and Burnside stretched out to about twelve blocks. That’s what downtown Austin feels like. And it’s really pretty neat.
4:00 pm
I run into an L.A. musician I know, Ari Shine, and he lets me know that one of my best friends from my early college days, Mr. Brady Wills, is in the nearby Hilton. I had no idea, and it makes my day. I’m sure I’ll introduce you later. He’s a crazy dude, obsessed with Elvis and Back to the Future. Brady and I talk about his sitcom pilot ideas (”668, Neighbor of the Beast” and “The Mighty Seamen” among them) and catch up. I’ll try to properly introduce you later, but here’s his picture:
6:00 pm
Brady and I try to go see Van Morisson, but the line literally wraps around the block in both directions. We split up and I get in line. A woman walks by and says “no cameras, turn all phones off at the door.” I understand, Van is a bit sensitive about his appearance. He’s never been a good looking guy, really. I bury my camera at the bottom of my bag, which has everything—everything—in it, and is already starting to drive me crazy.
Inside, Van is just being introduced as I make my way towards the front of the stage. It’s under a huge tent at La Zona Rosa in West Austin. Van launches into “….” By that I mean he launches into some new song. It’s a very jazzy number, and he picks up the saxophone midway through.
Van Morrison is a pimp. Let’s get that out of the way. He’s recorded some of my favorite shit ever (a lot of it on the T.B. Sheets and Astral Weeks albums), none of which was performed this evening, but whatever. His voice was still intact and he’d do an occasional kick or power harnessing elbow drop (sending his massive jowls swaying to and fro), to which the band would react with a kick drum or a jolt of B-3 organ.
But dude, what an asshole! Seriously! First off, his two mic-stands and microphones were gold (far be it from Van to rock the traditional silver), with his initials in big bling attached to the stands. Then he reacted to a song request with an immediate “Fuck Off!” which, if nothing else, kept the crowd from trying any more requests. And he never introduced his band, let alone gave them any feedback. He stood there like a bad band teacher and stared them down while they did solos. The last straw for me was noticing his T-shirts, all priced $35-$50 with a half-assed bullshit logo and the name of his forthcoming album emblazoned on them. I took one last look at Van and headed out, muttering “you Tammy Faye Baker motherfucker” under my breath.
Later in the evening I ran into Astronautalis, a fantastic MC/songwriter from Florida (recently relocated to Seattle), who saw all the things I saw—in fact he even waited for an autograph, only to watch Morrison ushered into his ride by overprotective handlers. But he still came away with it with stoked.
8:15 pm
Portland’s the Upsidedown is supposed to be playing, but they’re standing around on a gigantic stage with some long-forgotten Bush song blasting via an out-of-range FM station through the Cedar Door’s outdoor P.A. The scene is sad, with about 20 people (volunteers and employees counted among them) standing around and waiting for the show. A lot of the “showcases” at SXSW seem sad. There’s so much to see that no one is taking chances on small potatoes groups playing coffee shops and dive bars. This isn’t one of those—it’s an official stage and there are a couple fans talking to the band’s bassist, who is stunning and wearing a low-cut top. Don’t know if that’s the reason they were talking to her, they might have been really into the band, but it looked suspicious. The whole band is good-looking, really. Not particularly Portland-looking, whatever that is.
It’s 8:45 pm when the Upsidedown finally gets started with a fuzzy modal, instrumental banger that brings a few dozen people out of the nearby Mexican joint and into the crowd. I’m impressed. Weird seeing a band for the first time so far away from our mutual home.
The second song starts and the lyric is something about “letting the love go to your head,” something like that. It’s delicate and breathy and I can’t stand it. A well-timed phone call pulls me out to the street.
9:15 pm
A bartender outside the Pure Volume party introduces herself and offers me a cigarette. I’m really blown away at how nice people in Austin are so far. I don’t even smoke! We talk for a minute and I meet up with my friend Amy Sly, a photographer and designer from New York City (all the widescreen photos in this blog are hers), and Ryan Light (pictured below), the dude we’re staying with tonight and the best host ever.
You can get two free drinks at once at this party, so you can imagine how the next hour or two breezes by.
10:30 pm
Tacos with Amy, which would make it all worth it if I never saw a single band.
11:00 pm
A long walk through Austin’s downtown, through some of its warehouses and train yards and a vacant lot, leads me to the Scoot Inn, where new Portland import Josh Martinez is about to take the stage. First up is Brooklyn’s APSI, though, and he’s controlling the music with a Nintendo Wii. Color me impressed!
Sleep, a longtime Portland MC whom you know if you know anything about Portland hip-hop and Oldominion, joins Martinez on stage (the two moonlight as Chicharones), and they cut shit up. The two are hilarious and skilled to boot. Martinez does plenty of dancing, this move being a staple of his repertoire:
josh martinez and sleep at sxsw 1 from localcut on Vimeo.
I’m extra happy when they do “Eye of the Tiger” karaoke style. Neither Sleep nor Martinez wants to be seen as funny all the time, and there’s plenty of meat in the set. They don’t come out so well with my little camera microphone, but here’s Martinez doin’ some preaching:
sleep and josh martinez sxsw 2 from localcut on Vimeo.
Afterwards I introduce myself to Sleep (who I’ve only talked to over the phone), who has got to be the nicest rapper I’ve ever met (and I’ve met some really nice ones). We hang out for a long while (enter: Astronautalis) and wind up doing this interview after the venue closes up.
sleep and josh martinez: the interview from localcut on Vimeo.
More photos from the show:
3:00 am
Walking through Austin at night, you hear birds. Tons of birds. A wall of chirps and squeaks and splashes from the bird shit (I’ve already been hit, right after cursing Van Morrison). I’m guessing they are starlings, because that fits the stories I’ve heard about starlings—two of the best tellings can be found here and here. It’s nuts. I took some video, the quality of which is not great. But you’ll get the idea:
[UPDATE: I have been informed that they are not starlings. I forget what they are called. Sorry.]
3:30 am
We head to get more Mexican food at La Mexicana Bakery. The kid behind the counter asks what I want, and makes a reference to my “groupies.” Or at least I think he does. I’m pretty drunk. This place is fantastic, but I forget to photograph our food before I eat it. Damn.
4:15 am-ish
I’m having a terrible time keeping track of time here, what between a half-broken phone and a misleading computer. But I know it’s bedtime, so I lay out on a sleeping bag on Ryan’s floor, his cat visiting occasionally. I don’t know how many times I’ve said “I love Texas!” in disbelief in my first day in Austin. Of course, they say Austin is sort of an Oasis in conservative, bigger-than-life Texas. All I know is I’ve been well received in a town that has every reason to be damn sick of music writers this time of year. We’ll see if that good spirit sticks with me tomorrow…I mean today.
Photos by me and Amy Sly.
Bonus Photos: March Fourth Marching band sticker, Austin Graffiti, The Streets.
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