South by Southwest.

Last month I was in Austin, Texas, for the SXSW music festival. The count (official or unofficial, I'm not sure) was 1700 bands converging on the city. That's 7500 musicians, at least, not to mention the 1000+ media members and probably over 10,00 fans, all in town for five days. (For the purposes of this blog entry, I shall ignore the concurrent film festival and other media panels, conferences, etc.)

The experience was draining in the best of ways. We arrived in town having driven 38 hours straight from Portland, and immediately headed out to get a feel for the festival – our gig was the next day, and we wanted to be sure that we knew exactly where everything was and how things were happening.

A person can definitely feel overwhelmed by choice. At most times there were at least twenty venues to choose from. As a music fan, I was excited to say the least. If you are like me, you download the schedule, circle everything that intrigues you, and then plan an itinerary that allows for the most music heard (and the least cash spent.) Then you hop a ride into town and begin the day. When your feet can no longer support your weight, you find your way home (a friend of the band was putting us up), plan the next day's musical route, and go to sleep. Repeat. As a result, I did not get a chance to recover from the 38-hour drive. And who could care? I saw a lot of great music, but better than that was being in a place with such a positive musical energy. There was nothing to be down about. It was awesome.

Friday and Saturday followed much like Thursday, except for the few hours late afternoon Friday when we had to prepare for and play our own gig (which went as well as we could have hoped, by the way, and we hoped it would be awesome). By ten or so on Saturday, I could feel my body dip below an energy threshold, and I knew I was done – there were three or four more hours of amazing music to be heard, but I didn't care in the slightest. What sleep that night!

The next day we packed up our stuff and drove an hour out of Austin, to a little Texas roadhouse that was having music all day. It was all country, the good kind, the old-timey sincere kind. We stayed for an hour or so, had two tacos and a beer, and relaxed. It was a perfect capper to the weekend. Then we hopped back in the van and headed west, towards home. Another marathon drive, with no excitement awaiting us, but it was easy. I can't speak for the rest of the guys, but I was still high and wide-eyed from the weekend experience. The fellas dropped me off in Los Angeles, and I spent the next few days readjusting, just in time to hit the road again with Scott Fisher...


Who I heard (in chronological order): Eleni Mandell, Bodies of Water, The Evangelicals, Bon Iver, Jens Lekman, Lykke Li, The Weakerthans, Kaki King, Casey Neill, The Lucky Tomblin Band, Colin Gilmore, Daniel Lanois, Tapes 'n Tapes, The Watson Twins, Billy Bragg w/ Kate Nash, Chuck Prophet, Jandek, Liam Finn, Carbon/Silicon, Laura Gibson

Who I missed (in no order): She & Him (M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel), M. Ward solo, Okkervil River, Jacob Golden, Destroyer, White Denim, The Raveonettes, Mika Miko, Karl Blau, Bobby Bare Jr., Devotchka, Blitzen Trapper, N.E.R.D., Tilly and the Wall, Roky Erikson, Black Moth Super Rainbow