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.