SXSW: Day 2

My Tuesday of South By Southwest was a decidedly less commercial affair. Instead of going to the 'Instagram-athon' (which I'm not sure existed, but why not?) we (Renée, Emily, Henry, and myself) headed out, in Henry's car, deep into the East Side for, first, a house show, and second a show at a venue that might have seemed like a house show, save for the multiple stages and the fact that beer was being sold, rather than given away.
Being the relative Austin noob that I was I had not gone to many house shows. I stress the word "house" here because, there are no basement shows in Texas. Cuz there ain't no basements! Apparently the soil under Austin is more rock than actual soil, so basements can't be dug. And thus, you get shows in living rooms!
This particular house show had a space theme and a free keg (our main motivation for starting our evening there) and a lot of post-rock-ish bands. The space theme seemed to only extend to some walls covered in black tape, some planet shaped objects hanging around, and some facts about space written out on index cards and taped around the walls.
The keg was nearly kicked by the time we arrived, so naturally a relatively hasty exit was made. On to Club 1808 and on to a string of surreal events greater than possibly any night that week.
The East Side of Austin is known for its low rent, its "sketchiness," and, as usually goes tandem with these two qualities,  its underground music and art scene. Low rent= poor artists. When I would visit the East Side it would primarily be to the bars on East 6th Street, the hipper analogue to main 6th Street, which is the Bro and Bro-ette Central Clubbing Scene of Austin. I say this to drive home the fact that I was entirely unfamiliar with the part of East Austin we were heading to, as well as unprepared.
Almost immediately after exiting the car, parked not far from but not right next to Club 1808, a group of rather sketchy people approached us, asking for change or, it seemed, someone to talk to.  One gentleman who remains firmly planted in my memory, had less teeth than fingers, was holding a blanket, and kept excitedly asking us if we were there for "South by South East." It was then that I realized how much we differed in looks from just about everyone on the street, and thus how easy it was to spot someone who was coming or going from the show. A lot of  big words like "gentrification" kept coming to mind, and I knew I felt uncomfortable, but I was and am unsure if I was just being dramatic. I kept thinking, what goes on at this place when its not SXSW?
No answers were to be found inside the club- its entire functionality, that night at least, seemed to be owed to whomever was putting on the show. In fact, the only guy who seemed to work at the club year round checked our IDs hurriedly well after we had left the area that was serving alcohol.
There were a few stages to Club 1808, and for awhile no very compelling band was playing on any one of them. There was an important realization a little ways in that, thanks to the ample backyard area, and general lax attitude that Club 1808 seemed to have about just about everything, beers could be bought at the gas station across the street, and transported inside! A name dropping girl in tiny glasses claimed to know Renée's high school friend Sam, of the band Friends, "foreverrrrrrr," to the only person in the room that could prove her wrong. I slowly began to notice a couple guys around that I recognized, and slowly realized they were Hyena, and had played in the basement of The Wedge when I lived there. I watched their set but, because I couldn't figure out where the conversation would go after the initial "hey I know you because...", I couldn't bring myself to say hello.
The main reason Henry, Renée, Emily, and I went to this show was to see Dustin Wong. The guitarist formally from both Ponytail and Ecstatic Sunshine, Wong's solo recordings are solo guitar looped over and over itself using a variety of pedals that, live, he arranges in a charming color conscience semi-circle. Here's a video so you can get an idea:

Yours Truly Presents: Dustin Wong from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

That video is all well and good, but seeing the man live was truly an experience. He basically played all of his new album "Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads" for us, though I didn't know that at the time, and it blew my mind. I am certainly a guy that can appreciate some good tension and release and the way each track transitioned into each other was so masterfully done and at times downright beatific. I didn't get to tell him until later in the week that it was my favorite performance of all of SXSW, but when I did, I meant it.
After Dustin Wong we caught EAR PWR. They are a three piece band with a vocalist, one heavy working drummer, and one guy on the sort of vintage space rock sounding synths that Zombi employ relentlessly. They would actually sound a lot like Zombi, if not for Sarah Reynolds. Under 5 feet tall with a badass blonde bowl cut, Reynolds thrashed and yelled around the floor with the force of many twice her size.
I didn't think EAR PWR were anything extraordinary, but they were a fun surprise all the same. It also gave the opportunity to see 2 hippies grinding on each other, causing the guy hippie to get a very visible erection in those why-aren't-they-called-pajama-pants pants that hippies are so fond of.
Questions, according to my notebook, I was left with after our time at Club 1808:
-Is AnCo the band that inspires the most new bands today?
-If so, does that make them our Velvet Underground?
-When it comes right down to it, how different are Avey Tare and Lou Reed?
-When will mustaches go away?


At some point during all this Emily and Renée took these pictures of themselves, incidentally the only documentation of the night. They really sum it all up, I'd say.

SXSW: Day 1

*

It should be noted that: 

A) Since it has been some time since all of this went, I am using notes and thoughts I would scribble down before bed every night in order to recall all of this. Some of these notes are nigh on impenetrable thanks to either lack of sleep, lack of proper fluids, or an excess of improper fluids.

B) I am very much NOT a photographer, and even the pictures, primarily the ones of bands, that I thought were going to come out pretty cool rarely did. This was due less to my using a disposable camera and more to being, at best, close enough to a band to be right behind the actual professional photographers that seemed omnipresent at every gig, not to mention my wayward thumbs. Still, some of them came out nicely, so don't judge too harshly, please.

*

After getting back from camping, and drinking some leftover keg beer that miraculously was still in our laundry room from a party earlier that weekend, Renée and I struck out for the bus stop and a ride downtown to a free official showcase at The Mohawk. That aforementioned keg beer caused me to have to jump off the bus in a bladder bursting panic well before our stop. Thankfully the woman at Quizno's seemed to notice that I was in no mood to be a paying customer and let me use the bathroom anyway.
Once we got to the Mohawk we had to wait in an enormous line, which at first was disheartening, but, as it turned out, only existed because the doors had not yet opened, so once they did it moved right along. And, notably, it was the only line I had to wait in the whole week!

The Line

Not in love with my look here, but Renée looks so serene!

I was most excited at this show to see Matthew Dear, as his records were a near constant soundtrack to my previous winter and spring. Before he went on though, were many other bands on three different stages!

Japandroids were a band I had heard a lot about for a few years, but I'd never bothered to pursue them because "earnest heartfelt two man rock and roll" is not really the sort of description that makes me snatch a record up. But, here lies the beauty of South by Southwest, I never would have gone out of my way to see Japandroids, but because they planned to play, according to the lead singer, a staggering ten shows in five days, I got to see them more than once. And, honestly, I was really impressed. They really seemed to mean it. And I was left impressed by this, their vindication, more than any of their actual songs. They played with an earnestness, power, and heart-on-the-sleeve emotion that I rarely see in the bands that I tend to want to see live. This was made even more impressive by the singer's announcement that they had landed in Austin only an hour before the show on a plane coming straight from Brazil, and had had "only two hours of sleep in the last two days."

Next, in another part of the club, was Bear In Heaven. I had given their album many a spin in the summer of 2011, but none of it had really stuck with me save the massive single "Lovesick Teenagers,"  whose synth tones and drum beat had enchanted me completely. I was able to catch them doing that song, which I was happy about, but overall their general aura really turned me off. In stark opposition to the Don't Give A Fuck Just Doing Our Thing baggy GnR t-shirt wearing vibe of Japandroids, these guys looked so calculated. Between stupid haircuts/mustaches and outfits that screamed Trying Too Hard, I really couldn't take them seriously. In fact, when I relayed to Henry that I had seen Bear In Heaven, his first and only question was "Oh, were they douchey?" Yeah, Henry, they were.

After BIH on the same stage was Matthew Dear, so I got a good position by the stage and waited. I was excited to see him fronting a band, because his two records that I was very into were recorded entirely by him, and at times sounded this way, so I was excited to see how the songs might work in a full band live setting. Unsurprisingly, they differed greatly, sometimes making them unrecognizable, save Dear's unmistakable baritone. Set opener "More Surgery," never really a favorite of mine on record, creeped in slowly and built for a long time before Dear began singing, and I finally figured out what song it was. Since seeing it live I have listened to its studio version many times, and have come to appreciate it quite a bit more, the live version highlighting its creepiness and it's bizarre lyrics about body modification as a way to self understanding. 

Dear had the feel of a guy maybe not quite used to being the frontman for a band yet, as for a lot of his career he has been a solo electronic artist/DJ. His band, all dressed in formal black and white, was tight, and he pulled some solid rock star moves throughout the set. Definitely the highlight of the night for me.

Goddamn these people and their heads.

An aspect of SXSW that began to become apparent in just that first night, and only increased during the week, was the absolute omnipresence of Social Media. There seemed to be literally no one, save Renée and I, who were not using a Smartphone for absolutely any possible reason. To turn around and survey the crowd at this, and indeed nearly any other SXSW even I attended, was to see a sea of heads turned downward, presumably blogging or tweeting or texting about what they were, at that very moment, experiencing. In fact, this entire showcase was Brought To Us By Tumblr, which I only noticed after a while of wondering why so much tumblr branded swag was around.

Here were whole crowds of people experiencing an event, but only taking it in through their own commentary on it. Which is, in a way, what I am doing right now. The difference, one I feel to be notable, is that all of these people were making their commentary as it was happening. Tweeting, tumbling, instagraming, all in place of just watching the spectacle in front of them, as if to provide concrete evidence that Yes, This Is Happening and Yes, I Am A Part Of It. I even finished my scribbled notebook entry for that night by asking "Am I even here without tumblr?"

The answer is obvious, but the experience was a strange one, and one I only thought about more and more as the week went on. 

More on this later.

South By Southwest: The Prequel

Fun Fun Fun Fest was....fun, but, although they were months apart, and very different, it still seemed only to be a preview for the infinitely more fun times I knew I was going to have months later at South By Southwest.
SXSW is easily the biggest musical event in Austin, and arguably the country, and being the unemployed bum that I was, I was able to take full advantage of it and wear myself out completely on nonstop free live music all around town. Now, obviously SXSW is not meant to be entirely free, and to see the more high profile acts (Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, Jack White, etc) without waiting in a line HOPING against hope that you might be allowed to pay to get in, you had to buy a pass that was something in the neighborhood of $700. And, as I said, I was very much unemployed, so that was very much out of the question. On advice from Austin and SXSW veteran Claire, and the Godsend that was Showlist Austin, and, again, all of the free time an unemployed lifestyle "affords," I was able to see just about every artist I wanted to see for free, usually during the day, but plenty at night as well. I was planning on going it alone again just as I did at FFF, but in a clever move by the city of Austin, all schools get the week of SXSW off for Spring Break, in an effort to keep the kids from leaving the city for it, and this meant Renée, Small Child Wizard, had the week off, so she could adventure with me!
The Sunday before South By Southwest Renée, our good friend Henry, and myself went camping for a night at Enchanted Rock, a beautiful spot a ways outside of Austin.We figured it would be a good time to try and "get away from it all" before Austin got crowded by what one person told me was the equivalent to the population to all of Vermont. (No confirmation of this, but it sure felt true.) We hiked and camped and watched the sunset and drank and played silly drinking games and had an all around great time. Texas can be damn beautiful. 

On to SXSW...

FUN FUN FUN FEST

Well, here I am in Burlington VT, sitting down to write about an experience that happened long enough ago that its already becoming hazy in my thoughts. See, I lived in Austin, TX for a little while. When people asked me exactly why I was planning to just up and move there, my stock responses ranged from "I'm tired of being cold!" to "Adventure!" But one reason, one that somehow seemed too arbitrary and silly to admit upfront (as if 'Running Away From Winter' was a very thought out and valid reason to move hundreds of miles away) was...Live Music!
One of the few facts I knew before moving to Austin was that it had more venues for live music than any other city in the country. Having only lived in North Stonington CT (a town whose only coffee shop literally fell into a river) and Burlington VT (a town where I can see quite a few basement shows, but a very small, though increasing, amount of marquee acts that I care about in the slightest)  the idea of being a place where the bands I love come to me seemed too good to be true.
But true it was! So true, in fact, that within a month of my being there there was a festival down by the water, in the hot November heat. It was called Fun Fun Fun Fest, and going to one of its related events in what became my favorite club in Austin, The Mohawk, to see Cold Cave and Glass Candy, and subsequently smoking my first  pot in Austin, convinced me that live music is amazing, and spending the money on one day of FFF Fest, especially the day with tUnE-yArDs and M83, was totally worth it.
I could not convince anyone else of this fact though, so I struck out alone. I had never been to a real 'Fest' before, let alone any sort of large musical event on my own, so wandering around FFF Fest was a pretty surreal experience. With no friends on hand and many new things to observe, I took to furiously texting friends (mainly Renée) about my experiences. They all became, as I deemed it, my personal Twitters. Like the self obsessed and self documenting dork that I am, and knowing I might someday write something like this, I saved some of my texts- Here is Fun Fun Fun Fest as I saw it:


Re: The Crowd:
- I am in a sea of beautiful women. I wish I was holding your hand against this tide.
- People smell really good in Austin
- When there are two lines for something tons of people will stand in one line and the other will be VERY short. For no discernible reason.
-Watching a hippie dance just reminded me of home. (WHAT UP BURLY VT)
-I just walked through a dust storm with only hipsters like some sort of pitchfork ran post-apocalyptic world.


Re: Humility/ Self Awareness:
-Myself included in the hipster thing blah blah blah


Re: A drunk girl attempting to grind on me while I watched tUnE-yArDs:
- Direct quote from redheaded girl that wouldn't leave me alone: 'Don't you have any fun??'
- Drunk girls don't get hints


Re: Musical Observations
- tUnE-yArDs might be the greatest woman
- Ra Ra Riot sounds like elevator music for twentysomethings
- I thought I was watching Rakim but this is def Kool Keith SEX STYLEEEEE
- I just saw the black dude from Community screaming and jumping off of a huge amp
- M83 synths kick in, tiny asian girl to my left screams in shock
- One of the members of M83 looks so much like Shane its goofy. I could squint and basically see him there
- I'm def the only sober person watching Major Lazar- 9 dollar Rolling Rock? FUCK YOU VERY MUCH
- That is definitely Ryan Gosling chilling behind Major Lazar looking totally un-hype (IT WAS!!)


Re: Basic Body Functions
- Thank God I remembered to eat