Lost in Austin - 2011

Back from another sojourn in Austin. After happily missing last year to welcome young Isaiah into the world, I was eager to get back into the sun and fields of guitar drone so loud that the hairs on your arm vibrate. Yup, its SXSW time. If you don’t like music or tales of the town that let’s its freak flag fly higher than any other in this great land, you needn’t read any further. But, why on Earth would you be looking at this blog?

Great, now that the squares are out of the way, we can get to it. Flying in on Wednesday morning and leaving Saturday afternoon afforded my brave companions and I time to walk a bazillion miles, drink a lot of beer, and see more than 40 bands. I’ll detail the tune slingers later in the week (technical difficulties with my camera are slowing the posts), but some quick thoughts:

• Austin, TX is growing like gangbusters. We stayed in a neighborhood on the East Side that I am sure would have been written off as an uninhabitable ghetto just a few years ago. Tucked in among light industry and recycling facilities, hipsters are taking over vast sections of town. The transition leaves crumbling shacks next to brand-spanking new modern homes that left the area east of Caesar Chavez incongruous... In the two years since I was last there, they have added a light rail line and the 6th Avenue music scene has shifted west of I-35 by a couple miles. For most that is meaningless, I know. Let’s just say, that burgh is changing for the better fast---and I already loved the place.
  
• iPhones are bad for the music scene. Yes, I took photos at lots of shows…sometimes with my phone. But, cripes, you can’t see the stage over all the tiny glowing screens held aloft in all those skinny arms. And the video features have every stupid Scorsese panning and trying cinematic tricks throughout every set. I stood next to an idiot who shot the Cave Singers’ entire performance in small 1-minute increments all ending with a pan to the sky---what can you do with that footage? Nothing. Except irritate the aging guy standing next to you.
  
• SXSW is too big. That is not a complaint. In fact, it’s probably a good thing. Understand that this thing takes place in most every bar, restaurant, house of worship and grass patch within five clicks of downtown. There are seemingly hundreds of venues day and night. As it has grown, it has gotten easier to move around between venues again---just like in the old days when 10,000 people were squeezing in to see 1,000 bands. I think it’s more than twice both of those figures now. Its so big that the New York Times chose to write a huge article about the Fader Fort, an unofficial venue that is like a SXSW alterna-world near everything else...
  
• I am old. Wow. I know fewer and fewer bands going in. And the days of starting to see bands at noon, ending around 2:00 a.m. with only an hour for a sit-down dinner to break it up really take a toll. Not that I am complaining about this either.

I’ll describe some of the bands in the posts that follow, but here’s a taste: video of the first band we caught below:



That is Lo-Pan. A stoner thrash band from Ohio that one could not help but love because:

• They were really loud.
  
• Their name seems to be a reference to the villain in “Big Trouble in Little China,” one of the greatest guilty pleasure movies of all time.
  
• Notice the massive lead singer standing in the shadows behind the rest of the band. Not sure if that was because of nerves or because he would blot out the drummer, bassist and guitarist. Either way, the guy had pipes!
  
• The guitarist looks to be Manny “Sharkman” Puig, reality show star and free diving hero…
  
• There was a half-pipe with a gaggle of skaters ranging widely in age and talent just outside the door…

And that's just the first band. Buckle up.