SXSW 2010, day one

Wednesday, February 17, 2010. St. Patrick's Day, but just barely - we started out so, so early.

This is a Circle K in El Paso at 6 in the morning. It was freezing and smelled of cow shit and America's guilt. Seeing the hills of Mexico's shanty town right across the border covered a whole range of emotions starting with strange amusement, veering straight into frightening despondency and ending somewhere between confused goodwill and annoyance at how we live in America just out of the coincidence of being born here. Too early, my head hurts.

It was too effing early to process any thoughts. Marc drove in silence until the sunrise woke up us sleepies from car seat slumber. I can't remember the last time I woke up with the sun, but I can tell you I still don't enjoy it. Lukey played me Good Day, Sunshine and all was well with the world.

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I tried crocheting a ... something. I started to make a blanket, then decided that was too grandiose and committed it to a scarf, then got distracted and changed it to a coaster before mostly giving up and ending with a small headband. It's cute, anyhow.

I wouldn't normally take pictures of a middle of nowhere rest stop, except this one had an open ceiling and you were sitting there peeing under five or seven birds sitting on a branch above you. It's dull, quiet things like this that I remember about road trips :)

Jay drinking his homemade pineapple Kombucha. Tasty. And he made sure to tell us that the Supercuts lady screwed up his 90's fop by taking off 3 inches too many. Oh, Jay ... it's Supercuts.

South-Central Texas looks a lot like southern New Mexico ...

But full of energy windmills. New Mexico, yet another reason I like you, but can't like-like you. Gloom.

We stopped for gas in the "biggest little town of the world," Ozona, Texas.

Jay and Luke were playing Broken Bells, Jason Collett, Frightened Rabbit and other indie delights on last night's drive into Cruces. During the morning jaunt, Jay'd occasionally throw in warm, familiar rock from faraway. Some Bob Dylan, a very long Doors song, and definitely Neil Young. Music that echoed the dead hills, tumbleweeds caught in barbwire fences and unfathomable stretch of gray highway. We sat in silence.

Slightly before noon and a few hours away from Austin we decided to play the list of showcase artists Marc downloaded (legally) from the SXSW website. The backseat boys had done their research on which bands they wanted to see in Austin, but the showcase list was about 2,040 songs long. Each song from an entirely different artist. If we started with A-Alikes, it'd take us a little over 2 and 1/2 days to get to Zoroaster. Whatevs. Let's just play each song for a while and if we go loco over anything, we'll play the whole thing. Except ...

knowing the boneheads how you do, it became a game slash competition on how fast they could recognize if the song was good or awful, which quickly became playing each song for 6 seconds and skipping, then playing for 4 seconds and skipping, then playing for 2 seconds and skipping.

The only songs we listened to in its entirety were Heroin Heroine's Heritage, a 20 minute instrumental guitar solo with U.F.O. sounds followed by the 32 minute, Acid Heart Mother "a sweet guitar lullaby stretched out to become a snake-like shimmering stream of guitar notes, a self-guided journey into the psyche of the guitarist (with a catastrophic ending)," both songs by Japanese psychedelic metal band, Acid Mother Temple. I so, so, so wish I were kidding.

Lunch break in Fredericksburg, Texas: pimento cheese sandwich, BBQ chips and a couple slices of fruit.

Back when we were still smiling at each other.

Fredericksburg is very much a main street America tourist trap for visiting Europeans. It's a lot like walking through Main Street, USA in Disneyland, including racist stereotypes schilling souvenirs and adults drinking stupid beverages out of cowboy hats. Of course, we walked around and made fun of everything like the children we are.

Come git yer old fashion authentic $85 Froggy Went A-Courtin' paper weight!

The trees with spring blossoms were pretty-pretty, tho.

Here's a photo that'll give social anthropologists a few more months of arguments...

We got back on the road.

Finally! Austin! Ew! A Segway?

Marc and I decided to lead the group since we knew what to expect, for the most part! I remember last year being so overwhelmed on the first day by the mass amounts of puke puddles and countless bars, hot girls and semi-famous indie musicians casually walking by you. We walked and gawked for a while then went to Emo's outdoor stage. Some interesting 70's throwback band sang Guess Who covers with the Austin Children's Choir.

Luke wearing a pair of prescription sunglasses from the gutter.

The sidewalks and streets were cluttered with usable garbage. Really. Things were just tossed off or laying around. Needed a backpack? Look in the gutter. Half-full bottles of sunscreen were propped against bar windows. I saw countless pairs of high heels lazily thrown against lamp posts, no doubt from girls or cross dressing guys who realized walking in heels would vastly impede catching Surfer Blood at 12:30 and Future Future at 1:15. It was a paradise for cheapskates.

After Emo's set ended and walking around gave us sunburns, we ducked into Peckerheads and unwittingly walked right into a Jason Collett show. Lone Stars for everyone!!

I'd say around this time, we all had built up a pretty good buzz. Music was flowing, beers were being passed around, Luke had been snapped by a party blogger. Jay had to find an ATM so I went with him. We walked to the Convention Center.

On the way there, Jay told me he was "getting" SXSW. In his words, basically you show up and expect to find entertainment wherever you stop, wristband or not. He was pretty effing impressed about randomly walking into two awesome, free shows in under an hour. I'd say I was impressed, as well.

And somewhere along the way, we completely forgot about the original mission and sneaked into a badge-only balcony for music journalists and official SXSW music showcasers. They gave us free pink whiskey cocktails. We stood and enjoyed the view and warm air for more than a few moments.

After listening in on the convo of Frenchies filming a documentary and talking to British musicians playing egg maracas, we went back to stomping the streets. Weren't we looking for an ATM at some point? Yeah, let's get back to that.

How much do you love the girl in red? I can almost guarantee you that one of her pieces of clothing were in the free for all gutter later that evening .. and she ain't working with much to begin with if you know what I mean, grrrrrrrrl.

Oh, right. There were also a lot of balding frat guys in St. Paddy's Day green infecting our hip kid haven.

Five broken and one working ATMs later, we met up again with Marc and Luke at Peckerheads.

Theophilus London, no doubt.

After the Knuckle Rumbler party, the boys beelined to a truck of bikini ladies handing out energy drinks.

You's gotta pour some out for the homies.

Oh my god, this is a very long story, but I'll cut it down to 94 words: (BIG BREATH) Marc and I convinced ourselves that we could sneak into Stubb's like we did last year basically by unknowingly walking past security. And somehow that got lost in translation to Luke who ran through the wristband checker like a fugitive and got chokeholded by security, dragged through the rocks and dirt and thrown into a piss puddle outside of the venue. Jay got caught sneaking into a door marked "security" so obviously he got thrown out. Meanwhile, with all the clamber from Luke and Jay, Marc and I easily slipped by the checkpoints.

We saw a whole 5 minutes of Visqueen before leaving. Wooooo?

If we acted like bad friends and stayed inside Stubb's, leaving our poor scapegoats to rot by themselves, Marc and I could have seen The Walkmen, Spoon, and Broken Bells. No biggie. We had three more days to see them together. LIKE A FAMILY.

Spent the rest of our evening walking through the incredibly crowded streets.

We couldn't stay out very late on the first night bc we were staying at Luke's invalid friend, Matt's house and he wasn't a stay-out-late-party-person. Again, no biggie. We had three more days and nights to hear and see everything. Do everything. So optimistic, were we.

So optimistic.

Yes, like the rest of the idiots in America, we drank green beer.

I guess I could either be an asshole and mention the weird slash insulting things Matt and Luke talked about in front of us or just say WOW, A STRANGER GAVE US A FREE PLACE TO CRASH. I'll go with the more polite, boring option. Seriously, I am grateful. We stopped by Kerby Lane for a midnight snack and then Jay, Matt and I watched Rocky II until 1:30 am when our eyeballs rolled out of our sockets from being awake for 24 hours. Our sleeping bags all rolled out in separate parts of the room. Lukey woke us up the next morning to tell us that Alex Chilton had died. Good morning to you, too!