SXSW 2007 - Day 4 - Saturday
Somehow though I had decided to stop with the party action early on Friday, I was still too spent to get out of bed until around 1pm on Saturday. I treated myself to one of the finest meals I have missed in the ten months I've been living in New York - Taco Bell. There are no Taco Vells anywhere near me so instead I suffer. But I made it all up with one delicious combo meal. Oh mexican pizza, how I've missed you!
When I finally got downtown everything was packed, the line for Red7 went around the corner to Emo's and the line for Emo's was just as bad. I decided to go to the ny2lon show, which was the first show I RSVPed for that I actually went to. They had free Heineken, so I definitely had to take advantage even if the only band I had heard of (the Fratellis) had already played.
The next band happened to be
Malajube, whose name I didn't remember, but they are constantly played on KEXP, so I'm familiar with their music. They were great, even if they are French Canadian and sing entirely in French. Really, I can't understand a damn thing they say but I still like it. Le rock!
Brian finally made it over and we stayed around for a while to catch a couple more free beers and saw
Johnossi, who I thought were alright, but entirely too loud to be playing inside.
Our last day show was going to be the Annuals at the Pure Volume tent, but the whole venue had been shut down by the fire marshal. No problem, we just went back to Mugshots and had more drinks.
At 8:15 we tried to see Asobi Seksou, but they were running so late we decided to hit
My Latest Novel at buffalo billiards. They were alright, seemed fitting for St Patrick's Day, but nothing special.
Now at 9pm I was starting to get anxious about getting in to Elysium to see Girl Talk at 1am (yes, I am that paranoid - and rightfully so), so I headed over to Elysium and parked it there for the rest of the night. It was alright though because the lineup at Elysium was good and even if it wasn't I really like the bar so I would be able to entertain myself for hours with their pinball machines. Incidentally, I didn't take many notes because I spent all of my free time playing pinball when I wasn't watching a show.
The first show was
The Berg Sans Nipple (yeah, that name doesn't make sense to me either – give them a break, I think they’re French). They were alright, but they were no competition for the Dracula pinball machine.
Next was the
Octopus Project with Black Moth Super Rainbow. Their show was really incredible, like a regular Octopus Project show, but better. I sadly missed part of the show because my pinball game wasn't over. Yeah, really I like pinball that much.
The next two acts,
Bang Gang and
65daysofstatic sounded really similar. They were alright, but I think Brian put it best when he came in to the last song from 65daysofstatic and said “they sound exactly like the band that was playing when I left.” Too true.
Once 65daysofstatic ended everybody started crowding the stage. I’m talking no movement people pushing as hard as they could kind of crowding. When Brian finally got over to me, we were about 3 people from the stage. When
Girl Talk finally started, everyone went crazy. Full-on mosh pit action, complete with a lot of pushing and even some crowd-surfing from both Girl Talk and people from the crowd. Eventually Girl Talk let a ton of people onto the stage to dance, which was nice for me because it meant we finally had a little breathing room in the front of the stage. I danced my ass off for the entire set, which eventually ended with the SXSW stage manager having to get on the stage and tell Girl Talk that he couldn’t have any more time. I was really hoping that Elysium would pull one of their 3am nights and just keep him playing for an extra hour, but that would have just been too much.
Girl Talk rocks the hoodie
During this show was the best fly-on-the-wall moments I had the entire week. As it is well known that indie kids don’t know how to dance, a couple was dancing in front of me. Just as the girl was leaning in to say something to the guy he swung his arm in such a way that his elbow connected perfectly with her nose, shoving her glasses into her face to add insult to injury. These are the moments I live for. I am a terrible person.
It was an absolutely crazy ending to SXSW. When it was over I was completely drenched in sweat and exhausted from the week of drinking and staying out late. It felt good.
SXSW 2007 - Day 3 - Friday
For day 3, I managed to get downtown again before 2pm, quite an accomplishment considering how well I did last year. I decided to skip the Stooges at KEXP, since I wasn't too familiar with them and had no desire to deal with the crowd at their show. Instead I went to Emo's to wait for the 4:30 Girltalk show. That's right, I was willing to show up over 3 hours early to make sure I got in to see him.
When Brian and I walked in the door to the inside stage,
Marnie Stern was playing. She was like a train wreck wrapped in a car accident wrapped in an enigma. Yes that's right, completely nonsensical but at the same time when Brian said he had to hit the bathroom, he knew I wasn't leaving until it was over. I think he felt the same way.
Marnie Stern is like that metalhead guy that you kicked out of your band in high school because he wouldn't stop with the fucking hammer-on tapping solos. In this day of modern technology rather than giving in and succumbing to a life of pizza delivery for the rest of her life, Marnie recorded her entire songs onto her ipod and then proceeded to play along to her ipod and sing, sometimes with the backing vocals being as strong as her live ones. This gave off the unfortunate impression that she wasn't actually playing the songs live, but rather just lip-syncing. I couldn't stop looking. Halfway through the show a spacey hipster girl asked me about Marnie's set up.
"Is she playing her music out of that ipod? That's really innovative."
Right, innovative. That's exactly what I was thinking. I need to hear her cd though. I must.
After that spectacle was a couple of disappointments.
The Ponys sounded like ass, partly due to a bass amp that was blown, partly due to the volume being much too loud, and partly due to unmemorable songs. We gave up after two.
Rjd2 was next and I think we got through one entire song before we gave up on him, to much jam banding for me.
Next we went inside to catch
Fujiya and Miyagi again. They played all the same songs we heard at the KEXP show, but since they had more time we got to see some others as well. Note to 120 days: go watch these guys, they are capable of playing a show while appearing to be disinterested yet don't come off as total douches.
Menomena was the last band to play before Girl Talk. They are pretty good, but we were more interested in sitting in the bleachers than watching the show. And at long last
Girl Talk started. The place was fucking packed, as I expected. He was fantastic. He is the biggest white guy nerd, but he loves his music and he has an ear to put it together better than anyone I've heard in a long time One thing to note though, don't buy his old cds, they really suck. I guess we just caught him at the right time because Nightripper is amazing and the previous ones hurt my ears to think about.
After the dance party ended, we hit some Best Wurst before Amanda, Mike, and I headed north to see the special
Beirut KEXP hour-long set. It was definitely my KEXP highlight of the week. Beirut are so talented and to get to see them in such a venue was definitely one of the highlights of my week. Phenomenal. Beirut was one of the three bands playing on Wednesday night in what was the most crowded show at Emo's I have ever seen. The badge line must have been 100 people deep, which meant there was no way I was getting in to see the killer lineup - Beirut, Mountain Goats, Blond Redhead. Too bad. I will likely get to see Blond Redhead in NY though.
Unfortunately when we were leaving ACL studios this time we didn't get lucky and catch a cab so we rode the bus. It was creepy and felt totally unnatural, but it saved us a mile walk. Back downtown, we caught up with Brian and had drinks at Mugshots. I didn't have a show I wanted to see until 9:30, so we had time for plenty of drinks.
At 9:30 I went to Flamingo Cantina to see
Monotonix. Their SXSW description said something about grunge and a guitar player that sounded like Mudhoney in a band for Tel Aviv. The description could not have been more right. They seriously rock like it is 1991 all over again. I took a million pictures and tried to explain the show to people, but I don't think I did it justice. To start the show they lit the cymbals on fire for the entire first song, while the singer hid behind a trashcan, periodically spitting beer all over himself and the band. Then he pulled out a bottle of shaving cream which he rubbed all over his face and the snare drum, while he came out into the crowd and did his crazy singer thing, eventually climbing onto the bar throwing everything that could be thrown (napkins, cups, condiments) into the crowd all without missing a single lyric. At least not one I could distinguish. The end of the set involved bringing the entire drum set into the crowd and eventually hoisting the drummer on his bass drum over our heads so he could grab on to the rafters for some swinging action. Go ahead, follow the link and check out their songs on their myspace page.
Monotonix at Flamingo Cantina
After getting out I immediately headed over to Red7 to try to explain to Thomas and Brian what I just saw. I don't think it worked. From there Brian and I headed over to Latitude 30 to see
The Saturday Knights. Their show was also a dance party. Those guys rocked as much as I remembered them. I was right at the stage so I got to see all the action upfront. I ran into Kat's friend Kevin and hung out with him for a while and caught part of the next show, they were good, but I can't remember what their name was. I eventually just packed it in early as I had been thoroughly rocked for one day. I mean really, what are the chances that I would randomly find a show that rocked as much as those three?
SXSW 2007 - Day 2 - Thursday
For day 2, I left relatively early for downtown but once I got there I ran into a clusterfuck for parking. The I-35 lot I parked in the pervious day was totally packed and the road closures made it difficult to circle back to the pay lot that Amanda found.
After circling twice, I finally got situated in a $10/day lot (a fucking rip off, but I was more interested in just getting out of the car rather than how much I was paying), we headed over to Flamingo Cantina for free beer and possibly free shoes. The free shoes were gone, which was alright because they sucked anyway. They looked like the nike sneakers the Heaven's Gate cult were wearing when they were found; no thanks. The free domestic beer almost made up for one of the worst acts I've ever heard. I don't even want to look up their name they were that bad. After their tortuous set ended,
Headlights started playing and they were really good, though I can't be sure if that is a good assessment of them or if I wad just over-compensating for the previous band.
We left their show early to catch
Land of Talk at Emo's. They were better than I remember them being at CMJ. I talked to the singer after and told her how much I liked the CMJ show (I actually saw them by accident because they were on just before Tokyo Police Club). She told me that people had given her bad reviews of that show, saying they were "underwhelming". Fuck all that, they totally rocked it.
After Land of Talk, we tried to go to Habana to catch the Little Ones, but ended up at one of the other stages by accident. Some crappy bands were playing, but free bbq and beer kept us there until it was time to go back to Emo's to catch Tokyo Police Club, who were also fantastic, even if they are all under 21.
Unfortunately we had to leave the show early to catch
Fujiya and Miyagi at ACL Studios. This is the second year I've made it out to ACL for the
KEXP broadcasts, and I must say they are totally worth it, even if the shows are on 20-30 minutes. Something about seats and air conditioning that are nice after drinking all afternoon. Fujiya were very impressive though, so much so that I ended up seeing them again the next day. I guess I can't get enough.
Since we were up by campus we decided to take advantage of our location and grabbed a real meal at Kerby lane, checking off one of the places I really wanted to eat at during the trip. After Kerby we stopped in the Hole in the Wall to grab a drink while we waited for Apples in Stereo to start. I have to admit that in all of my time in Austin, I never made it out to the Hole in the Wall. It's actually a decent bar and it has some kickass pinball to boot.
We (sadly) had to leave before my pinball game was finished to head back to ACL studios for the
Apples in Stereo show. The first time I saw the Apples was at the Tenacious D afterparty during CMJ. They sucked, badly. I think we left early. I was really disappointed too because I had heard them on the internets and thought they sounded good. This time was much better. I'm not sure if I was just feeling cranky at the first show or if they were really that much better this time, but it was good. Their singer is crazy spastic. He was talking a million miles an hour with no real focus to his speaking. We wondered if this was normal for him.
After the show we headed back to Emo's to catch
Sage Francis, who was really good until he reverted back to his slam poetry. That was the point where I had to go. We decided to go to Flamingo early to wait for 120 days, who I was giving their final chance to not annoy me. But before them was
Lozen, a female two piece metal act. They weren't good. They were so not good that we went to Mugshots and had some drinks instead of sitting through their show.
We made it back to catch
120 Days and while they proved that they can play, they are still douches and I have no interest in ever seeing them play live again, even if their hit song does sound like the one from Revenge of the Nerds. Until they add an electric violin or have a special guest appearance by Anthony Edwards, I'm done with them.
At this point everyone went their separate ways, Amanda and Mike went home and Brian went to some show I couldn't get into. I made the long walk over to the tap bar to see the Trucks. By the time I got there (15 minutes before their scheduled time) I saw on the marquee that one of the early bands cancelled so they moved up all the shows. Retarded. I missed it entirely.
Having missed my show, there was only one thing to do; go back to Mugshots and drink more.
At 1am I decided to go to Mowhawk to see Oklahoma's own
Evangelicals. I had heard them on KEXP a few weeks prior and thought they were good. They didn't impress me live. Tired and uninterested in looking for a backup show I made my way home.
