Pictures from the Texas experience.
So last Tuesday, the 16th, I rose about the regular time for work, only I wasn't going to work. I was packing and getting in a car for the airport to go to Texas. I'd packed up my necessities for the New England mini-tour, but had to repack everything for the Texas show and I was certain I'd forget something. Naturally, I left a lot of this for Tuesday morning, and I was in a terrible rush. So I hear the car service guy beeping, so I grab my bag and my bass and run down the steps. With about ten steps to go, my feet get tangled and I start to fly forward down the steps. My only option, short of falling head first down the stairs, was to throw the bag and bass down ahead of me and jump down the rest of the stairs. Surprisingly, this worked, and no harm came to me. A quick feel of the bass, in its soft case, didn't reveal any structural damage, so I went out to the car and got to the airport without further incident.
My main concern that day was getting out of NY before the snowstorm hit, but our flight ended up being delayed for an hour or so. It's unnerving to sit there watching them de-ice planes as you're waiting to get on one. Eventually James and I boarded the plane, which as it turned out still needed to be de-iced and was done so as we sat inside. For a while there was this burned-sweet smell, like anti-freeze. Once we finally got off the ground and above the clouds I felt much more at ease, and settled in. The on-board movie was Intolerable Cruelty, which I had a passing interest in seeing, being a fan in general of the Coen brothers. The girl across the aisle from me, i noticed, was watching episodes of The O.C., and I really wanted to plug my headphones into her computer and listen in. But I resisted the urge.
So we landed and Dallas, and found James' friend and record label guy Brian waiting for us. It was my first trip to Dallas, and I ended up seeing quite a bit of it in the short time we were there. One stop was Good Records, where it was rumored that the Unicorns would be playing an in-store, and that there would also be free barbecue. The opening band was an Australian duo Sodastream, and as it happened, James will be touring with them on a few dates of his tour. They were pretty enjoyable, but reminded me a little too much of Belle and Sebastian. The crowd looked mostly like higschool alterna-kids. It's remarkable how similar they all looked. Thick-rimmed glasses are more ubiquitous among the indie rock set than white baseball caps are among the frat-daddy coalition. Anyway, after Sodastream, it was announced that the Unicorns would not be performing, as they were having trouble getting into the country. Add this to the long list of Unicorn myths I guess. Sorry. Anyway, to top it off, not only were there no Unicorns, there was no barbecue. This upset us greatly. Brian remarked that he should have listed that Prince was playing at the SXSW showcase we'd be playing, and that there'd be free champagne, since apparently all sorts of things can be advertised without actually having to come through. So we went in search of food, along with Brian's roommate/ record label partner Ryan.
After a meal of Tex Mex, we sat around Brian and Ryan's home for a good little while chatting. After arriving in Dallas, I discovered that the bass had not survived my fall unscathed afterall. When I went to tune it, the tuning peg on the D string just plopped off. So that was quite distressing, considering we had the big show and all the next day. Later in the evening this fellow Dave showed up, who was also playing the showcase with us. He seemed tall and white and goofy, but very friendly and very enthusiastic about music, though not in a particularly annoying way. Just very earnest.
So the next day the five of us set off for Austin in two cars. It was a three hour drive, and passed mostly without incident. The most curious part of the drive was the tremendous traffic around Ft. Worth. When we asked the waitress at the restaurant we stopped at what the dealy-o was, she explained that Wednesdays were half-price day at the local zoo. And it being spring break for the schools, everyone was headed there. Who knew? It seemed weird though, that everyone would be heading to the Ft. Worth zoo. never even heard of it. Certainly not up there when one thinks of notable zoos. I wondered if there wasn't some sort of other attraction that was drawing people in, like the pie-selling scheme in Revenge of the Nerds, where all the pie plates had pictures of naked cheerleaders. But we did no investigate further.
Anyway, so we blew into Austin in the late afternoon. The weather was gorgeous, and the best it would be all week. In the 70's and sunny. So we headed off to the convention center to register and pick up our IDs. If you're not familiar with it, South by Southwest is the annual music and film conference held in Austin, where thousands of musicians, filmmakers, music journalists, and industry types descend upon. What that basically means is that, in any other non-Austin city, the asshole population of that city is markedly decreased for a week every march.
So the showcase was at a small theatre called the Hideout. I'm told it's used mostly for sketch comedy troupes. Still a nice space. Our set was somewhat subdued, as James, in my opinion, picked poor songs to start with. The place was packed for the opening act, but right after about 70% of them left. And a few more during James' first song. We didn't really get it going until the 4th song or so. But a satisfying experience overall, just to be able to say I done it.
I was surprisingly impressed by the other acts on the the bill. I thought the record label James was on had sort of a little niche of quiet, sort of country-ish rock. But it was all pretty diverse. And that Dave fellow absolutely blew me away. Half the show was him playing the acoustic guitar and singing, and the other half was him singing over recorded music from his laptop, which consisted of a lot of electronic beats and orchestral arrangements. Also, one of his friends had put together some fascinating computer animations which projected onto the screen behind him. I would have been impressed with either of the halfs of the show, but together it just impressed me immensely. He sang in a sort of over the top loungy twang, and his guitar playing was an impressive progression of jazz chords. On the whole, I'd liken him to Beck, only a better singer and guitar player, but a much worse dancer. His dancing consisted mostly of a sort of drunken falling over and random spasms. Took a lot of skill and guts to pull it off though, and all from a 21 yeard old kid. Pisses me off.So after a long night, James and I got a ride out to Jenny G's new home in East Austin. She'd just moved back to Austin a few days before, which happened to be perfect timing for us. She was a very gracious host, and was more hospitable than I could have expected, given her moving situation and what I know of her disposition to not like most people. I just tried to stay out of her hair most of the time. So we spent the rest of the week hanging out and seeing shows and drinking beer and eating food. I hung out mostly with Jenny G during the days, and with James at night. Caryn was also down there for Spin, and I saw her quite a bit. She was staying at the swanky Hilton, rooming with another spin person who apparently is a blogger of some note. Anyway, Caryn gave me a few invites to the Spin party that was headlined by the Hives, which was pretty rocking. Not a huge fan, but it was a great show. It was refreshing to see a band that really had its shit together after seeing a lot of good but really loose bands. Later that evening Caryn and I caught the Metric show. I'd seen the lead singer, Emily, with Caryn and the Hives show, and she was quite friendly, and I was kind of surprised how much different she was on stage than she was in person. It's been a while since I met someone as a person first and then saw them perform, and was quite taken aback. But they were great, and lived up to most of Caryn's hype.
I hung out and spoke with a lot of musicians while I was there, but I also was around a lot of industry types and music writers. The difference was kind of striking. The musician group was a lot more laid back and friendly. Even though I'd never met any of them before, they were quite easy to talk to. I ended up running into the bass player from Sodastream, a long-haired Australian fellow. As it happened I saw him at the club where the Unicorns were supposed to be playing. Again, they didn't show up. But Jenny G and I spoke with him at length, and it was kind of interesting. I had to explain to him the concept of healthcare. I was telling him how James is getting a leave of absence from his job, which was good, since he gets to keep his health benefits. And he was like "What's that?" Basically, he had the "You mean you have to pay to go see a doctor?" reaction. Jen explained that, in America, you really try to avoid going to the doctor "unless you're bleading out of something you shouldn't be bleading out of." He found this shocking. Also, in the "we're both talking English by speaking another language" department, he was shocked when I told him it was snowing in New York. I said "it's about 30 degrees," and he looked puzzled and was like "Is that cold?" I had to think about that for a second before I said "About zero Celsius," to which he replied "Holy shit." We ended up having to do a lot of conversions during the course of our conversation. I didn't think about it at the time, but as most bands are starting to gear up for their summer tours, these guys are actually touring for their winter. Crazy...
Anyway, the week was fun but exhausting. Most of the bands I wanted to see I didn't, but even the ones I did see didn't really impress me all that much. The most fun I had was, predictably, at shows I just wandered into. After James lost interest in the Decemberists show after about 4 songs, he wandered next door to Antone's where most of the country music was. And it was in Antones that I had the best time during the week. A lot of country and Americana. Plus a very good show by the Mekons. One of the least enjoyable experiences was N.E.R.D. I didn't know they were just a funk/soul band. To make matters worse, after waiting for a long, long time (including enduring a set by the Crystal Method), the show started with N.E.R.D.'s white-boy funk band playing four songs. It was honestly the lamest thing I had ever seen in my life. Lamest. James and I got out of there and took a rickshaw back toward the center of downtown. We felt a bit guilty at times, since the rickshaw was operated by this very skinny girl, who at times got out and pushed the bike and carriage instead of riding. We felt like huge assholes, since we were going through the crowded downtown streets where everyone could see us. But I wandered if it was chauvinistic of me to feel guilty. Anyway, they work for tips, and we gave her twenty bucks, so I guess we're the suckers. She did drop us off at the Monitor Records showcase in time to catch the end of the set of the Battles, who were awesome. I knew I'd recognized that drumming sound before, and I later learned that the drummer was formerly in Helmet. Plus, his crash cymbal was about seven feet in the air, and he had to almost leap up everytime he hit it. Great show though. It was the last show I saw, and a good way to end it.Pictures from the Texas experience.