Unofficial SXSW Part One: We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Badges!

Yes, South By beats a heavy drum the way of official shows – Lou Reed milling about. Vampire Weekend swooning the hype machine – but the city beat is so cacophonous these days, piggybackers and impromptu, guerilla house parties reign supreme. Dudesters, you don’t need a $600 wristband to keep Austin weird. A map on the other hand…yes. And a cell phone capable of receiving the following dispatches:

Secret show at the UT six pack – byob…Die Die Die, Best Fwends, Headlights, Dan Deacon and more. 12 a.m.!

A crew from Brooklyn – ToddPNYC.com – has flooded Austin with listings of every underground and free happening by the hour. And in this case, a thirty-minute warning of a campus courtyard party. Though Dan Deacon didn’t show, a constant rotating cast of high and completely low profile indienites played 2-3 song acoustic sets. Chicago’s Mahjongg even brought a drum kit, tribal rocking about the seated crowd. It was real. It was Austin. And cops were there letting the whole thing go down. One dude from Oakland commandeered people into a shout-out orchestra, cuing half the crowd to beatbox and half to coo like birds, while he rhymed about “a man on his back.” He capped his set with a little poke about downtown: “I’m glad to not be on Sixth Street.”

ToddPNYC @ University of Texas

Kum-ba-ya, Dan Deacon, where are you...

Navigating the day was a bit easier. A club on the residential, East side of the city called The Peacock got taken over by blog heroes, Gorilla Vs. Bear, getting a little pun fancy by titling the showcase Gorilla Vs. Booze. Cleveland electro-popster White Williams was the big draw, in the sweaty, one-in-one-out bar the size of a suburban garage; probably because there was free PBR on draft. Something the uber-hipster set were all smiles about during opener “New Violence,” Williams serving the single very blasé and into his keyboard more than the crowd. MTV’s John Norris ate it up, though, standing two feet in front of me, snapping digital mementos with his cell phone. 

White Williams’ sweat dripped here

On from there, the badgeless were welcome at Mohawk, a giant dual-staged venue plucked out of Cancun, with its wooden deck and palm trees, right in the heart of downtown. Websites Austinist and Gothamist were responsible for showcasing Liam Finn, Phosphorescent, and the Shout Out Louds, among a handful of other greats, till sunset. All you had to do was show up on time and not be one of the grumpy faces peeking through the mesh fencing on the street.

Shout-ing Out Loud @ Mohawk

Liam Finn @ Mohawk

Come Thursday, poor souls had to choose between Chicago’s all-star club Schuba’s annual showcase south of the city where Okkervil River and The Cool Kids encouraged you to drink free pints of Bud, a quintet-sponsored bill at Emo’s with Ra Ra Riot and more Shout Out Louds, or free food and Two Gallants at the Beauty Bar. I chose the latter, and caught a rushed set full of collapsing drum kits and amp shortages because an official showcase was on the heels of the Seattle duo, and every band was late before them.

Two Gallants @ Beauty Bar

Sun and booze and tunage just about to tax my body, Elliott Smith nerdness took me to a free gallery show of Autumn De Wilde’s “Pictures Of Me,” a collection of massive Smith prints from both their professional collaborations and years of friendship. Also a free booze affair. Top shelf goods! After sentimentalizing over a two-foot blow-up of Elliott’s hand, Frodo showed up, chatting with one of the curators.


“Hello," says Elliott

An actual break did occur through disco nap hours, due to the fact that the evening’s capstone free party didn’t kick up until 10 p.m. A skatepark-slash-junkyard-slash-campus shit-hole of a punk, residential house on the outskirts of the University of Texas, the Comal House is a DIY venue for any band that expresses an interest to play. It’s every 15-year-old skater punk’s wet dream, complete with roaming dogs, shards of guitars hanging from trees, an open bar, a fire pit and a rain-warped halfpipe that later saw some bands jam on it.

The non-halfpipe stage was a mosh pit frenzy, local underage misfits snotting and crashing into guitarists of mostly punk outfits named after Dragons and Pipe Bombs. An Oakland madman, Uzi Rash, stole the show, smacking his slovenly Jim Belushi physique on the concrete and swinging mannequin limbs in the air over some thrash guitar samplings from his a back-up band, an old-school Discman.

Of course the beer ran out at 2 a.m. in true house party style, and the cab ride out was a good $25. But hey, the hair on my wrist is free from constricting bands.

I am Tim Beaty of the Conniption Fits, hear me beat!

Orange County’s A.M. on the halfpipe

Mosh!

Uzi Rash