SXSW Breakdown Pt. 1 :

March 19, 2008 by Christina  Send to a Friend

Both Joel and Christina and their cameras went to SXSW. So, we bring you two recaps: this one featuring mostly scandinavian and Canadian and dance tinged fun and another one with the rest later.Cool? Cool!

For the mathematically inclined, here is a numerical breakdown of SXSW:

Percentage of:
People with extremely skinny/tight jeans: 90%

Men with beards: 75%

Nerdy glasses: 60%

People with tattoos: 95% (people with tattoos of states 25%)

Men with all of the above: 80%

Asymmetrical Haircuts: 50%

Shaggy Dirty Bum Hair: 50%

Emo kids: 10%

Heavy metal Viking types: 30%

White people: 98%

Daytime parties with free booze/food: 99%

Number of Bands: 1947923846298346320462039786120

Number of venues: 100000

Average temperature: 85

Bands per day one can see (as a normal person not on cocaine): 12

Bands you want to see but will miss: ALOT

If you are looking to explore the city of Austin and catch some lives shows while you’re at SXSW, well tough luck because that won’t happen.

This is what WILL happen.

You will make a list of events (I saw excel sheets, handwritten notes, small booklets, etc) to do all day long (you will miss most of them) and spend your entire day running around the 5 blocks of the downtown area trying to catch as many bands as is humanly possible. Not that this is a bad thing, its kind of wonderful actually. Just forget experiencing the city, there’s no time. What you will experience is the coming together of all the hipsters this side of the hemisphere along with billions of bands and anyone who is anyone in the music industry.

I was there and this is my recap. I will try to make this as succinct as possible.

Wednesday:

Arrive at 11:30pm. Check in. Meet friends at a Bar. Friends are trashed. Wonder around aimlessly on the main Street (6th St) and gawk at all the activity. Go back and Sleep.

Thursday:

Since I was refreshed and energised, I started the day off at 1pm with the British Music Showcase BBQ at Brush Park. Free Booze. Free BBQ. Free Music. Everyone was part of something- either Glastonbury festival or NME or something or other.

Also, who can say no to vodka cocktails at midday?

Most memorable act of the day was The Rascals. Three young lads from Liverpool come together and rock out -Arctic Monkey style. They actually toured with them before the formally became the Rascals, so its no surprise their sounds is so similar. Catchy and quick but still hard and raw enough to get your fists to pump.

On to the Brooklyn Vegan party at Stubbs Annex for MEN and Lykke Li.

MEN put on a pretty decent set with various indie club hits. Plus, it was kind of hard to dance to remixes of CSS in the middle of the day. The band set up and all the cuteness that is Lykke Li emerged. They played a short 30-minute set. Although they played most of the songs on her new album, I was left a bit disappointed as I felt the band was either too tired or had technical difficulties. Regardless, I was happy to see her live and think she could put on a Great show in a proper setting.

Next stop was Pure Volume Ranch Party for a slew of unknown American Bands like The Cab and Paper Rival. I mostly drank free vodka here.

My friends then ditched me because they were “tired”. Whatever. Who needs other people when I can just be alone for several hours in a strange city. I decided to go to Maggie Mae’s. They have two rooms of music set up. One was sponsored by M for Montreal and the upstairs deck had a bunch of bands from Scandinavia and some American ones too.

I head upstairs first to the sounds of Icelandic band FM Belfast. What a fun group of geeks! Their cute electro pop is silly and fun. They did a cover of the Teenagers “Fuck Nicole” and danced around like nerds.

Next are their fellow Icelanders Reykjavik! Now I saw this band at Iceland Airwaves and knew I was in for a super show.

They are so full of energy; you just want to jump of a bridge when you hear/see them perform. Main singer dude (who I want to be my Boyfriend) jumped in the crowd, screamed in people’s faces, ran around and attacked a small Asian man (who later said, “ I never thought I would touch anyone from Iceland. Now I have”). It was really a stellar performance but since most of the people in the crowd were either unfamiliar or “in the industry”, they didn’t get much of a response. At least they had fun.

A fairly alright set by Norwegian outfit Ungdomskolen.

The Magic Wands were a surprise. I had never heard of them but as they were setting up the crowd kept getting more and more full. I had a feeling this would be good- and it was. A guy- girl guitar duo from Nashville, they play dreamy melodies over electronic drumbeats. Look up this band; I feel they will be a big deal.

I then snuck downstairs for the Montreal Showcase where Martha Wainwright’s beautiful voice was entertaining the crowd. Her pretty folk music and crystalline voice put a small smile on everyone’s face. Its heart breaking and beautiful.
The night ended with United Steel Workers of Montreal, a six piece bluegrassy band. Their use of mandolin, banjo, bass and more creates a down homey feel. The vocal harmonies between the man and woman singers were excellent and the variety of instruments added an extra musical texture. A unique and inspiring sound.

Friday:

Wake up. Its 96 degrees. With Hot Wind Gusts. Slather on the sunblock; go to the pool for a few hours and then head for the action. My friends and I get roped into a free wine tasting before we reach our destination. They offered free food so we agreed. I sat next to a rapper from “Naptown” who kept telling me wine is shit and he only drinks Hennessey. No Joke. It was like all stereotypes coming true before my eyes.
Anyway, we get out of that pretty quickly and go to Volume for the Pasteand Stereogum Party. Free Soco and The Whigs. I don’t remember much because I was sunburned, dizzy and drunk.

However, when that was over went to the Vice Saves Texas party where I feared for my physical well being. The band Fucked up is scary. The lead singer is huge and catapults himself into the audience. Which consisted of big burly men and me. I didn’t take any photos because I was afraid.

Then we go to some place that has only metal for about 2 seconds. We then try and go to the Iheartcomix party with Diplo, Simian Mobile Disco and some more but the line was 2 blocks long. Fuck that. We got pizza instead.

Seems like Friday was the most popular night because every place had an extremely long line that didn’t seem to budge. I wanted to see Fools Gold showcase with Crystal Castles, Does it Offend you, Yeah? , Kid Sister, Flosstradamus.
The Fashion which is a mix of synths, punky guitars, and new wave-y sounds. A cross between dance party and head banging, I really enjoyed their short set. I’ll be keeping my eye on them.

The Montréal Showcase continues with Plants and Animals. WOW. What a great, great band. I mean, no pretension, no frills, just wonderfully performed lovely music. They moved from rootsy ballads to melodic rock and beyond. Their versatile sound succeeded in making 8-minute songs whiz by.

Last show of the night-Torngat.
Who the heck was this band? Well, an instrumental trio that made me realise why I love instrumental music. They had a French horn for crissakes! They also had synths, trumpets, drums and an assortment of other instruments that they interchanged throughout their set. The only song I didn’t really like, which was too bad because they came into the audience to perform, was the last one. It bordered on experimental shit with bleeps and blurps coming from the trumpet.

Saturday:

Ok, last day I could consume as much music as possible. I ditched my American friends and met up with my Norwegian friend who works for Music Export Norway. Since we are on par musically, I figured I would annoy him less with my urgency and disregard for non-music related events. Gotta keep your eye on the prize. We skipped breakfast and stood in line for 30 minutes at the free Vice/Scion Party. It was well worth it.

Loose Meat BBQ sandwiches and Beer, plus techno music in the sun? Yes

Black Moth Super Rainbow- Where did this gem of a band come from? Oh, a place called Pittsburgh maybe? With Vocoders and keyboards and other gadgets their electronic symphonic style show was a lovely way to start of a Saturday afternoon. I talked to one of the members after the show and they will be gracing our presence again soon ( they’ve played a few times). It’s a psychedelic journey through the galaxy!

Mixhell- A Brazilian DJ/Electro outfit that mixed all sorts of things but were a bit too hard for mid day. I feel like they would have been perfect at 2am in a mega club.

Digitalism- German Nerds at their Peak. Stupid accents don’t matter when you look cool and get a crowd pumped up with techno music. Plus I want to do the skinny one.

Chromeo- Instant Crowd Pleaser. How much fun were those dudes having on stage?? Their attitude alone infected the crowd. They just seem like genuinely fun guys who like to play their music and dance. Jonas and I kind of wanted to marry them solely based on happiness. But the songs were fun electro ditties created to make you move and groove. They ended their set with an 80s melange of Bruce Springsteen, etc.

Since he claimed he was here for work, we moseyed on over to the Liverpool Party. Where we feasted on British “cuisine” and watched The Rascals rock out again. Along with the Wombats who are super hyped in the UK right now. Basically every song they played sounded like a single.
A quick stop at the calm and air-conditioned Convention Center for Scottish Sons and Daughters. The Lead singers deep rich voice complemented her super hero dress ( what?). Good old fashioned rock here.

Night descends and I need to pick a destination before the lines get out of control. Bourbon Rocks had two rooms and bands from Israel and Iran (they didn’t show up), so I thought it would be interesting.

And so I saw;
Monotonix- What the heck is this band??? I show up and three dudes who look like Borat wearing puffy shirts are on stage. They are from Tel Aviv and are pretty hardcore. The singer is 2 feet tall and has hair all over his body. He ran into the audience and proceeded to rampage around. Soon the guitarist and drummer relocate to the center of the pit. The Drummer kept getting beer poured all over him, the guitarist was on some mans shoulders and the singer was So Sweaty and smelly it was overwhelming. It was pretty much one of the most ridiculous show I have ever seen. I love them.

Inside Bourbon I hear Audrey Sessions, Elephone, the Matches and Film School. Film School was the only one that stuck out with some ethereal vocal mixes between the guy/girl singers shoegaze-y rock.

Outside The Slits get on stage. According to a conversation I had with Joel through a window, this is a pretty legendary Punk Rock all girl group from the Clash Era. The original singer Ari Up and Bass player Tess have reformed the band after 30 ( YES 30 ) years. This was entertaining but weird. Ari kept referring to the band in the third person and saying how legendary they were. I mean, yeah ok, but do you have to talk about it the whole time?

Gil Mantera’s Party Dream- It was as I expected after reading the DC review. Two dudes wearing spandex and chain mail on their heads, writhing around on stage to some sort of strange electronic guitar mix.

Festival over.

Here are some tips:

You can get the all encompassing SXSW music badge. This is official and has your photo on it and your affiliation and all that. This entitles you to entry into everything going on in every venue. It costs about one million dollars, so you can either shell out the dough or if you’re in the business get your company to sponsor you.

Alternatively, you can try and get a wristband.

This is much cheaper (only about $160) but I think is only available to Austin residents. However, I saw a few signs up at various locations claiming they were selling wristbands and some old British dudes also told me they bought their wristbands after arriving. So it seems plausible. The wristbands also get you entry into all events.

Finally, you can go the super cheap route and not buy anything. You can just show up. Every day there are about 300 free parties that showcase all the artists that play in the evenings. As long as you have RSVP’ed beforehand, you’re set. Key is to RSVP to as many things as possible. How do you get on their PR lists, that’s another story. You can pretty much see all the bands you want during the daytime. Also, the Austin Convention Center has free shows all day long too. In the evening, most places say “Badges/Wristband Only” but they usually allow some people in with a cover (it can range from $8-20). If you pick the right venue and get there early enough, you are guaranteed entry and can see up to 15 bands. That’s not bad.

If you love music, people and fun. Go here.

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