SXSW 09: the recap

My ears are ringing, my feet hurt, and I'm kind of miserable being at work right now, but this week was a huge success. I ended up seeing 47 bands and Eugene Mirman this week. I saw a couple of bands more than once; The Calm Blue Sea (3 times), Marnie Stern (2 times) and HEALTH (2 times). The best things I saw all week were (in no particular order) Caspian at Red Seven last night, Marnie Stern at Club Deville on Wednesday, The Wrens at Mohawk on Friday, The Paper Chase at Club Deville on Wednesday, King Khan and the Shrines at Bird's Barbershop on Thursday, Here We Go Magic at Mohawk on Wednesday, HEALTH at Ace's Lounge on Thursday, and Irepress at Red Seven last night. The worst thing I saw all week was unfortunately Explosions in the Sky on Saturday night at Auditorium Shores and it wasn't their fault at all. They were playing a HUGE free show in front of what has been estimated as 10-20,000 people and the sound was dogshit. The overhead mics on the drums were nonexistent, the guitars were absent from the PA most of the time, and everytime they got really loud the PA would just cut out. I wanted to cry. It was the bands biggest show of all time, the setting was perfect, it should have been amazing, but the sound system couldn't handle it and it just crushed me.

I'm definitely never going to an event at "The Pure Volume House" again as the open bar couldn't make up for the ridiculously slow moving lines, overzealous security and general piss poor-ness of their setup.

I went to this show at a tiny little bar on the east side called Ms Beas that was put on by Todd P, the NYC promoter. The show was very unorganized in a purposely unorganized and DIY to make us look cool kind of way and Todd P came off as a huge prick the whole time. It was cool seeing Marnie Stern and HEALTH there in such a small venue, but the sound was shit and it felt just like I was living the Human Giant video at Other Music where Aziz talks about Devendra Banhart playing a show in a dumpster in east Chelsea like it was the coolest show of the year. This is what this felt like, a bunch of ultra hip people looking flat out ridiculous standing in a parking lot and listening to bands on a shitty PA and thinking its the best thing ever. Lo-fi is great if that's what you are going for, but 99% of bands only sound better when they are playing through an adequate PA on an adequate stage. /end rant. Overall, the weather was great, the beer was cold, the music was ample and loud, and I saw a ton of friends I don't get to see all the time. Oh, and also, I met Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) and I totally geeked out. She was really nice and is tiny as hell. It's over, I had a blast, everyone should experience SXSW at least once. It's pretty hard to beat.

follow cwalken

Admission: I use Twitter.
But today is the first time I've actually been excited about it cause I found out Christopher Walken has an account.


I don't know if it's really him or not, but it's amusing enough to make me smile.

SXSW 09....it begins

SXSW Music officially starts tomorrow. I have worked an insane amount the past two weeks so that I could take the entire length of SXSW Music off from work and I finished that up 3 hrs ago. I am now drinking a Lone Star Tallboy and am giddily planning out my first day of shows. Truth be told, this shit started on Saturday night and I have already been to two parties and seen 8 bands, including Evangelicals last night at the Decider party at Mohawk who just kicked the hell out of me with their show. I loved them. If I don't leave SXSW 09 with them in my top two or three shows, I will be seeing some amazing shows this week, because they were phenomenal last night. So loud and so so entertaining. Their bass player played all of these crazy ass Peter Hook-ish lines and was a real treat to watch. My sister, who flew in from NYC for the week, commented that all he did was rip the bass and sing ooo-ooo-ooo from time to time. Highly recommended if you get the chance to check them out. Tomorrow I have M. Ward, Port O'Brien, Tallest Man On Earth, Megafaun, Evangelicals (again), King Khan & The BBQ Show, The Drones, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, The Thermals (really excited to see them), Wavves, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Vetiver, The Mae Shi, Here We Go Magic, Marnie Stern, Abe Vigoda, and Lovvers all on my radar. Obviously I won't get to see all of them, but I'm sure I'll catch the majority of tthem, plus a ton more this week. I've already started posting some shit about what I've seen so far over at my blog. I'll attempt to continue doing so the rest of the week if anyone wants to keep up. Any recommendations? Tips on who not to waste my time seeing? I'm so excited!!!

tarana

first i thought you all might be interested in seeing an awesome picture of some awesome dudes.

and um the other thing is i got into graduate school at the University of Toronto so i guess i'll be movin there....i'm all kinds of excited and nervous.

The locals

A local music blog here in Austin puts out this sampler CD every year before SXSW to showcase some of the local bands who are playing the festival. It's a decent snapshot of a couple of the more popular local bands right now in Austin. The blog is called Austin Sound, and the Sampler can be downloaded here. Of the bands on the sampler, the ones that I really like are The Eastern Sea, Sunset, Ume, The Boxing Lesson, and The Great Nostalgic. I haven't listened to this whole thing yet so I don't know how high quality or recent these tracks are so the awesomeness that is these listed bands in a live setting may not translate perfectly. What can you do. Anyway, whilst on the topic of local bands and SXSW and whatnot, my roommates band is playing a bunch of shows and it just occured to me that I don't think I ever linked to their finished LP (which I think is really fantastic) on here. I think i may have linked to some of their demos back in the day, but can't be sure of that. The band's called The Calm Blue Sea and you can dl their album here. They get compared to Explosions in the Sky a lot. I'm sure you'll be able to hear why. I'm working an insane amount of hours over the next 6 days in order to be 100% off for all 4 days of SXSW Music and that Sunday as well. It's going to be killer, but I am so excited. The Wrens are playing a couple of shows and Caspian is playing and Dead Confederate is playing and I've RSVPed to 8million parties and shows and goddammit I wish it was Wednesday already.

mostly for lesusie

i think most of you don't apply but feel free to throw in 2 cents

sus before indie and later 90's scene
were you into jane's or nin?
or cure, depeche mode,
siouxie and the banshees

there's a lot of reunioness from
that time period going on
i just started listening to
ritual de lo habitual again
i forgot how much i really loved
that album
it's kinda of a weird gap in time
when alternative music went from
heavy metal to alternative to now
these indie outlets

i don't know
i went to a beer fest this weekend
was drinking a lot of 10 percent beers
and got 3 shots of a 19 percent beer
i'm surprised i didn't end up in jail

went to a spring training game today
angels and a's
such nice weather right now