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I just got back from SXSW in Austin (my first time there)… I was there for the entire thing, Interactive, Film and Music, and it was a crazy, overwhelming experience. Interactive was well attended, supposedly with double the attendance of last year — with the recession (maybe) on it’s way out, and also with the huge rise of social media, it seemed like everyone was clamoring for.. something. Though Foursquare was definitely the talk of the conference (and actually quite useful on many nights), Twitter was definitely the Twitter of the 2010 conference (if their well-attended party was any indication). I met a TON of fantastic people whilst networking at Interactive. It’s really an amazing industry to be working in, and I’m quite thankful that I’m knee deep in it. Maybe I’ll write up some more stuff about the interactive part of the conference, but for now, music is fresh on my mind.

Though the music portion of the conference didn’t officially start until Wednesday, I kicked off my week with Band of Skulls at the Austin City Limits studios. Despite the humongous line outside, we were able to breeze right on through, Goodfellas style, thanks to Carlo’s friend Emily, who works for ACL. Sweet!! Better than VIP!

After the show, we hung around the studio for a bit, and I met Emma Richardson, the bassist and chatted with their upcoming show at Rickshaw Stop here in San Francisco. She’s lovely and has a charming English accent — yes, we Americans are suckers for English accents.

Monday night, at the Gowalla party, amidst a mild Texas rainstorm, Diplo rocked the Belmont, which was renamed “The Tiki Room” for the night.

Tuesday night was the official closing party for Film, and Bay Area was representing with Mike Relm, who is best known for mixing YouTube videos together like this:

Insanely awesome. And thanks to Grace, I got to meet and hang out with him as well. He’s super nice. I like it when people are nice.

And then the music portion of SXSW officially started… Now, at this point, I’m a little freaked out because thus far, I had already been meeting and hanging out with people every night until about 4 or 5 in the morning… for Interactive.. I shuddered to think at what kind of late nights would be had during music, especially after my many a late night at MIDEM back in January.

Wednesday.

Ok, after working most of the day Wednesday(yes, I was still working..) I managed to miss many of the day parties, but no worry, there was still a ton of music going on… After wandering 6th street for a bit, feeling the energy starting to grow in the city of Austin, by chance, I happened upon the Alamo Drafthouse about 5 minutes before the next movie was about to begin. Since I had a platinum badge, films were free for me as well, so I went on in, ordered a beer (yes! beer at a movie theater!) and found myself with the last seat in the theater, right in the middle of the theater. Awesome. The film was A New York Thing, and was a nice little French-ish romantic-comedy-drama set in NYC. Damn, that reminds me… I saw a great sticker in Austin that said: “I (heart) NY but I’m not in (heart) with NY.” Ha.

Anyway, Wednesday night, I hit up 5 shows:

• Javelin: my friend Paul recommended them.. they were supposed to be a dope-ass electronic act, but for some reason, they decided to sing to their tracks, and ended up being like a bad version Chromeo. Not so great.
• Broken Bells: I had heard a lot about this band, so I hopped on over to Stubb’s to check them out. Stubb’s is a huge outdoor venue in Austin that serves up some tasty bbq, but ugh, I’m not a fan of crowds, so while I really enjoyed their set, I did not enjoy being smooshed amongst thousands of adoring Broken Bells fans. That said, I really did appreciate having a badge at this point, since I was able to walk right into the show, whereas the poor wristband people had to stand in line for hours, I think… Ouch.
• Frightened Rabbit: After the Stubb’s show, I whisked myself over to the Parish, where the Scottish folks were sponsoring the night. I had originally wanted to see We Were Promised Jetpacks as well, but was too late (and supposedly that show was PACKED).
• Database: I met back up with my friend Paul, who was at the Hype Machine party at Vice, where these djs from Brazil were tearing it up. Solid stuff.
• Delorean: Finally, to close out the night, 4 guys from the Basque country played some electro-indie stuff. Sweet.

Thursday.

I was walking through 6th again, and randomly I came upon the NPR party, where I saw that the top billing was Sleigh Bells. Um, awesome. I had been wondering if Sleigh Bells was going to be playing at all, but not having seen them on any official billing, I was kind of bummed. But.. there they were. SLEIGH BELLS. Right on the bill. I went on in. When I got in, a decent hip hop act was playing, G-Side, but they finished up and next up was Surfer Blood. This was another band that I had started hearing about a bit, but hadn’t really made any plans to see. They played a solid set, and then with my new found fellow Sleigh Bells superfan, Alison, we eagerly awaited the Brooklyn duo to take the stage.

Now, when I play SB’s track “Crown on the Ground” for people, most ask me if it is supposed to sound like it sounds. It’s EPIC, loud, and blown out — it sounds like it was improperly recorded — but, I really think that it’s part of what they were going for, and it’s perfect to me just the way it is. So, I was wondering if their lo-fi sound was going to translate properly into their live act, and it really did. They were awesome. I can’t wait to see them again.

After Sleigh Bells, I left the Parish elated and energized.. It was slightly weird to be so amped at 5pm in the afternoon, but I suppose it’s part of the SXSW experience. I met up with Espree at the AP party, where I had to weasel my way in since I didn’t RSVP ahead of time. One of the skills that I honed during my week in Austin was definitely the “weasel” skill. Apparently, if you just act like you know what you’re doing, most people will just assume that yah, you know what you’re doing and let you in. Although, you have to wait for the right time to do the weaseling though. Just walking right at a lone bouncer in a VIP section is *not* the way to do it (as I learned a few times). There should be a larger group already walking in, or he has to be otherwise distracted or something.

Anyway, I decided to start my evening with another movie — this time, The Runaways, a movie about Joan Jett and Cherie Curry, played by Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, both of which were in attendance.

Thursday night, I saw 4 acts:

• JJ: Now, having really liked her song, Let Go, I was very excited to see JJ live. I arrived a little late, and found that JJ was just 1 woman, sitting by herself in an office chair, singing into a microphone. I mean, her music is pretty mellow, but wow.. low energy. I was slightly disappointed, but I guess after hearing her music again, maybe it makes sense that she’s just sitting there. Singing.
• Timber Timbre: After JJ, I was originally going to stay for Holy Fuck, but then I called an audible and booked it over to the Central Presbyterian Church, where Chilly Gonzales was slated to play next. Well, I apparently mis-timed it, because I was waaay early, and instead, got to catch some of Timbre Timber, a pleasant folky group. Afterwards, Paul informed me that the Holy Fuck show was THE BEST SHOW he’d seen. Argh. Oh well. I’ll have to catch them at some point in the future. Erg, I suppose another lesson I learned at SXSW was that you couldn’t really be pissed to miss cool stuff, cuz there’s so much cool stuff that you miss that you’d drive yourself batty if you worried about it all.
• Chilly Gonzales: Ok, this show was farking rad. I sat myself down in the 2nd row of pews (the show was in a church) as they rolled in the grand piano right in front of the first row of pews. They informed the 2 girls seated in the first row that they had to move back because they would be way too close to Gonzales as he played.. ha.. so I ended up sitting like 4 feet away from him as he played. Gonzales’ show was incredible — he arrived on scene in a bathrobe, slippers, and white gloves that he kept on during his whole piano performance.
• Midlake: Closing the night out, I hopped back to Buffalo Billiards to catch Midlake. I like these guys, but their show was kinda enh. Oh well.

Friday

Ok.. Home stretch now… Surprisingly though, I’ve made it home each night at a reasonable hour, considering all of the music that I’d been seeing — who knew.. Interactive parties harder than Music.

Friday afternoon, I discovered a secret gem.. East Austin. After checking out the Levi’s Fader Fort for a bit, where Cherie Curry was demonstrating her new career as a chainsaw artist, I wandered eastward, following the faint lure of music and bbq. In East Austin, there’s a few cool bars, a chicken & waffles place served out of an old bus, and a typewriter museum, where a thriving hipster party with $1 lonestar was kickin’. Hello hipster gentrification.

I found East Austin to be intoxicatingly photogenic, even with a crappy iPhone camera. Yah. I need to return with my real camera.

I started Saturday evening at the Velveeta Room, a comedy venue, where I saw 2 comics, Howard Kremer and Doug Benson (who I’ve seen on Best Week Ever). Doug made fun of me for taking this iPhone picture.

Friday, I saw 7 acts:

• Casxio: I saw this LA-based funk, soul, electronic group in a random parking lot in East Austin. Cool sound, and they gave me a cd. Thanks.
• Ben Gibbard: Best known as part of Dashboard Confessional Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service, Ben Gibbard played a rare solo, acoustic set. His wife, Zooey Deschanel, was playing as part of She & Him over at Stubb’s at the same exact time, so any hopes of a surprise duet with her were dashed. Nonetheless, it was really cool to see him play. He did a fantastic version of Recycled Air.
• Bachelorette: New Zealand chick… dreamy, poppy tracks.
• Yacht: I had high hopes for Yacht, but I found them to be energetic, but musically meh.
• The Death Set: These guys were hilarious. I’m quite sure they were hammered drunk. Ridiculous punk energy, stage diving into a sparse crowd of about 15 people.
• Fanfarlo: AWESOME.
• MG&V: This was the debut of the supergroup, formed from members of Dawes, Deer Tick and Delta Spirit. Supposely, they had played together for the first time just days before, which was amazing since they sounded incredible together. I’d love to hear more from them.

Saturday.

Andy showed up Friday night with his crew, who were all here for a bachelor party. Saturday morning, they got together and piled into a rented van headed for the Austin Rodeo. They invited me along, but unfortunately, there was no room in the van for me. So, instead, I had chili for breakfast. I missed out on the rodeo. And . And fried testicles. Oh well.

I wandered back into town after being rejected from the party van, but.. it turned out to be fortunate, since I discovered the IFC Crossroads house — where they film bands for some show on IFC, I guess. I walked in, and they were filming the Frightened Rabbit show, who I had seen before, but honestly, seeing them this second time with only like 20 people made me like them a lot more.

After having such a magnificent time at the IFC, I returned a few hours later to see who else was filming. It was the last taping of the festival, a group from Saratoga Springs called Phantogram. Wow. With complicated time signatures and catchy melodies, they are my favorite new find of the week.

And yes, I saw another movie.. Strange Powers, a film about Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields.

Saturday, I saw 8 bands:

• Frightened Rabbit: 2nd time seeing them.
• Phantogram: AWESOME new find of the week.
• MyNameIsJohnMichael: Met up with Willo at this show, since I was across the street watching the movie. Fun band from Florida.
• Casiokids: I wanted some electronic, to cleanse the palate.
• Best Coast: These guys were recommended by SPIN as someone to definitely check out, and FourSquare gave me a nice badge for checking them out. Lo-fi girl band.
• Felix Cartal: DJ rocked the house before the Wallpaper show.
• Wallpaper: Bay Area! My friend Steve works with them, so I decided to check them out. They have a huge Bay Area following, so it felt like I was back in SF at this show.
• Stars of Track & Field: To close out my SXSW, I went back to the Parish (where I claimed mayorship on 4SQ). These guys are great and under-appreciated, I think. A fantastic way to finish up my SXSW.

So yah… wow. That’s a lot of music. I’m still a little overwhelmed.

SXSW Mix.. COMING SOON. Stay tuned.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at 9:55 am and is filed under music, trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.