South By FauxWest: SXSW Day 2

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

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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.

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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.