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How The West Was Won: SXSW Infiltrated
By Candi Dicce
It all started out wrong.
I missed my 7:40 a.m. flight on Thursday (I mean, who wouldn’t), and had to fly stand-by, stopping in New Orleans and Houston. So, three cities, three diet cokes, and 10,000 peanuts later, I finally arrived in Austin around 2 p.m. Texas time. Easy going from here? No such luck... I get to my hotel downtown, which I chose for its convenient location and low price, and I am told they have good news and bad news. The good news: my room will be free tonight. The bad news: the reason my room is free - someone didn’t check out on time, and my room won’t be ready until Friday, so the free room is at La Quinta Oltorff, a $10 cab ride from downtown.
I trek down and check in without a hitch. I try and call a cab, and I am informed that there will be a two-hour wait... all of the cabs are downtown, where I should be. The girl at the hotel desk calls the bus co., and I’m told I can catch it across the street, so I head over there. The bus I’m supposed to take passes right by me, even though I’m jumping up and down flailing my arms around like an idiot. What the f**k?! I go into the Texaco, and the girl there tells me I have to go to the other bus stop, a few blocks down, to catch the downtown bus.
Undaunted, I walk to the other stop, where I have to wait 30 minutes for the next bus. Finally it arrives, and I actually get a nice little tour of Congress Avenue, something I would not have been privy to if I had been in my downtown hotel. I rush down to the Convention Center to get my credentials and goodie bag, which weighs about 40 pounds and is in a canvas tote that could not be any more uncomfortable to carry around. I look for the Spin Magazine booth, because I have this e-mail that I can trade in for an invite to Spin’s closing party with the Supersuckers on Saturday night. You HAVE to have an invite to get in, the email says. The Spin people are gone for the day, to some party, which one I never find out. I wanted to go to a party at Emo’s with Man or Astroman? from 1:30 to 5:30, and I figure I won’t make it since it’s 5:00 by now - I wasted the whole freakin’ day with bad hotel and
travel experiences! I take a cab to La Zona Rosa to catch the Capitol Records Party, which is supposed to be from 6-8 p.m., a pre-show party for industry types (like myself), with free beer and food. At this point I would kill for a beer, or a Twinkie, for that matter, I haven’t eaten anything since 8 a.m., excluding peanuts.
The cab pulls up at La Zona Rosa. There are only a few people outside of the club, and it’s pretty obvious that the party has not started yet. I ask some people standing outside if the party has begun, and they say no, the bands are still soundchecking. Screw this, I think, I’m going to be standing out here with all this stuff and it’s gonna rain any minute, so I tell the cab driver to take me to Emo’s, even though I know the party there is probably over. I walk in Emo’s, and I talk to the beer tub girl. It is over, she informs me, and the night show will not start until 8 p.m. (Man or Astroman? Is scheduled to play there again that night. A few of the clubs will have a day party for invited VIP’s which will feature the same acts that will play that night, although some parties do have entirely different acts.) So, I head out to 6th street to get some grub. My favorite restaurant on Sixth, Marisco Grill, is still there, and I am delighted. I order the shrimp enchiladas, and decide that this alone is worth all the crap I went through today.
After I ate I peeked in a few clubs and stores, but I was so sick of carrying that stupid bag around, and so tired, since I only slept two hours Wednesday night and just had the day from hell. I caught a cab back to my hotel in the boonies. I was going to take a nap. I really wanted to go see the Nixons later at Lucy’s Retired Surfer’s Bar (cool name for a dive bar...) on Sixth, but you know how that nap thing goes - when I woke up at 11, I thought, I’ll never get a cab, f**k it, I’m going back to sleep.
Friday 3/17
I was able to check into my real hotel after waiting an hour for a cab, and spread my stuff all over the room, to get that lived-in feel. Went down to the Convention Center and grabbed the daily update paper (both the Austin Chronicle American Statesman run daily update papers during SXSW). Hank III was on the cover of the Chronicle; he played a daytime show Thursday with Ray Price at Waterloo Park, but because I was a slacker and missed my plane, I didn’t make it, nor did I even know about it. Ran into the little devil, Shelton Hank Williams III himself, at the Spin booth. He told me about the rest of his tour with Reverend Horton Heat (which came through St. Petersburg’s State Theatre in February, in case you missed it), and that he and his band (which hosts an all-star lineup of musicians, including my all time idol, Duane Dennison of the Jesus Lizard) had played some “real” country shows too, which all went off without a hitch.
I walked around the exhibition some more, and checked out some acts on the acoustic day stage. Trish and Darrin Murphy were a cute blonde couple doing acoustic pop tunes. After them DC-9 did an acoustic set of their jazzy country tunes; they were pretty good. I met a few of the guys from the
Philadelphia Weekly, and we discussed panel attendance - see, SXSW is a convention, and there are a whole bunch of quasi-informative panels during the day, which I never seem to catch. There are two types of registrations available: the entire seminar, which includes the free bag, the Directory, and access to all of the panels, as well as a Music Festival wristband, which gets you access to the nighttime club shows only. I opted to skip the educational crap, and set out to the Ariel Publicity party, at The Flamingo Cantina. Saw a really bad band, Johnny Young, and sat there with Byron, from a North Carolina band named Spite. I gave him my card and headed out onto the streets again. I had a lot of partying, I mean, er, work to do after wasting all of yesterday.
Ran into Bob Skullf**ker, former Tampa resident, USF student and member of legendary Tampa bands including, but not limited to, the Mooncalves, walking with his lovely wife and beautiful one year-old baby girl. Bob had just been in Tampa a few months ago; we caught up on some gossip, and he told me to go check out the Nomads at a day party at Casino El Camino. He also said if I was going to go to Stubbs that night, I should get there early and eat there, as the line would be around the block. (The Reverend Horton Heat, Hank III, Supersuckers, and Nashville Pussy were at Stubbs that night, and I had been looking forward to it for a month, so I was grateful for the advice.)
Casino El Camino wins as the coolest club in Austin. It was similar to a NYC club, pitch black, long, skinny, with cool people and vibe. The Nomads played out back - most of the venues in Austin are small, and have some sort of back patio that they use for the bands to play. I don’t know if it’s always like this in Austin, or if they just do it for SXSW. The Nomads are an awesome garage band, and I realized I have a Goldmine compilation that they were on. I made my way up front, and sat on the ground at their feet during their set. Ran into the guys from Nashville Pussy outside the club, along with one of the guys from Speedealer, who were playing next to NP’s gig - I should go check them out. I said I would, but knew I wouldn’t make it. There was too much to do that night, and Speedealer will be playing the State on March 29, so I knew I could catch them back home. That’s the SXSW way - don’t commit to or deny any invitations, you never know what will happen, and you may end up there anyway. Went to my favorite store, Vertigo, and ran into two ladies from home, musician Liza Wakeman and Weekly Planet writer Stef Kalem. I asked Liza how November Foxtrot Whiskey’s show was the night before - she said they played on an outside stage while it was freezing and raining. It was doing just that now, and I froze my ass off walking back to my hotel (I made such a big deal of getting into downtown hotel, I was determined to take advantage of the close proximity, even if it meant freezing).
Got ready, and headed to Stubbs for the big show. I wanted to go see Patti Smith at Waterloo Park, which was very close to my hotel, but I couldn’t risk not getting into Stubbs. A lot of big shows at SXSW sell out, and I remembered Bob’s advice to get there early. There was a line at 7:15, and I got inside I realized the only thing I could eat there was potato salad or beans. I decided to skip the beans, for obvious reasons. It was going to be a long night, after all. The opening act was Flametrick Subs; while waiting for them to go on, I saw the girl from the Vertigo store and she told me the Subs were awesome and that they had “the Saint’s Cheerleaders” with them. Another guy said the same thing, but he didn’t know what they were, either. At first I thought they were real cheerleaders for the New Orleans Saints, but then I realized I was in Austin. The band came out – with these dancing girls in 666 Cheerleader outfits. They were great. I have since heard that they are called Satan’s Cheerleaders, and I’m still not sure what they do, but they are awesome. Don’t get me wrong though, the Subs are a great band, with or without dancing devil girls. An energetic, sleazy rockabilly band, I hope we can lure them to FLA. During their set the club started to get really crowded, which I was not digging. By the time the Supersuckers went on the line for the measly three-stall Ladies’ room was 50 people long. The Men’s room line wasn’t much better, so I decided to try the Porta-Potty line. Well, forget that, there were like a million people on that line, waiting to pee in a hole in the ground, I don’t get it. I knew Hank III was going on next, and wanted to go into the pit area early to take pictures.
I have learned from this SXSW experience that press photographers, as a whole, are a bunch of rude dorks. They all had these huge camera set-ups too - all show, no talent. I tried to let my annoyance pass - I came here, after all, to have fun. Hank III started with their more country tunes; after a couple of songs, I could see him messing with his distortion pedal. He did one more song, and played with it a little more. “My distortion’s messed up,” he said, mumbling “this sucks”, more to himself than the audience. The next song sounded fine, I really couldn’t tell the difference, but he had that upset/pissed off/ angst look on his face the whole song. After the song, he announces to a packed house, 50 dorky press photographers and his very surprised band, “I’m sorry- I will not be able to finish the show- I cannot play without distortion- I can’t drive the band”, and walks offstage. The audience started to yell “this sucks”, chanting it twice before losing interest.
When the Supersuckers came on, Eddie Spaghetti, sporting a new “gay cowboy” look/Freddie Mercury mustache, said “I’d like to thank Hank III.” Audience boos. “Because of them” Freddie, er, I mean Eddie, continues, “we get to play twice as long.” Audience cheers. The Supersuckers ran through their usual awesome set; I hung out for a bit of Nashville Pussy, and cut out (with cute cowboy hat boy Darren in tow) to Emo’s to try & catch Murder City Devils, who I have never seen, and who I hear are incredible.
Outside Emo’s, a girl came up to me and gave me an invitation to a High Times party the next afternoon. There was a slight line; we managed to get in there pretty quickly. Zen Guerilla was playing in Emo’s Main Room - they call it Emo’s Main room, but it’s really the back room, which is a closed patio with a stage, a roof and a bar. Emo’s Jr. - the one I consider the Main room, but isn’t - is a smaller inside room and bar up front. The only bathrooms are in Emo’s Jr., and the two rooms are connected with an outside area that has picnic tables, Porta-Pottys, and the slipperiest rocks on the ground. Which is not cool, because Emo’s is THE hip hangout of Austin - even though I love the place, there’s a “punker than thou” attitude prevalent in the staff and the regulars. We had missed Murder City Devils, but decided to stay and wait for Nebula to go on. They played the State this past year to a grossly sparse crowd, but I had some previous engagement that night, so I missed them. They are the new breed of Stoner Rock, and quite good. After that we called it a night. Mission Accomplished.
Saturday, 3/18
Went back to Marisco Grill and was delighted that they were open for breakfast! I ate some potato and egg tacos with tons of their spicy salsa smothering them. Walked back to the room and fell asleep until 4 p.m. I had gone yet another SXSW without going to a single panel! I headed over to Stubbs again, where they were having the High Times party.
[editor’s note: subject’s paragraphs regarding the afternoon/early evening of Saturday, March 18 are virtually indecipherable, sprawling and loopy, much like clouds. The cognizant passages are, unfortunately, unprintable due to content]
The Atomic Cafe turned out to be the “gay cowboy” bar I had been walking past all week. Exactly like the Masquerade clubs, down to the gothic female dancers, gay cowboy bartender, and abundance of beefy security guards. One meathead stood right in front of the stage with his big head in the way the whole time Gainesville’s The Causey Way played their set, which was ridiculous and unnecessary, since the geeky, emo, bespectacled audience were all as stoned as I was! I had to make the lughead move just to take a picture! “The Causey Way are not a cult.” I’ve seen those stickers around Ybor City, but never got it. The band comes out and plays an intro: three beautiful girls on guitar, bass and a moog organ, Covered Dish proprietor Bill Bryson on keyboards, and a male drummer, plus Causey himself, who came out after the intro like a bad TV evangelist. The whole band was dressed in white, with candles all over and photos of Causey, their “leader”, hanging up. Causey played to the audience; at one point, he pulled out a plastic gun and held it up to bonehead bouncer’s head! I almost died laughing, sorry I had not thought of it myself. Their music was a Devo-esque blend of pop and punk. Causey sings most of the songs, although the girls all help with vocals as well. My reaction to The Causey Way and my SXSW weekend in general can be summed up the same way.
Quite a trip.
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