Money for nothing, and MP3s for free.

By Johnny Mnemonic

I've been involved in music journalism one way or another for a good long while, but since moving to England a year or so ago to take a job in visual and online media and haven't been writing as much, the deluge of free records and CDs I used to take for granted has become more like a trickle. That's understandable; if you're not reviewing their product, record labels won't keep sending it to you. And I'm not complaining: in this life, most rational folks don't expect to get something for nothing.

Still, after I recently decided to get back into doing some occasional reviewing, I must admit I was more than a little taken aback to learn that the aforementioned records and CDs had been transformed, seemingly overnight, into digital ones and zeroes.

I'm not talking about something like the new Radiohead album, released last week and which at the moment only exists in digital form. I'm talking everyday, garden-variety bands on regular-joe independent labels who release albums in CD, vinyl LP and even (sometimes) cassette formats in addition to MP3 and FLAC downloads for iPod folks - but who for some reason feel that there's no reason to service rock critics with hard copy promotional items, despite the fact that we are giving them and their new records free publicity, and instead can trim budget costs (CD, packaging, postage) by simply sending out a digital stream or download.

In other words, they do expect something for nothing.

I quote a certain up-and-coming singer-songwriter's publicist's response to my request for a promotional CD to review: "I'd love to help but we don't actually have any CDs. I'll have the label send you a link and a password."

That's a bloody load of bollocks, to quote the British gentleman in the cubicle next to me. Here was my response to the aforementioned publicist:

"Okay, let's see, if I have this right. You want me to spend my valuable time listening to your client's latest brainstorm, sit down and take a few hours writing up a review that amounts to free publicity for the client, which upon publication will, in theory, result in eventual revenue for the client in the form of record sales and concert attendance (to say nothing of ancillary revenue streams - say, if my review attracts the attention of the gal choosing the music for Grey's Anatomy).

"In turn, I am to put in extra time and effort I would NOT have done in the past, i.e. to go through the trouble of logging on and downloading the music then organizing and burning the MP3s to disc, not to mention downloading and/or copying and pasting tracklistings and bio notes and printing all that out - oh, and ALSO in the process, spending my hard-earned 9-to-5 day job dough on blank CDRs, printer paper and printer ink in order to do all the foregoing.

"That is an AWESOME deal you are offering, Ms. Label Publicist! Will you throw in a free ass-kicking if I agree to the deal? Perhaps I could also have the client and his band crash in my guest bedroom, allow them all to perform anal sex on my lovely young bride, and then in the morning fix them breakfast the next time they come through town on tour!"

Needless to say, I didn't even bother to check out the link when it arrived in email as promised. Instead, I just went down the list of new titles that some of my editors had indicated they were interested in having reviewed, and I finally found a few artists who were in fact serious about having someone write about and assess their art - seriously.

I'm not the first person to call the record labels on their bullshit, incidentally. Right here on the BLURT magazine website, in a year-end essay regarding recent trends and annoyances in the music biz, contributor Lee Zimmerman listed his pet peeve:

"The continuing offering of streams and downloads to writers and reviewers... They may be a financially effective way of sharing new releases, but it's also a cumbersome waste of time for the reviewer who is churning out reviews every day and seeking only a disc in return. Publicists and labels, wake up! We are rarely paid for our efforts and usually doing what we are doing in addition to the full time day job which pays the bills. In other words, we're doing it for the love! Not to seem ungrateful, but really - if we can't get a lousy disc for our efforts, where's the motivation? And you want us to either sit and listen on our computer or take the time to burn and create our own CDs? What?  You want us to do your job for you by firing up our own enthusiasm? It ain't gonna work! Wise up - if you want our support in spreading the word about your clients, send a disc so we can listen at our leisure without the burden of detracting from our deadlines."

Well put, Mr. Zimmerman. Wish I'd said that. Wait, hold on - I bloody well just did.

***

 Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter and editor. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

As a service to the Blurt readers...for those who treasure live music above all else.
Cheers,
Johnny

Traipsin' the light fantastic in Austin without spilling a single beer!

By Johnny Mnemonic

Ed. Note: With this entry, BLURT blogger Johnny Mnemonic, who pens the "Music Journalism 101" blog for us, concludes his Austin report - all the way from England, where he's been on a freelance assignment. Not that a minor detail like being thousands of miles removed from the scene of the crime stopped him, so as we pointed out at the beginning, here's SXSW 2010- as he imagines it might be going down. Guarantee: all dialogue not reported verbatim.

Read also: Day 1 (Tuesday)

Day 2 (Wednesday)

Day 3 (Thursday)

Day 4 (Friday)

***

Day 5: Saturday, March 20

Did you ever wonder why SXSW blogs and daily recaps are always peppy and perky and full of details and fun anecdotes for the first few days, and then as the week starts to wind down those reports steadily become truncated and as frayed around the edges as the bloggers and writers no doubt are themselves torn ‘n' frayed from four or more days of little sleep, lots of alcohol, and pretty much nonstop sensory overload?  For those of you reading this who have never attended SXSW, it's akin to going to a carnival and getting on the rollercoaster, followed by doing the bumper cars, and that followed by a race through a dimly-lit funhouse/hall of mirrors, while the whole time carnival music blares nonstop at maximum volume - then doing it all over again. And again. And again. With barely a few hours of rest before one of the carny workers takes your ticket and pushes you right back onto the ride.

It's fun, but like that old saying about hitting your head against the wall - it sure feels good when it stops, too. As I type it's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting in the virtual terminal of the virtual Dallas airport, the same place where on Tuesday I got stuck for several virtual hours and entertained myself virtually by playing the "spot the traveling musician" game. This time around, though, all those black-clad dudes and cute chicks in cowgirl boots look decidedly worse for the wear, and even that fat bald English band manager who couldn't stop yapping five days ago seems relieved to just flop down in a chair and read a newspaper. I'm with him on that, but first, my virtual report - truncated, yes, but in an alternate dimension somewhere, absolutely true - on the final day of the 2010 SXSW. See you next year!

***

Way too early on a Saturday morning, but for some reason I feel great! Okay, I'm dog tired, but my head is buzzing like a meadow in spring. Hmm... looks like my roomie Artie scored last night; over on the dresser beside his bed are two, not one, SXSW laminates. All you need is love, so that's sweet! Quick shower and I'm off. Over on 6^th Street there isn't a whole lot of activity, but I do spot a massive line of people down near Red River, and as the demographic appears to be (a) young, in the 18-and-under sense, and (b) dressed painfully hipster-centric, in a kind of Nickelodeon-meets-Hot-Topic way, it's pretty obvious something is happening down at Emo's this morning. Or more likely, around noon or so; only in Austin at SXSW will 3,000 kids queue up at 8:00 in the morning for in hopes of gaining admittance to a roughly 550-capacity venue that doesn't even open for another four hours.

What a bunch of sheep, I think to myself, as I go grab a quick cup of coffee. I have to hurry so I can bolt over to Stubb's (cap: 1,800) and queue up with 3,000 adults in hopes of gaining admittance to the annual Rachael Ray Feedback Party. This is one event that, having attended it previously, I was smart enough to RSVP for. The event started three years ago basically as a way for the celebrity cooking diva to pimp her husband's (John Cusimano) rock band, The Cringe, at SXSW without having to pay some label or organization to let them piggyback onto their party. Well, the bandname tells you what you need to know. In any event, only a schmuck wouldn't jump at the chance to play a bill that's guaranteed to draw a bazillion SXSW attendees, most of them lured as much for the free, Ray-approved eats as for the music. On the menu this year: Tex-Mex Sliders, Pulled Pork Tortitas, Quesadilla Suiza Stacks, Queso Fundido Taquitos and Albondigas Subs. Funny, Rachel, you don't look Mexican!

So anyway, this is the biggest RRFP ever, and Stubbs is the only logical place to hold it considering that last year the wait to get in was upwards of two hours. Truth be told, the band lineup has never been better: She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward), Jakob Dylan & Three Legs featuring Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, Street Sweeper Social Club, Andrew W.K., Dr. Dog, School of Seven Bells, Justin Townes Earle, Bob Schneider, Local Natives, J. Roddy Walston & the Business, Pearly Gate Music, Steve Conte & the Crazy Truth, Freelance Whales, Lawrence Arabia, the Orion Experience, Mishka and Shayna Zaid & the Catch. Oh, and The Cringe!

In fact, it's while The Cringe are onstage that I spot Ray over next to one tables near the right hand side of the stage, watching the band. I wander casually over towards her but she appears to be totally transfixed by the performance, that trademark Joker-like grin of hers frozen across her face (although it's entirely possible that she's simply afraid her hubby will glance over and catch her not being, like, less than enthralled). I get a perverse urge, then act upon it: I slip the last of the ‘shrooms left over from the previous evening into her Albondiga. Call me a rebel, call me a criminal, or just call me Owsley, but tell the truth: haven't you fantasized at some point about having the chance to dose Rachael Ray?

A couple of hours and several plates of Tex-Mex Sliders, Pulled Pork Tortitas, Quesadilla Suiza Stacks, Queso Fundido Taquitos and Albondigas Subs later, I stagger through the Stubb's exit gate and realize I need to go find a place to take a nap. I'm stuffed.

As a result, I miss all the panels I wanted to take in, but through my powers of retroactive prescience, I have divined what I missed:

• "Effecting Social Change via Music and Technology": ain't gonna happen; rock fans are even more apathetic in 2010 than they were in 1969.
• "Ethics in the Music Business": don't exist; just ask that guy who keeps flooding your in-box with his latest half-ass strategy to "bring bands and fans together via an exciting new and dynamically symbiotic social networking platform".
• "How a Timeless Artist Remains Vital": marketing- and dollar-wise, that's a no brainer: die.
• "Too Much Information! Does Interacting Kill Rockstar Mystique?": yes.
• "Artists: Getting a Digital Ass-Kicking?": yes.
• "Can China Build a Better Music Business?": no.

Now that I've got all that out of the way, I can go drink some beer.

On the way I run into Artie and his new girlfriend. "Dude, we were looking for you at Rachael Ray's party!" he says. "Did you hear what she did? She jumped onstage during the Street Sweeper Social Club's set, grabbed the mic from Boots Riley, hollered, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!", then dropped to her knees in front of Tom Morello and mimed doing the David Bowie-Mick Ronson thing! It was awesome!"

Shit, I miss all the best stuff at SXSW. Anyway, I laugh with them, then before we go our separate ways. I can't resist telling the girl, who as you may recall works for a certain high powered NYC public relations firm, "Since you two are an item now, I guess Artie can't write about your clients anymore." To which she replies, coyly, "Well, then I'll have to get you to do it, won't I, Johnny?" I chuckle, then shoot back, "Dunno ‘bout that. Last time I profiled someone on your roster you tore me a new one for printing the city your client lived in - that stalker shit you were so paranoid about, even though, as I pointed out, she had already posted the name of the town on her MySpace page." The girl blushes, so because I'm really a sweetheart I add, "But don't worry. I covered for you." Ah, the journalist-publicist relationships can get so complicated. Sometimes the only solution is to sleep with one another.

Anyway, off for a couple of beers.

Several hours later: Holy shit. I. Cannot. Believe. This. Is. Happening.

Each year at SXSW there's The Big Rumor that circulates, typically regarding this or that artist who may make a surprise appearance. A few years ago it was gonna be Dinosaur Jr, who at the time had not done the full reunion tour, and even up-to-the-last-minute texts were flying about the band "set to go on in a half hour" at such-and-such a place. (I got sucked into that one and rushed over. Turns out it was just Witch.) Last year the word on the street was that Neil Young would turn up for a stealth concert; it made sense, because there was also a special panel devoted to Neil and his forthcoming Archives box. But no dice.

This year I've been hearing that Husker Du is going to do a one-off reunion gig. Despite the acrimony that supposedly lingers between the three members, from a logistical standpoint, it's plausible: Grant Hart is in town for several shows, including the Second Motion/Blurt Magazine showcase that's happening tonight, and just last week Bob Mould did a three-night residency at the Rusty Spurs club here in Austin (he apparently knows the owner from their college days). I'm not sure where erstwhile Husker bassist Greg Norton fits in, particularly given some of the comments Hart made about Norton in a recent Blurt interview, and his and Mould's generally dismissive attitude towards Norton and his musical talents. But still - anything can happen, and SXSW has become more and more often a kickoff party  for new musical projects, particularly those where a lot of dough stands to be made and therefore the glare of an industry confab like SXSW makes for beautiful marketing symmetry.

Tonight, that anything that can happen does happen. I'm sure a lot of people reading this will think I was hallucinating, but that all happened to me last night at Acid Mothers Temple. I've only had two beers tonight, I swear. The Second Motion/Blurt showcase at the Taproom At Six has drawn a fantastic turnout, and we've already had stellar sets from Ireland up-and-comers The Walls, UK singer-songwriter Gemma Ray, Marty Willson-Piper from the Church, pop legend Tommy Keene, the aforementioned Grant Hart, and Adam Franklin (of Swervedriver) with his latest band Bolts Of Melody. We've also already passed the 1a.m. mark and Franklin's just come back onstage for what we presume will be the last encore when he glances over at the wings and casually announces, "I'd like to bring a couple of new friends of mine out here..."

It's Grant Hart and, you guessed it, Bob Fucking Mould.

Hart settles in at the drumkit, while Mould plugs in. Smiles all around onstage, while in the audience you can hear the collective thump of jaws hitting the floor. Franklin nods at his newly-enhanced band, then turns to Mould and makes a classic "we're not worthy!" bowing motion; Mould cracks up, cocks his head and points at Franklin like "You da man!" And before anyone in the room can react, they've launched into "8 Miles High," in all its post-Byrdsian, proto-Huskerian thunder.

A four-song H.D. mini-set then ensues: Mould's "New Day Rising" is followed with barely a pause by Hart's "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill" (both from the H.D.  early classic New Day Rising), then another Hart song, "Don't Want to Know if You Are Lonely" (from 1986's Candy Apple Grey), and finally a marathon, 12-minute version of Mould's "Could You Be the One" (from the band's 1987 studio swansong Warehouse: Songs and Stories). The crowd is pretty much going berserk, and the musicians are exchanging glances like, is this really happening?

Apparently the four Husker songs, plus the Byrds tune, was all they'd had a chance to prepare, so for one final encore, circa 2:30 in the morning, following a brief onstage huddle, Mould launches into the signature "Back In Black" riff. Franklin beckons to some of the musicians at the back of the stage who've been taking all this in, and in the blink of an eye Gemma Ray, a couple of the Walls, Tommy Keene and Marty Willson-Piper are all clustered around the extra mic stand, swapping off on AC/DC lyrics. Someone in the crowd catches Mould's eye and he gestures the guy up - holy crap, it's Greg Norton! Franklin's bassist hands Norton the axe and...

Wait a minute; it's not Norton. It's actually Franz Nicolay, late of the Hold Steady, who's been in Austin promoting about 15 different musical and literary projects he's currently involved with. I'm not sure if anyone knew Nicolay could play the bass, but he most certainly can, with aplomb. At one point all the musicians except Nicolay and Mould pull back, leaving Nicolay, Mould and Hart in a semi-circle, jamming away, and I swear if you squint, it looks exactly like Husker Du. Later, when I get back to the hotel, I will go online to see what the bloggers are saying and what the Twitterers were tweeting (not to mention Lords a-leaping, ha-ha) and sure enough, a slew of them are claiming it was the actual full Husker Du at the show, so I'm just correcting any erroneous reports here.

Things turn chaotic at this point. Willson-Piper shouts out he'd like to bring up a few friends, and all his bandmates from the Church hop onstage. Then Tommy Keene pulls not one but two rabbits out of his hat by bringing on a couple of guys he's played with in the past, Paul Westerberg and Bob Pollard. Not to be outdone, since it's technically his showcase and all that, Franklin brings on everyone from Swervedriver and subtly steers the AC/DC song into a primal version of "Son of Mustang Ford." Sheer pandemonium. It looks like one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies end-of-evening all-star jams - a notion that's indelibly reinforced when fuckin' Paul Shaffer jumps up there too! Where the hell did HE come from!?! Such a ham, and... whoops, it's Moby, in town to help promote his dynamic new social networking platform that will bring bands and fans together. Still, it's quite a sight.

Suddenly Rachael Ray is running on from the wings, grabbing Mould's mic and gibbering something about "I think this is a pile of shit while John Sinclair rots in prison!," but Mould quickly boots her off the stage with one deft swing of his Flying V. Things finally come to a conclusion about 4a.m. and the club owner assures everyone that this is without at doubt the longest SXSW showcase Austin has ever seen. Who am I to complain!

I spot Ray curled up in a fetal position behind the merch table at the rear of the club and I want to go console her, but an overwhelming sense of guilt washes over me so I just ease out the door, into the Texas night, in search of a chili hot dog prior to hitting the sack.

Another successful SXSW has come and gone. Let's get on that ride and do it all over again! How was yours?

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter, editor and marketing consultant. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

Traipsin' the light fantastic in Austin without spilling a single beer!

By Johnny Mnemonic

Ed. Note: With South By Southwest 2010 in full swing, we decided to send BLURT blogger Johnny Mnemonic, who pens the "Music Journalism 101" blog for us, to Austin and report back with his daily misadventures, er, observations. Only hitch was, he neglected to inform us that he's currently in England and won't be back in the States until the summer. "No problemo," he assured us. "I've attended SXSW numerous times since its inception in 1987. At this stage, I think I can wing it." We hereby present the erudite Mr. Mnemonic's long-distance account of this year's SXSW - as he imagines it might be going down. Guarantee: all dialogue not reported verbatim.

Read also: Day 1 (Tuesday)

Day 2 (Wednesday)

Day 3 (Thursday)

***

Day 4: Friday, March 19

Wow. Courtney Love remembers me.

Given La Love's track record, it's saying a lot if she remembers what she did last week, much less an encounter with a journalist over two decades ago. But she remembered this one - I'm getting off the elevator in the lobby of the Hilton and she's about to get on with a couple of skeez-looking friends. She notices me staring at her she suddenly gets a startled expression on her face, then a sly smile.

"Johnny, I lost my dress!" she blurts, in that signature raspy voice of hers. I'm speechless for a moment, then both of us crack up. See, back around 1990, I was assigned to write a profile about Hole for Option magazine, and a late lunch with the band in L.A. turned into an afternoon shopping spree at a bunch of vintage clothing shops over in Silverlake. Courtney insisted I come along, and I wound up being assigned the position of temporary personal assistant, following her up and down the aisles and holding onto the dresses and blouses she was yanking off the racks. One of the dresses I suggested to her, in fact, a greenish-blue flowered number with a scooped neck and a hemline just above the knees, caught her fancy and would later turn up on none other than Mr. Courtney Love, aka Kurt Cobain (whoops! Rickroll alert!),  in a Nirvana photo shoot.

Now she's telling me how the dress in question disappeared some time after Kurt's death during one of her many stints in rehab; seems there have been a lot of personal assistants over the years, some more temporary than others, and some of them a bit on the light-fingered side. "Someone told me they heard it was on eBay at one point," she tells me, shrugging. "You look good, Courtney," I tell her. "How is SXSW treating you?" Turns out she's getting ready to go get fixed up for the big Spin magazine party this afternoon over at Stubb's where Hole will be unveiling songs from the new Hole album Nobody's Daughter. "You wanna come see us play? My band kicks ass!" Courtney is positively beaming; she seems to be totally sober and in a really good space, so I make a mental note not to mention the fact that I've spent most of my SXSW thus far in a chemical- and alcohol-induced haze.

I swap cell numbers with the skeez on the left, who turns out to be, you guessed it, one of Courtney's personal assistants, and she promises to come escort me in at the Spin party when I show up, as it's one of those special invitation/laminate-only events that seem to be slowly taking over SXSW, and since the big national magazine I used to write for went out of business, I don't have the same juice I used to have where it comes to guests lists and music industry parties. (A lot of people have been complaining about the proliferation of RSVP and invite events at SXSW, whereby you now have a situation that often renders your official SXSW badge irrelevant; I mean, what's the point of buying the goddam thing if the shows you want to see have exclusive guestlists you have to get on? But I digress...)

Today there are so many day parties happening that I'm flummoxed as to where to start. I'm definitely going by the annual Bloodshot party out at Yard Dog Gallery on South Congress - I should have invited Courtney to come with me and I could show her some of the vintage and antique shops out that way - not to mention the 40 Watt/JamBase bash at the Side Bar on 7^th Street, which will double as a kind of tribute to recently departed artists Vic Chesnutt, Jerry Fuchs and Jon Guthrie. Before all that, though, I need to get some breakfast and then check out some more panels at the Convention Center like I did yesterday - they were pretty lively!

Only problem is, today's panels look like they were designed for a bunch of eggheads and shut-ins, and as tutorials for musicians who are so clueless they have no business getting into a line of work like this. They boast titles like "A Guide to Recording Music Online," "Shoot Your Concert DVD for Free," "Green Touring: Stupid, Dumb, or Best Idea Ever?" and "The Cloud vs. the Paradise of Infinite Storage." WTF?!? Who comes up with these dumbass names?

The one glimmer of hope is the official SXSW Interview with Cheap Trick, featuring the entire band plus nationally-known pop critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRogatis. Indeed, this turns out to be a lot of fun, with a lot of interesting tangents and surprises, such as when Rick Nielsen pulls out his latest custom-designed guitar (it's shaped to look like DeRo, with Jim's face for the headstock), and when Kot leans over and removes the cigarette from Bun E. Carlos' lips (Carlos looks shocked for a moment, his look suggesting no one has ever done that before, until Robin Zander whispers something in his ear, presumably informing him that there's no smoking in the Convention Center, and hands him a pack of Nicorette).

The subsequent Q&A session is less enlightening, although one priceless moment occurs when a helium-voiced fanboy rambles on and on with what's apparently a five-part question involving whether or not the re-recorded In Color that the band cut with Steve Albini will ever be released, Nielsen winks at the crowd and casually says, "Could you repeat the question?" Before the fidgeting, red-faced kid has an epileptic fit from the embarrassment, however, Nielsen rescues him by quipping, "Albini stole the master tapes because we never paid him, then he threw them in Lake Michigan, so we've been negotiating with a tape collector who apparently got ahold of a copy." All throughout the auditorium you see people tapping away furiously on their smartphones and netbooks, no doubt trying to be the first on their block to post this fascinating info (fake, as many Cheap Trick fans reading this probably already realize) to their blogs and newsgroups. I'll have to check those blogs and newsgroups in the morning to see who was duped. Meanwhile, the band appears to be getting a lot of traction in Austin...

Leaving the Convention Center, I start doing the zig-zag thing for the day parties, down to South Congress, out to the west side, back in to the main drag, then finally over to Red River for the Spin party at Stubb's where I rendezvous with my roommate Artie. Artie made the wise decision to avoid hanging out with me yesterday, because for the past 6 months he's been "grooming" (his term) this cute young female publicist - is there any other kind? - who works for a prominent NYC p.r. agency, and now that SXSW has arrived it's time for the big payoff, and in the past he has found that being associated too heavily with me can sometimes have a deal-breaking effect, trim-wise. I'm not sure why, although I am told that I have an "unfiltered" personality, go figure. The smile on Artie's face tells me that his efforts, which included penning rave reviews for pretty much every client of the gal's p.r. firm over the course of the past six months, were not in vain. If you've ever wondered why some male journalists always seem to favor certain acts, this is one of the reasons:

Anyway, he's holding me a spot in line outside Stubbs and it is stretching halfway up Red River almost to 10^th Street. There must be a thousand people here! I tell Artie about running into Courtney earlier, then give the personal assistant a ring - pretty soon we are standing in the backstage area of the venue, watching members of various bands mill around while Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are finishing up a blistering set that has the Spin crowd going nuts.

Meanwhile, Courtney spots me from the dressing room door and waves me over. "You wanna do something really fuckin' cool?" she whispers. After she explains what she has in mind, it's pretty obvious I'd be nuts not to go through with it event though I'll look like a total idiot. The personal assistant takes me over to another dressing room and we get started.

Time for Hole. The band swaggers on first, then Courtney comes out in true diva fashion, lights a cigarette, props one foot up on the monitor, and glances over her shoulder at me. I am standing behind a big set of bongos (on loan from the Dap-Kings) and dressed like some kind of African witchdoctor. She smiles, counts the band off, and then we're off - Hole is doing the Stones' "Sympathy For the Devil," and I'm onstage playing it with them. Holy shit. This is just like the Stones at Hyde Park in '69. Courtney is a genius. I will have to check the blogs and newsgroups tomorrow to find out how I did.

So now you know - that was me up there. If anyone has a video of the song, please post it to YouTube and let me know.

After that I get off so I can watch the rest of the set from the wings with Artie. Standing there in my witchdoctor getup, I feel a tad self-conscious, at least until I see the lead singer for glam band Foxy Shazam walk by, decked out in tight leather and looking like he just came from an oil-wrestling contest. That makes me feel better. Meanwhile, Courtney is at the mic going into a little Bret Michaels riff, cracking her bandmates up. Artie and I hold our lighted cellphones up in the air and mouth the lyrics to Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." Seriously, it doesn't get much better than this at a rock show.

Following Hole's set, Courtney invites me and Artie to a party in north Austin, but we respectfully decline. We are, after all, professional journalists, and we are here to report on SXSW, not go get all wasted at some party. To tell you the truth, though, the rest of the night kinda goes past in a blur, and something I have experienced year after year of attending SXS is something other people have told me they've experienced too, which is hitting a wall of sorts after about three days of this. To an extent, adrenaline kicks in, but jolt after jolt of adrenaline tends to wear you down over time too.

One thing's for sure, however: I am winding up at Club 1808 up on 12^th Street, as there is some serious psychedelic shit going to happen, and as Courtney's personal assistant handed me a small bag of ‘shrooms as a thanks for helping the band out onstage, well... you can see where this is all leading.

I float into the club around the time Rusted Shut is finishing up, and then right at midnight, Austin's premiere sonic alchemists ST 37 take the stage amid a discombobulating stew of feedback and liquid light show. They are followed by Japan's Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO, which is to say, the entire venue achieves lift-off somewhere around 1:30 a.m.

Wandering back towards the hotel an unspecified amount of time later, I purchase a neon purple hotdog with bright orange chili from an awesome-looking street vendor at the corner of 6^th and Neches. It is the best hotdog I have ever eaten in my life.

To be continued.

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter, editor and marketing consultant. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

South By FauxWest: SXSW Day 3

Traipsin' the light fantastic in Austin without spilling a single beer!

By Johnny Mnemonic

Ed. Note: With South By Southwest 2010 in full swing, we decided to send BLURT blogger Johnny Mnemonic, who pens the "Music Journalism 101" blog for us, to Austin and report back with his daily misadventures, er, observations. Only hitch was, he neglected to inform us that he's currently in England and won't be back in the States until the summer. "No problemo," he assured us. "I've attended SXSW numerous times since its inception in 1987. At this stage, I think I can wing it." We hereby present the erudite Mr. Mnemonic's long-distance account of this year's SXSW - as he imagines it might be going down. Guarantee: all dialogue not reported verbatim.

Read also: Day 1

Day 2

***

Day 3: Thursday, March 18

Ask any SXSW oldtimer what's the main difference between the first decade or so of the event and now, and to a person, the answer will be "the size" - many of them will complain that SXSW has gotten too big, and not without some justification. Where the festival started out as a means of spotlighting up-and-coming artists and paying tribute to a host of deserving non-mainstream musicians while also providing a means of connecting up industry professionals who didn't necessarily work for some foreign-owned corporation occupying several floors of a NYC skyscraper, in 2010 it has become, by some estimations, just one huge protracted exercise in marketing/branding and an even more protracted excuse to - not to put too fine a point on it - get really, really fucked up.

Doesn't mean it ain't a helluva lot of fun. Just sayin'.

Based on how I felt this morning when I woke up more or less in my own bed and in my own clothes but with a pair of shamrock-shaped pasties affixed to my forehead and crimson lipstick on my left earlobe, I can attest to the latter notion - the getting fucked up part. As a result, today I have promised myself to stay sober until at least 3 pm, and anyway, I want to hit some of the panels at the Convention Center. Attendees tend to frown upon someone who continually stands up, brandishing a beer, to interrupt the panelists.

Smokey Robinson is delivering the keynote address this morning and I can't miss that. On second thought, maybe I should, as the well-preserved (like, Botox quality) Motown soul legend delivers platitudes like "I'm fortunate and blessed to be able to do what I do. I'm never going to forget that, ever. Keep your feet on the ground -- and keep a thick skin." He sounds like a goddam motivational speaker. What's next, sell me a book? A couple of awkward moments do occur when interviewer and nationally known pop critic Dave Marsh apparently forgets where he is on his page of notes and asks, three times in succession, "So, is there still racism in the music industry?" A visibly amused Chuck D is spotted down front in the second row, rolling his eyes and giving the universal "what a dumb honky" up/down motion with his shoulders. The general consensus among the folks I poll later is that SXSW should have stuck with their first pick for the keynote, Lemmy from Motorhead, who reportedly got crossed off the deal when he kept insisting on being able to smoke cigarettes during the keynote session. Smokey or no Smokey, the Convention Center is smoke-free. Ha-ha, I just made that little pun up!

I go straight from the keynote to the "Does Rock and Roll Belong in a Museum?" panel, with the rhetorical thesis being, "Initially, many thought the idea of the Rock Hall was antithetical to the spirit of rock and roll. Despite its success, the question of whether rock and roll belongs in a museum persists. What efforts are being made to preserve this art form?" Things get lively almost immediately when Jim Henke, who you may recall has had more than a small hand in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, gets into a verbal sparring match with Lenny Kaye, no mean archivist himself but clearly more enamored of the immediacy of rock than its enshrinement. Onstage with the Patti Smith Group, Kaye often seems the calm at the eye of the hurricane, but here he's in full bitch-slap mode, such as the moment when he jumps up from his chair and starts screaming at Henke, "I knew Lester Bangs! He would be mortified to learn that rock music was being stuffed like a dead animal and propped up in a display case!" Journalist Ann Powers, also on the panel, but with rumors swirling about another round of pink slips coming down at the Los Angeles Times is reportedly vying for a job at the Rock Hall herself, diplomatically keeps mum through all this and busies herself updating her Facebook page and Twittering about the panel ("OMG, LK just spit on JH, I think I will get chile cheese corndog after this is over").

En route to another panel, I happen to spot Dave Marsh strolling down the corridor, barking into his cell, as a small, sweatily earnest entourage that looks suspiciously like aspiring music journalists trails in his wake. Hold on - I don't think those two African-American guys on the periphery are entourage per se, as they are doing that up/down shoulder thing. Score! SXSW meme spotted! Or at the very least, somebody's being mocked here, but far be it from me to get involved.

That next panel: "Where Goes English Folk Music?" Thesis: "English folk music has been used as a rich source of material for everyone from Bob Dylan to Devendra Banhart, but it has been frequently written off as dowdy and irrelevant. What place do old, anonymous ballads, passed down over the centuries, have in the modern pop pantheon? An exciting panel..." Whoops, no it isn't. Next.

Ergo: "Merge Makes Noise". Thesis: "Merge Records principals share stories from the book Our Noise and answer questions from author Michael Azerrad. From modest beginnings documenting the Chapel Hill scene, Merge has evolved into a highly regarded independent label nurturing significant acts such as Spoon and Arcade Fire." This is a lot of fun since it has Mac and Laura from Merge/Superchunk reading passages from the Merge oral history that was published last year while Azerrad tosses in little contextual quips. They have the audience, comprised almost exclusively of 30-somethings like myself who grew up on Merge, in a rapt state, one which turns to rowdy delight when a pair of surprise guests saunters onto the panel stage: Britt Daniel, from Spoon, and his old Elektra Records A&R nemesis Ron Laffitte. Spoon, of course, had ripped Laffitte a new one a decade ago with their "The Agony of Laffitte" single, detailing his mishandling of their career, and ultimately rendering the music executive a music industry punchline. Apparently time heals all wounds, however, for Daniel and Laffitte now embrace warmly before sitting down to join the discussion; they even laugh about their warring days, with Laffitte going so far as to call his former Elektra boss Sylvia Rhone "a serial bitch."

 At the end everyone brings out guitars, Laffitte and Azerrad included, to perform a massed version of Superchunk's "Slack Motherfucker." For an indie rock devotee like me, you couldn't ask for a better present.

Whoah - I'm starving. Time to head downtown for some grub. I text my roomie Artie, who was long gone by the time I woke up, to see if he can pick me up and drive me down to south Austin, but he doesn't hit me back, so I start walking. At the corner of 6^th and San Jacinto I spot Ann Powers camped out next to a vendor's cart, apparently making good on her Tweet. I'm in more of a barbecue mood, however, so I opt for the dude across the street whose specialty this year has turned out to be astoundingly popular: pulled pork drenched in caliente sauce and wrapped up in a massive flour tortilla. Wow, I am going to be shitting fire later tonight, but it's worth it. Maybe I can score some pain pills from someone... While squatting on the curb I spot Cary Baker, majordomo of p.r. agency Conqueroo, walking past, and I call him over to congratulate him on another Guitar Town/Conqueroo SXSW kickoff party (see yesterday's report), adding that I was still disappointed not to get my usual emailed copy of his annual compendium of SXSW day parties and events - Cary's as legendary for that as he is for his many exploits in the music biz for the past few decades. He grimaced, then explained that he actually had sent it out, but as SXSW parties have now officially outpaced the actual showcases that badgeholders and wristband wearers are paying to see, his 917-page word document (up in size somewhat from last year's 56-pager) wound up crashing servers and clogging email inboxes across the board. "Next year, I'm just gonna Twitter that shit," he added.

One thing I'm pretty excited about this evening is seeing the premiere of the rock biopic The Runaways, so I hoof it over to the Paramount Theatre. It's not bad, although the music's way better than the acting, but as it officially opens in theaters in the U.S. today, I'll let you read the reviews and decide for yourself. Meanwhile, though, in attendance are the stars, Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, plus director Floria Sigismondi and Cherie Currie from the band. Significantly, Joan Jett is not on hand, which is probably a good thing.

 After the screening, while all the girls are onstage taking applause, an obviously plastered Jacqueline Fuchs, aka "Jackie Fox," the original Runaways bassist who was essentially written out of the film due to a legal dispute, runs down front screaming obscenities and promising to "stick a goddam cherry bomb up everyone's asses before we're done here!" Apparently Fuchs/Fox and Jett have had a longstanding beef over lingering band issues, and the film has aggravated matters even further. Cat fight!

I notice Kim Fowley standing over to the side, near the left-hand exit sign, with a Cheshire-like grin. Spotting him in the audience at the Bellrays show later that night I will ask him, "So, what was that all about at the screening?" And he fills me in on the behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the film, and Fuchs, and how he's "sorta been playing Joan and Jackie off each other" in his various contacts with them. "Just like I used to do with the band in the ‘70s!" he crows, beaming. I grin back, then try out that up/down shoulder thing on him. He just stares at me blankly, as if I'd asked him to recite all the American presidents in order. So much for SXSW memes.

Way back in the first paragraph I was talking about the convergence of marketing/branding and getting blitzed at SXSW: no better example of that can be found at this year's festival than at the Stone Temple Pilots' StubHub showcase at the Austin Music Hall out on the western end of the downtown area. It's almost as teeth-gratingly annoying as the Metallica show last year at Stubbs (and possibly more so since I was able to walk to Stubbs while the cab drive to the AMH costs 12 bucks), for the simple reason that Metallica and STP are, or at least should be, the antithesis of what SXSW is all about, crass commercialism dressed up to look like rebellion, with a side dish of Hooters-type girls shoving handbills into your face every time you turned around.

After waiting in line for an eternity I finally gain admittance in time to see the last song from TAB the Band, which is apparently the group that Joe Perry of Aerosmith's two sons formed, and which I'd suggest a name change to something that sticks in the mind a bit easier - like, SUCK As A Band. From the mountains of gear the group has you wouldn't expect the kind of niggling garage rock that comes out of the PA, although the main attraction here actually appears to be the four-rows-deep cougar brigade that's crowded down front, woo-hooing and high-fiving at every move the singer makes. Said brigade steadily grows in size during the wait for STP until it resembles an entire assembled nunnery minus the funky headgear. Women in their forties need to avoid camisoles and feathered hair. And those butterfly tattoos on their shoulders just make them look desperate.

The band comes on and pretty much the first thing Weiland does is make a shameless plug for product: "The reason why we're touring right now is we're about to put out a new album." And from that point on it's corporate rock by the numbers, just like it's the early ‘90s again - hey, I understand Alice In Chains is touring too! The cougar nuns go wild for all the hits and I see an army of journalists scribbling furiously whenever a new song is played, and I also see a couple of shoving matches and some beers getting tossed and some seriously stoned motherfuckers zoning out. Hey, it's an old-school RAWK SHOW, baby, none of that limp-wristed indiepop shit, and to prove it, somebody disembalms Doors guitarist Robby Krieger in time to guest on a boozy version of his old band's "Roadhouse Blues." Jeez, Robby looks like my dear departed 90-year-old granddad shortly before we had to put him on the ventilator.

I can't take this charade, so I cut out early to beat the crowd and manage to catch one of the shuttles into town. En route, a surprisingly chatty fellow passengers engages me in conversation and I soon learn he is in possession of a big ol' sackful of Percocets. This strikes me as the perfect way to revive my delicate sensibilities, having been numbed from an overdose of TAB and STP, so we engage in the time-honored barter system: we detour over to my hotel room, him huffing several lines worth of Colombia's main export and me washing down a pair o' Percs with the quarter-bottle of Tequila that somehow magically appeared on the nightstand between yesterday evening and this morning. "Boo-yahhh!" he hollers, for no particular reason, and away we go on our respective itineraries.

First stop: Prague, over on Congress, just in time for the Jim Jones Revue. Jones used to be in Thee Hypnotics, and the BLURT editors advised me not to miss him, and I am not disappointed as his group emits an amped-up take on early rock ‘n' roll that'd singe Little Richard's mustache clean off. With Kid Congo Powers' Pink Monkey Birds up next, followed by The BellRays, it's a retro rock and soul party at the Prague like nobody's business.

I realize I had promised myself to take it easy tonight, but the Percs have kicked in big time so I'm in the mood to wander and socialize. Second stop: the Encore Patio (Red River), just as Camper Van Beethoven are coming on, and they'll be followed by Cracker, which makes for a David Lowery double-dip that can't be beat. Unfortunately everyone's buzz gets shaved when, during Camper's set, Lowery gets an electrical shock, which sends him into a hissy fit: "This place is bullshit!" he screamed. "Don't ever come here again! Don't ever spend any money here if you like Camper Van Beethoven." Out of the corner of my eye I see the bartender huddling furiously with the two doormen and another bouncer, who is now glaring at Lowery like Mike Tyson about to come out of his corner. Memo to bands: don't scream at the employees of a venue, at least not until you are finished and your gear has been packed away. Sensing trouble and intent on maintaining my mellow disposition, I make my exit and decide to head down to Stubb's.

Good choice. Drive-By Truckers are in full flight when I get there, although I have to listen to them while standing in line as my "virtual reporter" pitch to the folks at the entrance doesn't work for me this time like they did Wednesday at the NPR showcase (see yesterday's report). But I'm in for Band of Horses, followed by Broken Social Scene, and here late at night in Austin under the big ol' Texas moon, the music washes over me like an emotional tsunami. I wave my arms in the air like I just don't care, knocking a few beers out of the hands of the folks on either side of me, but like I said, I just don't care.

Two Hooters girls walk past me, and in an impulsive move, I yank all their handbills away from them and toss ‘em up in the air, and as they flutter down delicately over the crowd, glistening in the multicolored Stubb's spotlights, a huge cheer erupts, which turns out to be because the Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood has just appeared during BSS' set to do a stage dive but in my addled state I think it's for my act of symbolic rebellion. A pair of hamhock-sized hands grabs me by the shoulders and I am escorted speedily from the venue. En route I twist around and do the up/down shoulder thing, but apparently Stubb's bouncers aren't down with the SXSW meme thing. No problemo, amigo. Life is sweet when you're young and single, a good buzz on, and partying on a national music magazine's expense account.

To be continued.

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter, editor and marketing consultant. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

Traipsin' the light fantastic in Austin without spilling a single beer!

By Johnny Mnemonic

Ed. Note: With South By Southwest 2010 in full swing, we decided to send BLURT blogger Johnny Mnemonic, who pens the "Music Journalism 101" blog for us, to Austin and report back with his daily misadventures, er, observations. Only hitch was, he neglected to inform us that he's currently in England and won't be back in the States until the summer. "No problemo," he assured us. "I've attended SXSW numerous times since its inception in 1987. At this stage, I think I can wing it." We hereby present the erudite Mr. Mnemonic's long-distance account of this year's SXSW - as he imagines it might be going down. Guarantee: all dialogue not reported verbatim.

Read also: Day 1

***

Day 2: Wednesday, March 17

In hindsight, I should have picked up my SXSW Music badge yesterday. It probably wouldn't have been much use, gig-wise (re: my comments in yesterday's report about RSVP-only events) but it would have saved me a lot of time this morning. I also should have gotten up much earlier, but I was hungover, and that bratwurst last night at 2a.m. didn't do me any favors... I digress. The point is, by around 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning at SXSW, the Convention Center is starting to get pretty clogged by bands, journalists and attendees all aiming to pick up their credentials so they can get crackin' for SXSW, and this Wednesday is no exception as it takes me about an hour standing in line to finally get to the badge pickup booth. It's not a big deal unless you're hungover - something about Motorhead fans standing behind me jabbering away rapidly in Japanese makes me queasy (Motorhead is playing tonight, I learn) -  but I have no one to blame but myself.

Badge finally claimed, I go grab my SXSW swag bag which, truth be told, has been on a steady decline, qualitatively speaking, for several years now. There's the official SXSW directory that's a keeper of course, plus the occasional magazine worth hanging onto for the plane flight home, but all the other paper goods get chucked straight into the trash - memo to all you companies who actually pay to have your stuff inserted in the SXSW bags: you're wasting your money. I don't know a single person other than first-year SXSW newbies who bother to take more than a cursory look through the bag; besides, it'll just weigh you down if you take it all home on the plane. As far as the hard goods are concerned, there's always a few sets of promotional earplugs, condoms, pain relievers and energy supplements, but the CD samplers and singles are, as with the paper goods, destined for the dumpster.

Here's a fun game you can play at the Convention Center however: plant yourself just outside the swag bag pickup room, and when you see a cute gal exiting, approach her and very casually ask, "So... I only got two condoms in my bag. Can you spare yours?" It's worth it just to see her reaction, and who knows, it just might be the start of a great relationship! (Girls, I suggest you not try the reverse or you'll have some poor schmuck following you around like a horny dachshund for the rest of your Austin visit.)

As today is Saint Patrick's Day, I plan to head up to the Dog & Duck Pub, somewhat north of the main drag on 6^th Street, for their St. Paddy's Day Party where the likes of Black Irish, Sean Orr and, er, Rosie Flores and Jon Dee Graham are playing. On the way, though, is the official Paste Magazine Day Party at the Galaxy Room on 6^th, and I figure I'll pop in there and give the Paste crew a chance to apologize for treating me so shabbily last night. Apparently folks were supposed to RSVP for this party too, but luckily a short wait in line plus my badge gets me in. The lithesome Lissie is just delightful, while Roman Candle pulls out all the stops in classic we-gonna-blow-Austin-up fashion. I want to stick around for Roky Erickson & Okkervil River, but as that set isn't due for several hours, I have to leave and get to the D&D.

Waitaminnit - I almost forget about what's become a SXSW tradition for Wednesday, the Guitartown & Conqueroo Kickoff Party. This year marks the 10^th bash to date, so it's time for some serious twangin' at Joe's Bar & Grill (West & 6^th). The Hoodoo Gurus' frontman Dave Faulkner is onstage in the front room when I arrive, and while that doesn't sound like your usual twang act, he strips his songs down to their essence to reveal his inner folkie. Meanwhile, in the back room James McMurtry, a SXSW perennial, is getting cranked up, so I watch his set - packed, incidentally - and while he's still going on and on about George Bush (memo to James: Obama ain't doing so swell), the mofo can rock like, well, like a mofo.

I also remember that I had promised a publicist I'd swing by the "Beatles Complete on Ukulele Festival" at Jaime's (Red River), which is exactly what it says it is. A Beatles tribute band along with Roger Greenawalt plus some special guests (including Ben Kweller) are attempting to play all 185 known Beatles songs on, you guessed it, ukulele. I pop in, locate the publicist so she knows I was good on my word, get some drink tickets from her, then cut out when I'm sure she's distracted. (There is an art to letting publicists know you are good on your word.) To be honest, I just fucking hate anything played on a ukulele.

There's some kinda commotion down the street from me - it's at the parking garage across from Stubb's on Red River. I suddenly realize what that cryptic Twitter message I'd gotten a couple of hours earlier was all about: Broken Bells is playing a surprise gig as part of the SXSW "Pop-Up Show" series. Somehow I manage to squeeze in and there's James Mercer and Danger Mouse doing pretty much all of their self-titled debut for the over-capacity crowd in the garage, which with its echoey acoustics gives the sound a cinematic Phil Spector-like vibe. The highlight is when Danger Mouse's buddy from Gnarls Barkley, Cee-Lo, comes out to guest on "The High Road"; nobody recognizes him at first because he's wearing that Darth Vader outfit again, but then he waves his light saber in the air and removes his helmet and the whole place erupts in cheers. Frankly, the uniform looks pretty tight; dude's put on some weight.

The trek up to the Dog & Duck seems to be curing me of my hangover; well, that and the beer I had at the Galaxy Room, followed by the two shots of mescal I had at Joe's Bar, and the beer I had at the Uke fest using the free drink tickets. Rosie Flores has just started at the D&D when I arrive, and I could swear she's affecting an Irish accent on a few of her songs - border music and Tex-Mex done Pogues style, go figure! I get to chat with her a bit after her set and I can't help but saying to her, "Funny, Rosie, you don't look Irish!" She laughs and gives me a guitar pick. About that time a girl walks by completely topless; her breasts have been painted green and she's got a pair of shamrock-shaped pasties covering her nipples. I follow her across the room until she notices me, and I try my Rosie line on her: "Funny, they don't look Irish!" She smiles coyly and hands me a flyer for some metal band that's showcasing the next night. Well, it was worth a stab.

My phone rings and it's my roommate Artie; he finally arrived in Austin, has picked up his rental car, and is going to swing by and pick me up so we can drive over to Waterloo Records where Cheap Trick is doing an instore at 6pm. The store is jammed when we get there, and - WTF?!? The band's not playing, just sitting there like mooks, taking questions from the audience for a goddam Q&A/autograph session. Why not save this shit for the SXSW panels at the Convention Center?!?

Robin Zander looks bored out of his skull, barely muttering his answers, leaving Rick Nielsen to provide the necessary pep to prevent this sorry ass trick from turning very cheap. He's a real trouper, though, and he knows his rock lore. When one helium-voiced fanboy rambles on and on with what's apparently a five-part question involving whether or not the re-recorded In Color that the band cut with Steve Albini will ever be released, Nielsen winks at the crowd and casually says, "Could you repeat the question?" Before the fidgeting, red-faced kid has an epileptic fit from the embarrassment, however, Nielsen rescues him by quipping, "Albini stole the master tapes because we never paid him, then he threw them in Lake Michigan, so we've been negotiating with a tape collector who apparently got ahold of a copy." All throughout Waterloo you see people tapping away furiously on their smartphones and netbooks, no doubt trying to be the first on their block to post this fascinating info (fake, as many Cheap Trick fans reading this probably already realize) to their blogs and newsgroups. I'll have to check the blogs and newsgroups in the morning to see who was duped.

Artie and I duck around the corner from Waterloo to a little Chinese restaurant for a quick bite of grub, then it's off into the mystical evening that is Austin SXSW! The plan is to wind up at Stubb's for the big NPR Music showcase, where Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Broken Bells and Spoon will be playing. This will definitely be a long-line wait if we don't get their early - SXSW attendees have a sheep-like tendency to all get in line whenever they see a queue, operating under the assumption that they're gonna miss out on... something, not realizing that they could probably see six good bands at smaller showcases in the time it takes to get in to a single large showcase.

So we summarily take my own tried and tested advice and decide to check out a couple of shows en route. Come to think of it, let's see how many bands we can pack into a single paragraph and two hours without worrying about where on the map the clubs actually are, or whether it's even logistically possible to do this - after all, this is a virtual recap of my SXSW, not yours!

First stop: the Central Presbyterian Church on 8^th Street, where some serious psychedelia is being stirred up by Austin's Balmorhea. Then it's over to Buffalo Billiards down on 6^th to see NYC's electronic/hip-hop maven Hesta Prynn, part of the Time Out New York showcase (very gay, what with Japanther and Andrew W.K. slated to play later). In short order we've soon caught: Tampa soul combo Nervous Turkey (Cedar Door, Brazos Str.); Brooklyn blogger-approved buzzband (is there any other kind?) Here We Go Magic (Brooklyn Vegan party, natch, at Club de Ville, Red River St.); the venerable and always entertaining My Dad Is Dead (Habana Calle 6 Patio, 6^th St.); The League of Extraordinary G'z, an Austin combo that's part of the OGPR/All Hip Hop showcase way out at La Zona Rosa on 4^th St.; which puts us in the mood for some more hip-hop, but since we couldn't bring our gats on the planes, we settle for the Nerdcore Showcase at the Karma Lounge on 8^th, where Jay Bizzy is apparently doing battle rap with himself and patrons are flocking out into the street in droves; and lastly to the Action! PR metal showcase at the Mohawk Patio on Red River (see how we are zeroing in on Stubb's?) to catch the mighty Zoroaster! Boo-yahh!

Seriously - if anybody can top that itinerary without using a Star Trek transporter device, I wanna know about it. Like I pointed out yesterday, I've been doing SXSW since it started up in 1987; suffice to say, I know the shortcuts around Austin. Of course, it helps when you're doing blow by the scoopful to keep you energized. At one point Artie reminded me I'd promised to "light him up like a stick of dy-no-mite!", so we made a quick detour in the middle of all this by the hotel room where we both did our finest impressions of a Hoover vacuum cleaner. Like I said - boo-yahhh! (That's Artie below, btw.)

Artie and I finally land at Stubb's, and sure enough, the line for the NPR Music showcase is stretching halfway up Red River almost to 10^th Street. There must be a thousand people here! I tell Artie to hold my spot in line and I go sauntering casually to the front to scope things out. There I spot Carrie Brownstein yakking with Bob Boilen, both prominently kitted out in NPR Music running shorts and muscle tees, so I come up from behind and give Carrie a Heimlich-type bearhug just under her ribcage- we hung out for a week in L.A. a number of years ago when I was profiling Sleater-Kinney for the newspaper and have kept in touch ever since; the hug's kind of a private joke between me, Carrie and Janet Weiss - then ask her if she can help me out. "I'm doing a virtual report on SXSW for BLURT," I inform her, "so it's not like I'll actually be bumping anybody from the line or even adding to the capacity inside, although I'm not sure what to do about my roommate." She tells me no problem and ushers me right in while Boilen looks on, munching nonchalantly on a massive plate of nachos. I swear he just texted the whole deal about the bearhug to the NPR Music blog. I'll have to check that in the morning.

Following a quick duck inside a bathroom stall to "powder my nose," I plant myself down front next to the left-hand side P.A. just as Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are strutting onstage. Holy fuck, they are good. Sharon's shaking that moneymaker like Mick Jagger's paying her to put on a Tina Turner wig and do a private dancer thing for him. I wave my arms in the air like I just don't care, knocking a few beers out of the hands of the folks on either side of me, but like I said, I just don't care. Boo-yahh!

Broken Bells is next, reprising their set from earlier in the day, minus Cee-Lo, who I am informed via the SXSW Twitter hotline that he is making a guest appearance as a backing singer for Motorhead at the Austin Music Hall clear on the other side of town. Damn! I wanted to see Motorhead and I was just out that way at La Zona Rosa not two hours earlier! C'est la Lemmy.

Anyhow, Spoon is onstage at Stubb's now, clearly the hometown heroes of the moment. They rock, they roll, Britt Daniels gurns and grimaces and flicks guitar picks like he's Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, and it is clear they are basking in the Austin spotlight. Or moonlight. Same difference.

Spoon's heading out on a national tour any second now, so don't miss ‘em. As for me, I'm tooted up to the gills and I need some booze bad. I think I'm gonna go back to the Dog & Duck and look for Shamrock Girl. Something about her seemed magically delicious. Happy Saint Patrick's Day, everyone!

To be continued.

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter, editor and marketing consultant. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

Traipsin' the light fantastic in Austin without spilling a single beer!

By Johnny Mnemonic

Ed. Note: With South By Southwest 2010 in full swing, we decided to send BLURT blogger Johnny Mnemonic, who pens the "Music Journalism 101" blog for us, to Austin and report back with his daily misadventures, er, observations. Only hitch was, he neglected to inform us that he's currently in England and won't be back in the States until the summer. "No problemo," he assured us. "I've attended SXSW numerous times since its inception in 1987. At this stage, I think I can wing it." We hereby present the erudite Mr. Mnemonic's long-distance account of this year's SXSW - as he imagines it might be going down. Guarantee: all dialogue not reported verbatim.

***

Day 1: Tuesday, March 16

Greetings, Blurters. I'm safely ensconced in my hotel room here at the Bloomsbury in London, currently on a freelance assignment for MTV networks. Readers of my Blurt blog will recall that about a year or so ago I lost my editorial job when the music publication I worked for went under, and since then I've been hopping around in a freelance capacity - including, apparently, covering SXSW for Blurt now. Without further digression, then, here's what happened my first virtual day in Texas.

My flight into Austin is delayed by a protracted layover at the Dallas airport, so to pass the time I play my favorite SXSW-related game, Spot The Traveling Musicians. Many of them are easy to pick out in a crowd; garden-variety tourists and businessmen do not, as a rule, carry guitar cases and dress in all black. If the traveling musician is female, she can additionally be identified by the western boots she invariably wears, as her far savvier Texas peers wouldn't be caught dead in clunky cowgirl boots that will kill your feet after standing for 10 to 12 hours straight, which is what SXSW is all about. British bands offer an additional wrinkle in this people-watching exercise that's always delightful: garden-variety tourists and businessmen are rarely accompanied by a short, fat, balding manager who feels compelled to speak in a loud, obnoxious Manchester accent to nobody in particular. The sub-strata of traveling journalists is worth mentioning here too: as anyone who's ever been to SXSW knows, male music writers do in fact look EXACTLY like Elvis Costello circa 1977, which is to say, anemic, with thick glasses, and hair that looks like it was trimmed with a chainsaw; female writers, dead ringers, every one of them, for Carnie Wilson prior to her notorious gastro tuck.

Upon finally arriving in Austin I take the SuperShuttle into town and promptly use up my entire stash of business cards by exchanging them with the other 50 people riding in the van. Luckily I had the foresight to ship ahead an extra box of 5000 cards to my hotel, and after arriving at the Hilton (adjacent to the Austin Convention Center, where much of the SXSW action takes place), I secure the package and check into my room. Whew - the blow and reefer I packed inside my Hole bootleg box set, which I'm hoping I can get autographed by Courtney Love while I'm down here, wasn't detected. Party on, Garth!

I pull on my faded, vintage No Depression teeshirt, the one featuring the reproduction of the cover of very first issue of the late, great Americana magazine, which was given out to everyone who attended the first organizing event of the Americana Music Association all those years ago, and with that subtle telegraphing of my hipster status to anyone I may chance to encounter, it's off to 6^th Street.

Which isn't really 6^th Street yet because the city of Austin hasn't blocked it off yet. That will come soon enough, though, and meanwhile, it's fascinating to see the main SXSW drag looking relatively uncluttered and not smelling of beer and puke. There are even cars, which reminds me, I need to check with my roommate to make sure he reserved a vehicle. He won't be in until Wednesday, but you'll meet him soon enough.

Since SXSW Music doesn't really get going until tomorrow, the must-attend music events going on today are somewhat slim pickings. So I head over to the Alamo Lamar theater to see what movies are being shown as part of SXSW Film and manage to catch most of Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, a pretty funny British rockumentary about UK rapper Scorzayzee that also features cameos from the Arctic Monkeys. Aren't UK rappers silly!

Then it's time to hit the big Paste magazine "Kickoff" party at the PureVolume House on Trinity, where Jakob Dylan & Three Legs are supposed to play - Dylan's band is to include Neko Case, Kelly Hogan and Jon Rauhouse, and he comes on at 11, which means I won't have to sit through that family band of Christian rockers Eisley, who are headlining. When I arrive around 8pm I hear opener Harper Blynn strumming away quite earnestly, and there's barely a line to get in, so all looks good - until I am refused entry at the door. Seems that the event is RSVP only, and all my protestations fail to sway the mousy little Paste intern checking off names. I even point out that I used to write for Paste and politely urge, "Go tell Josh Jackson that his old friend Johnny M is here!" - no dice. I spot Jackson over near the bar and try to catch his attention but he pretends not to see me.

As a last straw, I pull my teeshirt up over my chest to display my big Jesus-on-the-cross tattoo that stretches across my entire torso (it's designed so each of my nipples is positioned as a nail hammered into one of the palms) but the Paste gal just goes "Ewww" and turns away in disgust, so I guess I'm fucked.

Utterly dejected - I really, really, really, really wanted to see Neko Case; not in a stalker kinda way; I just wanted to be right down front to watch the sweat glisten on her forehead as she sang; but again, it's not like I was desperate or anything - I hoof it from Trinity over to east 5^th Street to Levi's Fader Fort, site of the Zynga party where the Constellations and Metric will be playing. This turns out to be RSVP too, and I make a mental note not to be so quick to delete those label and p.r. emails that flood my inbox during the run up to SXSW next year.

Luckily the door person is way more civilized than the bitchy little Paste intern, and I don't even have to pinch my nipples and lick my upper lip at him like I did before. After a short wait in line, I'm admitted just as the Constellations are nearing the end of their set but I do get to see the Atlanta band's lead singer climb up on top of the PA and pull some Iggy/Lux Interior type moves (without actually exposing himself) while his bandmembers, all 15 of them (or so it seems; it's a big band) crack up.

Metric, featuring the ever fetching Emily Haines, comes on around 10, and I move right down front so I can watch the sweat glisten on her forehead - she does not disappoint. I start to pull up my shirt and flash my Jesus tattoo at her, but wind up sloshing beer on both myself and the people on either side of me (I am holding a bottle in each hand), so I scratch that idea and just enjoy the music.

Later that night on the street I run into my friend Kumie, who's here on a PopMatters badge to do live blogging from the music panels each day at the Convention Center, and she tells me that at the Paste party Neko Case and Jakob Dylan recreated the famous Mick Ronson-David Bowie mock-fellatio scene during a cover of "Suffragette City" and that the club just went nuts. Fuck.

I grab a bratwurst with extra kraut and chili from one of the street vendors on 6^th Street and much it down walking back to the hotel. Time to call it a night. SXSW Music on Wednesday awaits. Neko, if you're reading this, I adore you. I'm registered at the Hilton.

To be continued.

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter, editor and marketing consultant. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

Death Of An Indie Bible (or, Adventures with Option Magazine, Pt. 2)

By Johnny Mnemonic

In my last installment of Music Journalism 101 I outlined my misadventures in the land of grunge and honey circa 1991 and how a proposed story on Sub Pop lumberjacks Tad got deep-sixed, frustratingly, by Option. The magazine operated from 1985 to 1998, publishing 81 issues overall, and at its 1995 peak, according to Wikipedia, had amassed a circulation of 27,000. That's not quite at Spin level, and not even in the same universe as Rolling Stone, but still damned respectable for what was known in its time as the indie underground's bible.

People tend to remember Option rather fondly, and I'll be the first to admit that I was proud to write for it even though the pay, if adjusted for inflation, probably wasn't any better than writing for online publications nowadays - which is to say, negligible. Those of you reading this who also reviewed records for the magazine back in the day will recall that reviewers, in lieu of actually payment, got to keep the albums and cassettes sent to them by the editors. But the free music (plus free subscription, of course) combined with the ego-buzz of seeing one's byline in print was enough when it was a magazine whose mission you believed in.

Respect from the music community aside, editorially speaking, Option was pretty disorganized, and it was hard to get a handle on what, if any, editorial "stance" the publication took other than "if it's independent, we cover it," which meant one issue you'd see, say, Patti Smith on the cover, an African world-beat artist the next and an obscure British folk artist attempting to make a comeback the next. Cool, but in the long run, not the smartest strategy to employ when trying to make headway at the newsstand. Subscribers are one thing, and I suspect the magazine had a fairly loyal subscription base that re-upped each year. But the habits of newsstand browsers are different, and nowadays even the lowest-circulation fanzine knows to put a known quantity or semi-familiar face on the cover (along with names of main feature artists listed on the left-hand side of the cover, not the right, due to the way magazines are displayed); otherwise you risk nobody even picking the damned thing up in the first place, and you can't build a brand in a vacuum. Option, to its credit, wised up about this considerably during its 13-year run, but I still hear people make the occasional comment about it being "too eclectic for its own good."

As a writer, contending with Option could also be confusing, as one's story pitches seemed to be accepted or rejected on such a random basis that you imagined the editors taping ideas to a giant roulette wheel, spinning it, and making assignments based on where it stopped. Worse, it wasn't unusual to get an assignment, turn it in, and then wait for it to be published... and wait... and wait... or in the case of the Tad piece, call up the editor only to be told, "Oh, we didn't have room to run it, and now it's too old..."

Too, the head-in-sand quality I alluded to in the Tad story could sometimes be perplexing. For all Option's so-called championing of the music underground, Amerindie and otherwise, it "overlooked" (or conveniently ignored) anything that didn't quite measure up to the editors' rarified notions of what was hip. Ergo, the Seattle snub; grunge bands were kinda ratty-looking, presumably blue collar or worse (we now know that grunge's early white-trash image was a marketing ruse foisted upon the public by Sub Pop), and - shudder! - borderline heavy metal, therefore very uncool. Option played favorites; for example, you'd always see some avant-garde Independent Project Records band or shambling K Records artist being featured (one of this blog's comments, below after the Tad entry, makes a similar observation), but only occasional lip service would be given to the skronk/noise groups of Amphetamine Reptile, Treehouse and Touch & Go. (For some reason the gnarly, noisy, long-haired outfits on the SST label were mainstays of Option-land, but hey, SST was headquartered just down the road from the Option offices in L.A.) Additionally, a pervasive politically correct streak, editorially speaking, was impossible to miss; there's nothing wrong with covering females and persons of color, but that sort of lingering Great Society mindset sometimes trumped notions of actual musical worthiness at Option.

This myopia-bred snobbery extended to the Option choice of cover subjects. Certainly featuring the likes of Sonic Youth and the Meat Puppets early on was admirable, and it wasn't unusual to see (as noted) Patti Smith or Frank Zappa staring out at you from the newsstand down at your local record store where Option was typically sold. (Good choices from a circulation point of view, by the way.) As that Option Wikipedia page points out, however, the frequent dialogue among staffers ran along lines of, "Is this artist too popular to be worthy of a cover?" (What do we do if Sonic Youth leaves SST and goes to DGC?) Such navel gazing further resulted in an almost formulaic rotation of non-rock cover subjects to ensure that Option was never perceived as "mainstream" or, heaven forbid, "rockist" (more p.c. groupthink there). The comment above about being too eclectic aside, part of Option's appeal, certainly, was how it wore its eclecticism on the sleeve, that between its covers nearly all genres were considered equals (again, see the Wikipedia entry for more details). But to many who discovered the magazine late during its tenure, it's likely that it did indeed have a somewhat schizophrenic reputation.

The fact that it often relied upon less-than-seasoned writers to provide the bulk of its content didn't help its case either. Nobody who picked up Option was necessarily expecting The New Yorker, but I distinctly recall getting my copy in the mail from time to time, reading an article, and wondering to myself, "Did anybody even fact-check this?" Plus, the magazine had a tendency to favor certain "pet writers" of dubious talent beyond that of extreme self-promotion. Without a doubt one of the most annoying music journalists the ‘80s and ‘90s ever produced was Gina Arnold, whose solipsistic wet kiss to alternative rock, 1993's Route 666: On the Road to Nirvana, remains a low literary point of the era; Arnold penned feature after feature for Option despite all extant evidence that her reporting skills were nil. Having edited publications in both L.A. and NYC myself, I understand how thousands of writers are out there clamoring for work, and how as a result one tends to rely on a small pool of trusted freelancers, folks who turn in clean copy, and on time. But they also have to write coherently and cogently, and they need to be mindful of the fact that their readers aren't interested in their personal diary scribblings (which is how Arnold's pieces invariably came off).

Option began life in ‘85 as an outgrowth of/successor to the late, great OP, which had enjoyed a healthy 26-issue run in the early ‘80s as the first indie music bible prior to founder/publisher John Foster imposing a built-in obsolescence rule. Two music publications sprung up in its wake: Sound Choice, a kind of anarchist/collective-minded mag published by the extraordinarily grumpy and no-business-sense-whatsoever David Ciaffardini; and Option, founded by Scott Becker (publisher) and Richie Unterberger (editor). I'd subscribed to OP (among scores of music fanzines) and faithfully sent in my money to Sound Choice and Option, too. It wouldn't be too long before I offered my services to Option, because while I'd already been reviewing records for Spin and Circus (for pay), I greatly liked the magazine's DIY spirit, and anyway, it was hard to place more than one review every few issues in the other two because the competition among freelancers was so fierce. Option seemed to be a welcoming group of peers.

That "DIY spirit" could be a double-edged sword, however. Publisher Becker reportedly had an iron-clad rule that his magazine would not accept pitch calls from record labels' publicists. A pitch call is exactly that: the p.r. agent rings up an editor in order to hype a client or follow up on a record that had previously been mailed to the magazine. In order to increase the chances of landing coverage in the magazine, sometimes the label would also provide what's known in the industry as "swag": free teeshirts, coffee mugs, shot glasses, promotional-only releases, and just plain bizarre gee-gaws with vague thematic tie-ins to the artist or the record. (Swag is far less abundant in 2009 as the labels have realized they're just giving editors and writers free eBay fodder.) I personally never saw Becker's rule being implemented during the times I visited the Option office, but I heard enough complaints from publicists who knew I wrote for Option and were begging me to pitch their artists to the magazine that I have no doubt it existed in some form or another.

So you can add a measure of hubris to the aforementioned snobbery when tallying up the Option score. Virtually no magazine in the history of entertainment coverage ever enforced such a strict mandate, for while a moderate separation between the editorial and advertising departments is generally considered good for a publication's ethical health, we're not exactly talking about someone ringing Option up and offering, payola-style, to purchase the back cover ad space in exchange for a ten-page feature. In all fairness to record labels, their viewpoint tends to be that they advertise in music magazines where their products will get the most visibility, and there's an expectation that at least from time to time those products will be covered. They don't necessarily expect a positive review (some do, actually), but they still want a fair shot at coverage. That's just the way it works. Imagine someone calling up Option: "Did you get our check and the artwork for the Johnny Mnemonic Blues Band ad?" "Yes we did, and thanks. It will run next issue." "What are the chances of the Mnemonic album getting reviewed?" "CLICK!"

For a magazine in the early ‘90s to play the gatekeeper card to the extreme that Option did, trying to remake the rules in an industry where back-scratching and favor-rendering is not only business as usual but, when done properly, an efficient and mutually beneficial process, was ludicrously out of sync with reality. That, an inability to see the music magazine milieu through the eyes of the aforementioned newsstand browser (it's no coincidence that Mojo came on the scene around this time and, with its regular rotation of Beatles, Dylan, Neil Young, Stones, Springsteen, etc. for its covers, was wildly successful due to its sheer predictability), and a series of unfortunate business decisions (notably the launching, in 1995, of sister publication UHF, a glossy "alternative fashion" magazine that was a massive, money-sucking flop and embarrassed everyone associated with it), all conspired to doom Option.

In mid-'98, we writers received a letter from Becker indicating that Option was temporarily suspending publication. At the time it was suggested that Option would eventually reincarnate itself as some sort of combined digital-print entity, although Becker's plans were pretty vague, and nothing ever materialized. The July-August 2008 issue was the final one.

In light of all the recent music magazine shutterings, the Option story probably isn't that unusual. It's even likely that, as consumer habits change and markets shift, most if not all magazines will enjoy a finite lifespan; only one in several thousand ever has a shot of lasting long enough to be considered "an institution" like Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair. But it did last for 13 lucky years, and a lot of folks, myself included, loved it dearly, which is why being privy to Option's numerous eventual missteps was so frustrating. In all my conversations back in the day with the editors I don't know if I ever leaned across the desk and asked, "Why are you doing this? Have you considered this instead?" - mainly because it wasn't my place to do so. It was their magazine, after all, and they were supposed to know what they were doing.

 By the way, I never got a kill fee for the Tad story, dammit.

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter and editor. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

My Dinner With Tad (or, Adventures with Option Magazine, Pt.1)

By Johnny Mnemonic

"You finished with that?"

Tad Doyle, lumberjack frontman for his eponymous Seattle band Tad, comes into focus as my head slowly swivels to the left. Flecks of pasta and spaghetti sauce decorate his thick black beard like the glittery remains of a visit to the dance club. This ain't no disco, however, and he ain't foolin' around, either: Doyle is poking a Cuban cigar-sized finger at my half-eaten plate of lasagna, and the look on his face is the same kind of look a Looney Tunes wolf gets when it's gazing at some potential prey and doesn't see a duck or a bunny at all but a steaming, home-cooked meal smothered in tasty sauces.

"Um, yeah, uh, I, uh, guess so," I stammer, and with a bright, "Cool!" Doyle reaches across, picks up my plate, and summarily dumps the remains upon his plate, which has already been so scrupulously cleaned of every last crumb that to the casual onlooker it would appear Doyle hadn't even received his initial order yet. My hand reflexively shoots out to grab my soft drink before it, too, can pass into the public domain.

In our dining party: the entire Tad band, plus their roadie/driver and a photographer friend of mine. The 2 a.m. wares of this 24-hour Italian-Greek diner located a half-mile away from L.A.'s Sunset Strip appear to agree with everyone, not the least of them being Doyle, who I swear is now eyeing his bandmates' plates, too. Bassist Kurt Danielson chuckles at my discombobulation, winking knowingly at guitarist Gary Thorstensen as if this is just another on-the-road mealtime ritual. It might not be a coincidence that Danielson, Thorstensen and drummer Steve Wied are rock-star thin, in striking contrast to Doyle, who to my untrained eye clocks in at around 300 pounds.

The occasion of this late-night pasta picnic is an assignment from Option magazine. It's the spring of 1991 and Tad's second full-length, the Butch Vig-produced 8-Way Santa, was released a few months ago by Sub Pop, and everyone from the label to the music press to the musicians themselves is counting on this to be their breakout record. Option, while having positioned itself over the course of its half-decade tenure as a kind of indie music bible, somehow managed to discount the subterranean rumblings emanating from the Northwest over the past few years, and as a result early Sub Pop acts like Green River, Mudhoney, Afghan Whigs and even Nirvana all got short shrift from the magazine. Now, though, with even mainstream publications starting to turn their gaze towards Seattle, Option can't afford to remain behind the curve so the Tad piece is essentially the magazine scrambling to play catch-up.

(Truth be told, Option, in its drive to become a musical tastemaker and a so-called alternative to the alterna-likes of the ‘mersh-tilting Spin, has gradually adopted a somewhat provincial attitude towards the more hirsute, blue-collar, hard-rock leaning elements of the Amerindie underground. This development is both a source of mirth and frustration among the magazine's pool of mostly unpaid writers. There's a lot of really, really great heavy-ass music cropping up all over the country and not just in Seattle, but much of what we're sent by the magazine to review is of the twee/K Records and home-brewed "cassette culture" variety. The upside is that a number of the writers have started up their own fanzines and writing about what they're really into. But that's another story, for another day.)

At any rate, earlier in the evening I witnessed Tad positively slay a normally jaded Hollywood crowd, testimony that the so-called "grunge explosion" isn't just hype. Little does anyone in our dining party realize that before 1991 is out, "hype" is going to be an operative term as regards Seattle - next year, a documentary will anoint 1991 as "the year punk broke," and filmmaker Cameron Crowe will release his romanticized take on the Seattle scene, Singles - thanks to Tad's scruffy labelmate, Nirvana. The Nevermind album will blow across the music universe like a typhoon, randomly raising and capsizing many of Nirvana's contemporaries; in the latter category will be Tad, who despite landing a major record deal during the ensuing bidding wars won't be able to live up to the aforementioned hype, sales-wise, and after a series of label and lineup shuffles, will split up in 1998.

The Tad Option piece never happens, which in hindsight is a lot less annoying than it was at the time since I now view the situation as emblematic of Tad's career - a doomed trajectory also foreshadowed by the band's unplanned legal woes (a lawsuit filed by Pepsi over Tad's unauthorized use of the cola giant's logo for the "Jack Pepsi" 45; another suit on the part of the guy depicted on the sleeve of 8 Way Santa grabbing his girlfriend's boob, the gentleman having subsequently become a born-again Christian and not exactly digging the fact that a long-forgotten photograph from his former life had resurfaced).

My Tad story was actually an extremely solid one, full of colorful, telling details about the band and the region that spawned it, not to mention some pretty funny quotes collected at the meal. And I filed my copy on time, too; as this was still the pre-Internet era, I personally delivered it to the Option office along with a bundle of photos and negatives the photographer had taken of Tad (my favorite was of Doyle in the middle of a dumpster, glowering, while his bandmates chucked in bags of trash).

But by the time the issue containing the story would have appeared on newsstands, Nirvana was blowing up nationally. The editors, not wanting to make the magazine's bandwagon-hopping appear too obvious with back-to-back Seattle-themed pieces, canned the Tad feature and hastily located a writer to do something on Nirvana.

Of course, this story isn't really about Tad, or about Nirvana, or even about the grunge era - since the name of the blog you're reading is "Music Journalism 101," this story is about Option.

To be continued...

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter and editor. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.

Running amuck (adrift, actually...) in the magical Land of Oz with a big-boobed, coke-sniffin' bimbo and assorted loonies.

By Johnny Mnemonic

I am a man adrift.

Prior to my current existential state of affairs, however, I was a staff writer for what I presume most people considered to be highly-regarded national music magazine. I hasten to emphasize my phrasing being in the past tense, as the publication recently folded, the victim of all those things you've been reading lately, with alarming frequency, about music magazines (and the print world in general). I won't bore you with all the mundane details of my dismissal and its demise - yet - other than to say the basic law of the jungle was in effect: if a business ceases to continue making money, and this goes on for month after month despite (or owing to) the regular influx of meddling new investors, hapless new editors and inane new marketing strategies, etc., soon enough, something's gotta give.

Ergo, I am a man adrift, with no immediate, regular source of income. I will certainly be offering up my freelance skills to other highly-regarded national music magazines, perhaps even the one whose website you are reading this very moment, but the terms "freelance writer" and "regular income" remain mutually exclusive. So while I drift, in between resume-mailing, LinkedIn networking and Velvet Rope-lurking, in order to keep my mind from atrophying from a steady diet of satellite TV and internet porn I've accepted an invitation from the editors of Blurt to author this blog.

"Music Journalism 101" is to be part-memoir, part-exposé and part cautionary tale. On that first count, I'll draw upon my experiences as a music writer and introduce you to assorted denizens of the musician community ranging from the sweet to the sour, from the supremely gifted to the astonishingly clueless, and from the types who help make the world a better place with their artistry to the walking/talking chunks of human feces who in a sane, just world would be lined up next to a mass burial site in some godforsaken corner of what used to be Yugoslavia and summarily shot and tossed into the pit. As far as the exposé part is concerned, don't necessarily take that term literally (don't want to get your hopes up), although I will be tugging the curtain back to give you glimpses of what goes on in the lives of music writers, their editors and publishers, their peers and significant others, their hookups and drug dealers, etc. Just to give you a teaser: for a week in 1989 I joined the touring entourage of a former college rock band-turned-MTV-darling - for the purposes of this blog, I'll refer to them as "Dream Response" - in order to do an on-the-road profile. This gave me access to the after-show activities, although there was an unspoken understanding that I'd use discretion in reporting any behavior that might prove upsetting to the quartet's fairly vanilla fanbase, or for that matter, to the members' wives. From the band's point of view, that unspoken understanding probably served them well when it came time for me to file my report. I quite diligently did not recount the scene in which I wandered into one of their hotel suites' bathrooms only to find the lead singer - let's call him "Frothy Bryson," after his unnerving habit for literally foaming at the mouth in the middle of one of his onstage "poetic" rants - ankle-deep in the chunky, dark-haired, big-boobed local radio personality who'd turned up at the show to record station I.D.s and was invited to stick around for the party. After a few healthy toots of Peruvian weasel dust and three or four stiff vodka-and-7-Ups, she'd apparently been ready to take more than just airchecks from the group. I can still hear her horsey-like, pack-a-day wheeze of a laugh (how do these obnoxious gals get their radio gigs? oh, right...) as she was grabbing for the straw... and if I squint my mind's eye just right, I can still see - no, please God, not again - Frothy's hairy, boil-studded ass.

But don't think that life in the music journalism business is a merry old yellow brick road stroll into the Emerald City, where vials of coke dangle from trees like sugarplums and nubile munchkin lasses beckon seductively from shop windows like Amsterdam hookers. This is where the cautionary tale aspect comes in. "The biz" has a boundless supply of headaches, frustrations, diva- and asshole-like personalities, and just out-and-out lunacy, not to mention a deadeningly mundane side to it (you know, hours upon hours trapped in a cubicle pounding away at a keyboard while your head pounds from all that free booze you swilled the night before at the Metallica album listening party at Arlene's Grocery). It's not all that different from used car sales, actually. So my hope is that after reading this blog, at least one aspiring music journalist out there, having gotten a sense of how the sausages are made, so to speak, will plot a beeline straight to his or her college counselor and switch majors to, say, Astronomy, or perhaps Botany - any discipline where one's native talents can be nurtured and turned into a bankable commodity in the employment marketplace. Because if you believe being a rock critic is a viable career path, I have some stock shares in Madoff, Inc. I want to sell you. At this juncture in life, it's probably too late for me, but it's not too late to prevent one of you from making a huge mistake. Don't wake up one morning to learn that the business you've chosen to work for is sinking faster than a GM truck with cinderblocks chained to each axle, and that you have no tenure, no seniority, no job security, no marketable skills, no nothing, really, plus the additional stress of a pending loss of health insurance benefits when your COBRA coverage expires. Now's the time to consider that offer from your father about taking up the family business, in other words.

Above I mentioned that the editors of Blurt invited me to become one of their bloggers. Technically, I approached them with the idea. (I could swear I detected a shrug on the other end of the telephone, but as the answer was "sure," that's good enough for me.) Still, my ego can only take so much battering in a compressed period of time - losing that highly-regarded national music magazine gig and all - so it does me good to create this fantasy in my mind that my arch prose remains in demand by my peers and, hopefully, will be admired by Blurt readers. I may be a man adrift, but that doesn't mean I can't still spout off with the best of ‘em.

My friends tell me I'm actually quite good at spouting off, especially after a couple of whiskey sours. (I know, I know, a girlie-girl drink, but - and here's the first of what will be many fascinating insider tips from the world of music journalism - you can casually sip whiskey sours all night without getting too plastered, which greatly enhances your chances of getting some juicy backstage or behind the scenes stories, since the bands themselves tend to really bring it on, post-gig; I think we already covered that part three paragraphs earlier.) I promise to write most of these entries in a relatively sober state of mind, of course. Well, that is unless I feel, in the interests of accurately recounting some of those juicy stories culled from my fabulous career in music journalism, I simply must recreate the semi-sober state of mind I was experiencing at the time of the original incident.

Did I mention that my friends also tell me I have a pretty fucking spot-on memory? I may be a man adrift. But I know where the bodies are buried.

Guarantee: many of the names, places and entities outlined in this blog will be changed to protect the innocent along with the not-so-innocent. And also to ensure I don't burn so many bridges I can't get hired again by some highly-regarded national music magazine. Not that there are any left.

***

Johnny Mnemonic is the pseudonym of a "highly-regarded" national writer with, he advises us, over two decades' experience working as a music critic, reporter and editor. We've never met him face-to-face, and he further advises he will be delivering his blogs to us via the "double blind drop-box method," whatever that is, to ensure his anonymity.