SFist at SXSW
SXSW is already a blur, despite us leaving a day early this year. We had our hand-me-down digital camera in tow this time, so we will present our wrap-up with amateur photos. (We need to learn some night photography tricks, because using the flash sucked all the rock club atmosphere out of the subjects, and not using the flash rendered most bands as flourescent red and blue blobs.) We got our hands on the free party list which is a compilation of all the parties throughout SXSW. Most of the parties happen during the daytime, some happen at night, some are private, some are open to the public, and most offer free beer and/or food. These parties are in addition to the official SXSW nighttime showcases of over 1000 bands from around the world. For the past few years this party list has only been 6-8 pages long, but this year it was sixteen pages long. It was overwhelming.
Given the staggering variety of music and mayhem going on at all times, it's impossible for any one person to have the same SXSW experience. So here is ours, in words and photos.
Wednesday
We'd started our music consumption early, catching Donita Sparks and Shearwater at Emo's, but the music festival didn't officially start until Wednesday. The day began at the Austinist/Gothamist party where we said hello to Austinist editor Allen Chen before catching some of Snowden and Bravo Silva's sets.
More after the jump!
Later that afternoon, we stood in line for 20 minutes to get in to the exclusive Levi's/Fader Trading Post. We were on the guest list and our friend wasn't, but luckily she understood when we went inside without her to catch Carina Round's set. We felt guilty since it was our friend who turned us on to Carina in the first place, but it was worth seeing her set up close. Our next stop was the Red Eyed Fly to see the slow dirges of Calla and swoon over their toothsome frontman Aurelio Valle.
After a hearty Tex Mex dinner, we ventured out again to see Serena Maneesh and Aloha at Emo's. Serena Maneesh is a Norweigan retro freakout, and despite a muddy sound system, the singer of Aloha sounded just as heartwrenching live as he does on record.
We stopped by to chat with our friend who does lights for The Black Angels when we got a call from a few friends who were driving into town. We convinced them to pick us up and take us to the Blender Magazine party out on the East side. We knew we weren't on the guest list but we were feeling lucky. After all four of us got turned down at the door, a perturbed woman with a headset and a clipboard told us to"just go in. We grabbed drinks at the open bar, found more friends and settled in front of the stage for an always fantastic set by Spoon. They played a new song, we're guessing it's called something like "Don't Make Me a Target", which was instantly memorable. Echo and the Bunnymen opened a gorgeous set with "Lips Like Sugar" and sounded terrific.
This poor guy was worn out by night's end. The flash from our camera only roused him for a few moments before he passed out again.
Thursday
On Thursday morning, our friend Blu Sanders picked us up for some breakfast tacos at Tamale House. After consulting the free party list, we decided to check out Rocky Votolato and The Long Winters at a venue called "Chad's house." After calling for directions and driving around a bit, we arrived at someone's house in East Austin. There was a stage and sound system on the front lawn and the audience sat on the grass across the street drinking free beer and eating nachos. Rocky Votolato claimed to have a cold, but he sounded great to us, as did The Long Winters. Our final stop before dinner was a batch of shows put together by our friend Pam, which we nicknamed the Pam Jam. We caught sets by The Silos, Dave Doobinin and Jenifer Jackson.
Our Thursday night was spent at the Barsuk/Saddle Creek showcase at the Parish. We saw sets by our friend John Vanderslice, The Long Winters, Mates of State, Two Gallants, Criteria and Nada Surf, which were seriously all terrific. We also saw old and new friends at Saddle Creek and Barsuk, and showed our support of two of the best independent labels out there.
Friday
On Friday morning we headed to Cedar Street Pub for a music blogger brunch thrown by Filter Music Alliance. We don't know what bloggers look like, and they aren't outgoing, so we didn't meet the fine folks behind Gorilla vs. Bear, Music For Robots, etc., but we did see some of our -ist friends including Jen from Gothamist. Congratulations to Chris Cantalini (GorillavsBear) who was voted "Blogger of the Year" by his music blogging peers. And we have to give a shout out to Penny Hewson from Filter, who is one of our favorite marketing contacts and has had the vision to treat bloggers with great respect. Penny rocks.
After the Blogger brunch we waited through a nice set by Illinois, but all we could think about was watching Silversun Pickups, who didn't disappoint. Despite the 1pm set time, they screeched, whirred and careened through a set that might as well have started at 1am.
After briefly chatting with Silversun Pickups singer Brian Aubert about their upcoming Noise Pop show, we made our way across Congress Avenue to the Jane Magazine party to see a bit of What Made Milwaukee Famous. All our Austin friends told us they recently signed to Barsuk Records, but our friend at Barsuk could only give us a "no comment" and a smile. We picked up a copy of their CD Trying To Never Catch Up and are quite enjoying it.
We rushed back to the Filter party just in time to miss Magnet, much to our chagrin, so we stayed for a few Earlimart songs before hopping in a cab for a journey out to Pok-E-Jo's, a BBQ joint on West 5th Street. The trek was made especially to see a solo acoustic set by Spoon's Britt Daniel. Though he only played three songs, the trip was worth it. We caught a cab back and arrived at Stubb's just in time to miss We Are Scientists, so we decided to pause for dinner before the night showcases began.
After a delicious meal at Starlight Cafe with a few of our old V2 Records cohorts, we caught the last half of Tilly and the Wall's set, which was a highlight of the entire festival. They sounded even better than their terrific album Wild Like Children, they looked gorgeous, and the energy they created in the bizarre divey venue was electric. They treated us to a sneak peek of a few new songs which sounded slightly more mature and emotional but still had the euphoric Tilly sound. They capped off a mesmerizing set by inviting members of Of Montreal onstage to sing and play percussion with them. We've missed a few Tilly and the Wall shows before, but we're vowing now to never miss another one.
Following the amazing Tilly show, the rest of the night was a bit of a letdown. Marissa Nadler and Tralala couldn't live up to what we'd just witnessed, so we skipped the official SXSW showcases and headed to Ego's, Austin's answer to the Regal Beagle, to see David Dondero play. After an ear-splittingly horrible local band played a set that was way too long, Dondero finally brought some taste and talent to the stage. It was a fine finish to our SXSW.