The following text is written by Jessica Faller, keyboardist for The Last Hotel:
Howdy ya’ll-
I’m back and happy to give you my recap on my first time down at SXSW. First of all, god damn, I fell in love with Austin, TX in 3 days time. It may just be the next town I call home. It might have been the awesome weather (sunny and 75-85 every day), might have been the friendly people, the fact that flowers and trees were blooming, but I was glossy-eyed from the moment I stepped outta the van.
Every music venue was within walking distance of my hotel, they all had good sound guys, Austin has The Chronicle which is a daily music/arts free paper (let that one soak in for a minute) and the free/cheap beer flowed like water – you just had to be hungry enough to find it. It was run MUCH better than the CMJ events in NYC that I’ve attended (mostly because the venues are all closer to each other), the most expensive taxi ride I had (drunk back to my hotel) was $3.75 and the best BBQ chicken I’ve ever had at Stubb’s. I could get into almost every big show that I wanted to see just with my wristband, I just had to be there an act or two before who I wanted to see (and usually those acts were good too) and if not, 1/2 the venues were outdoors so I could sit around back and listen.
The weather was gorgeous, the music fantastic and the food even better…the most packed 3 days of gorging myself on BBQ, tacos, beer, whiskey and music I’ve ever had….I think it has snuck its way into my top 3 roadtrips of all time for me. Worth the 20 hours one-way in the van for sure.
Here’s who I got to see:
THURSDAY
(rolled into Austin about 1PM – missed Chris Lee’s noon performance unfortunately after all Rob & Stephen’s hyping him up but I did order his torch songs CD and got that in the mail when i got back, haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet)
Hit the New West Records private party (had an invite)
-saw Tim Easton, Flatlanders, Drive By Truckers & Slobberbone. drank free Lonestar beer for 4 hours and ate BBQ pulled pork and crumbly cornbread that still makes my mouth water when I think about it. I then walked to Austin Music Hall: saw Jay Farrar & Michael Penn, walked to 3rd venue: saw Simian, The Rapture and BLUR!! And this is just day one people!! Blur’s surprise performance, I heard it from a friend who is in ‘the know’ but I think 75% of the people at the show had no clue. First performance in 4 YEARS and first performance of all the new songs on the upcoming album. I love Graham Coxin (think he was an intricate part of Blur, loved his solo album) but the new songs are decent, a new style for Blur which rubbed me the wrong way that evening, but have a feeling that the songs will grow on me (my roommate already has the songs and played them for me last night while we were sitting outback drinking beers in celebration of St. Patty’s day and my return home by the campfire and I liked them alot better). I was just just sweaty & dirty, drunk as all hell and packed into a pretty small venue for Blur (a little smaller than the Newport), I couldn’t even raise my hand to get a puff on my smoke. When its that packed, I get abit claustrophobic. But they did play a few old classics (Girls who do Boys & Park Life and some others i forget at this moment) and that made me smile.
FRIDAY
-woke up about 2PM, massive hangover, took about 2 hours to get moving.
-went to Athens, GA party to see all Athens, GA bands with The Possibilities (labelmates with Two Cow Garage that I drove down with) – saw Dressy Bessy & Five Eight (they were amazing!). Drank free beer, ate free munchies. Helped The Possibilities load in their gear and watched them play around 9PM – great set. They are an awesome and little-known band from Athens, GA – GREAT songs – they are like a mellower, less in-your-face pop-y Jayhawks maybe? I love them…anyways, then went and saw Dirt Bike Annie (pop punk – old friends from the Bernie’s days, played with the Proms alot), then over to see The Sun & Bobby Bare Jr. and Idlewild.
SATURDAY:
Grant Lee Phillips to start my day at the convention center day stage, where miller lite had a free beer post set up. In case you didn’t catch that, Miller Lite had a beer stand set up handing out free samples the entire convention! nothing says good morning like GLP & MGD. Then I met up with the Two Cow boys and went and saw an acoustic performance by Will Johnson & Scott Danbaum of Centromatic (will’s solo stuff was my killer find of the weekend, fucking amazing if you are fans of richard buckner & damien jurado you will LOVE will’s solo stuff). Then saw Grand Champeen same venue. Finally had the famed Stubb’s BBQ which lived up to its reputation. Went and saw the Lost Highway showcase begin, with Sally Timms & Kelly Hogan and the Mekons as their backing band. Jon Langford came out and did 2 songs with Kelly Hogan. Then I sprinted 2 blocks down the street to the Touch-n-go showcase and saw Shannon Wright and then Calexico (Neko Case came out and did 2 songs with Calexico). [Side Note: stuff like this happened all the time during SXSW I’m sure – Neko Case coming out with Calexico, the Mekons being those two fine torchettes’ backing band – I’m just curious what other surprises I missed at other shows!]
After Calexico, I went to the Secretly Canadian showcase and saw Damien Jurado & Songs:Ohia and then tried to get into Supergrass, but the line was too long (they were about 10 minutes from starting), so I bought a forty of King Cobra and sat on a curb behind the outdoor venue and listened to their whole set. Perfect end to my weekend of rock goodness.
My observations from the weekend:
God damn it SXSW & Austin, TX, I miss you already!!
For those of you who may plan to go to SXSW in the future, here are some tips:
1. SXSW venues were selling wristbands for $115 bucks on Thursday night when I was out and about. If you had walked off the street Thursday morning, went to the check-in at the convention center and bought one, it would have cost you $575 bucks.
2. At least half the venues are patios or outside tents behind a venue in a fenced in area, you don’t have to pay a penny to hear half the bands, but it means no drinks and not SEEing the band. But its a cheap way to do it if you want to go but don’t have the cash.
3. We took a van and it took us about 4 or 5 gas refills which was probably about 100-120 bucks total. It takes a little over 20 hours to drive there from Columbus if you are curious.
4. Almost all the hotels in downtown Austin are walking distance to the venues, find someplace cheap and shack up with some friends and it will be about 20 bucks a night for you.
5. For free beer: the convention center had the miller lite stand which i didn’t discover until saturday or i would have been there earlier. all day long from noon-7 are private/public parties that labels put together all over town. listen in on other people’s conversations, ask around or just wander about 6th St. and you’ll find one happening with free beer and eats.
6. There are some huge acts playing at this thing and I decided to go for the smaller acts most of the time. For example, Willie Nelson closed out one night at the Austin Music Hall and Lyle Lovett closed out the other. I would have killed to see either one of these acts but without a super special badge (the performers and special people get these) you can’t just walk in, have to wait in line…so I would have had to spent my entire evening at these places to see those two acts. So I just decided to hit some of the smaller shows that I knew I could just walk in and out of easily.
7. Get some good BBQ eats at Stubb’s. period. Its a must for any first-timer in Austin I think.
8. Wear comfy shoes, you’ll be hiking around all day and standing the majority of the time in most venues, by the end of the night my back and feet were killing me, maybe some advil would be a good idea to take along too.
9. Be willing to go see shows on your own. I spent most of my trip seeing shows by myself b/c the Two Cow boys were on a serious course of roots-rock only (they saw their friends: The Drive By Truckers & Slobberbone play 3 times each) and I wanted to see some other acts. I had a good time regardless, just started talking with the people around me, from all over the country, met a ton of cool people and saw almost all the acts that I wanted to and reasonably could as alot of them are going on at the same time.
10. Eat a good lunch and dinner if you plan to drink heavily. It was hot down there and I got dehydrated and had to chug a few waters here and there to recoop.
11. Going back to point 9, take a good hard look at the schedule and if you are as anal as I am, come up with like a Plan A and B for each night, if you can’t get in one place, you are gonna go to this other place…it makes things alot easier for yourself once you are out and drunk and disoriented in a town you are unfamiliar with.
I hope to see ya’ll down there next year at SXSW, I know I’ll be there.
(Duffy note: THANKS FOR THE REPORT MS. TALL)