Thursday Evening

The first show I headed to was Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. While waiting for the show I noticed that they were projecting an advertisement on the cover for the stage at Stubb's. On closer inspection, it actually allowed people to send text messages to a number and the messages would be displayed on the screen. I'm sure that they had screeners making sure all obscenities were deleted before being displayed. That obviously doesn't always work though.

The Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. singer was actually suffering from bronchitis. He still put on a good show. It was very low energy music though, so I was happy to leave to find something new.

I met up with Gus, Amanda, and Mike. They all wanted to wait at Flamingo for 120 Days, who were supposed to play in about an hour. I had nothing else to do, so I stuck around. That's where we saw one of the worst bands at SXSW, Lozen. I really don't want to talk about them. Just posting this picture brings back horrible memories.


We quickly got out of there, running into some Jesus freaks on the way. I love how they all want to tell me I'm going to hell even though they know nothing about me. I probably am going to hell, but it's the principle!

We left the show with so much haste that I dropped my notebook on the way out. I was really bummed since I had so many notes in there about all the awesomeness I've seen so far. When we got back to Flamingo, Amanda actually found the notebook for me on the bar. Thanks again Amanda!

After that (and a few shots at Mugshots, official venue of the Gus SXSW Drunking Party) I went off on my own to catch Foreign Islands at The Beauty Bar patio. I tried going in the back entrance and they told me to go around the front. I don't know who made the decision to not use the back entrance, but they are completely retarded. The front was easy to get into, but it was filled with folks trying to get into the patio. It was a total hipster cluster-fuck. No, I didn't get any pictures. But believe me, it was terrible hats, large sunglasses, and spikey hair all pushing around with a "I'm too cool for lines so I'm just gonna crowd the door" attitude. Luckily I had enough patience to make it through, and since the whole line-up was running late, I didn't miss a single tune.


Foreign Islands was hipster rock at it's best. Faux English accents and all. The thick framed glasses wearing singer seemed to be king hipster. He used a vocal effect for the whole set that sounded like an old tinny radio. Actually, it just sounded like his vocal amp was busted, but listening to their MP3, I know it was no accident. He even dropped the mic and went off stage during guitar solos as if to say "I'm acting like I'm not important now and you should be looking at the guitarist, but I really just want to make a scene so you remain completely focussed on me." Still, they were awesome.

Next up was MuteMath playing at The Dirty Dog. This venue seemed to be packed all weekend. Which is unfortunate because it sucks as a music venue. On a side note, when will The Side Bar and Mugshots become SXSW venues? Then they can stop using shite venues like The Dirty Dog.

Right before the show started, the drummer came out and duct taped his headphones onto his head. When they started, I finally understood the necessity of the tape. The man swung his head around violently while playing one of the most energetic sets I've ever seen from a drummer. Basically, he was just like Animal from The Muppet Show, madly panting after every song. I'm not at all being sarcastic. Eventually, all their songs sounded the same and I left, but not because they weren't entertaining, because they were.



I then headed to Buffalo Billiards to see Aqueduct. This was the first band that I was really excited to see. While waiting for the show to start I ran into Erik from Say Hi to Your Mom. Kent is a huge fan, so I told Erik that Kent says "hi". Erik claimed that he remembered Kent, but that could have been total BS, who knows. Aqueduct came on and played a decent set. Met, but didn't beat, expectations. They started off the set with a cover of the theme song to Walker, Texas Ranger. Funny, but not as awesome as their Journey cover at SXSW '05.



Once the show was over, I met with Gus to go see Okkervil River at Mohawk. They immediately reminded me of Spoon and that just killed the whole experience. Living in Austin, I hear way too many people praising Spoon. I just want to scream "They're not that good! FUCK! They're not even from Austin anymore. Stop being such a homer!" Anyway, I decided to follow Gus inside to see Evangelicals instead.

They had a smoke machine and fake flowers all over the stage. It looked pretty cheesy and the smoke was annoying. Also, the guitarist has a really creepy looking mustache. He reminded me of Deputy Dewey from Scream.