Eric Estrada & Mini Me + My 9 Other Favorite SXSW 2010 Moments

This was my eighth SXSW. But it was the only one where I took a picture of Eric Estrada and Verne Troyer, so the other ones really don’t count. Here are my 10 favorite moments from SXSW 2010:

10. Nathanial Rateliff and Anaïs Mitchell Off Some Back Alley
One wrong turn in Austin, and you’ll find yourself in yet another bar filled with UT boys and girls dancing to Ke$ha and empty venues with the merch lady hard-selling tie-dyed band t-shirts. I encountered both while looking for Nathanial Rateliff, who was playing off a downtown alley in a small but crowded room. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who’d discovered Rateliff’s understated folk the week before SXSW. Shockingly, there wasn’t much of a crowd for Anais Mitchell, who didn’t need the voices of Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, Justin Vernon and Ben Knox Miller who accompany her on her brilliant new folk opera. Hers was plenty lovely.

9. The Rise of the Paste intern
At least three former Paste interns—Andrew Nelson (Shotgun Lover), Catherine Prewitt and Evan Coulombe (Joshua James)—performed in Austin last week. Others, like Mike Hilleary, who just penned the new Under the Radar cover story on Vampire Weekend, were covering the fest. Our very first intern Steven Bevilaqua was there with Fat Possum Records. And current interns Rachel Bailey, Kaylie Damen and Sarah Fox were busy riding around interviewing Andrew W.K. in a pedicab.

8. The Crazy Trumpet/Violin
Annalisa Tornfelt, one of the few Black Prairie members who’s not also in The Decemberists pulled out this cross-bred instrument during both sets at Paste‘s day parties. Wikipedia tells me it’s called a “Stroh violin, Stro(h)viol, violinophone, or horn-violin.”

7. Rediscovering Damion Suomi
I’ve always like-liked Damion Suomi, the solo singer/songwriter. But I fell in love with full-band Damion Suomi when he opened Paste‘s Friday day-party with a set that crashed Saturday-night drinking songs into Sunday-morning hymns. My new favorite lyric came in a song that sounded like one of the latter: "Love God with all your heart / Love your neighbor as yourself / The rest is a fuckin’ guess / Yours is as good as mine."

6. Singing along to Dawes at the Top of My Lungs
I only caught the last couple songs of Dawes’ set at Club De Ville, but they included the best sing-a-long of all SXSW when the entire crowd took over the chorus at the end of “When My Time Comes.” The video above is from a different party, but you get the idea.

5. The F-Bands
Forget all those bands that get caught in your spam filter. This year, the three bands I was most looking forward to all start with “Fr,” but the similarities mostly end there. Free Energy is a rock band out of Philadelphia that sounds like all the best classic rock. Freelance Whales are New Yorkers who do a much better update of Postal Service than that guy in Owl City. And Frightened Rabbit is my new favorite band, period. I was a late-comer to The Midnight Organ Fight, and I like the new one, The Winter of Mixed Drinks almost as much. All three played the indoor stage at the Paste Party, and I felt very selfish for just booking the stuff I wanted to hear. But everyone else seemed to enjoy them too. It’s nice how that works out.

4. The People vs. George Lucas
After realizing I’d seen 30 bands in 36 hours, I decided that Thursday night would be music-free. Instead I caught a very fun doc about Star Wars fans love/hate relationship with the man who brought us The Force and then explained it away with Midi-chlorians. Even better was the three-and-a-half minute short film Star Wars: Retold, in which a woman who has only seen bits and pieces of the trilogy tries to recount all the major plot points. You must watch it right now, above.

3. “Blister in the Sun” at The Paste Party
Gordon Gano and the Ryans played the outdoor stage, closing the set with “Blister in the Sun.” Our publisher wondered how many folks that had showed up for Fanfarlo inside thought it was a cover song. But Middle-School Josh was freaking out. I also loved seeing Roky Erickson and Okkervil River on that same stage.

2. Band of Horses in a church
I try to spend most of my SXSW listening hours roving from venue to venue checking out new bands, but the line-up of Tyler Ramsey, Company, Band of Horses, jj, Holly Miranda and The XX had my butt glued to a pew for more hours than an AME worship service in Southwest Atlanta. jj’s set was the most uninspired performance I’ve seen in eight years of SXSW, singing along to backing tracks and looking so bored I wanted to give her my iPhone so she could play some Words With Friends. Instead, I just played Words With Friends (username: joshjackson). Band of Horses, on the other hand, treated the show like it was halftime at the Super Bowl. If Cease to Begin was filled with melancholic beauty and cautious elation, the new songs were pure unadulterated joy. This was church. Ben Bridwell had a smile as big as Texas, and the congregation gave the first mid-show rock ‘n’ roll standing ovation I’ve seen, after “Funeral” ended with guitars a’ blazing. I can’t wait to hear the new record.

1. The Best Celebrity Photo I Will Ever Take
I was munching on shrimp corn dogs at the Swagg Cafe when Eric Estrada & Verne Troyer suddenly appeared. Yes, I was at something called the Swagg Cafe, eating free food and drinking free Belvedere lemonade. Yes, I said “shrimp corndogs.” And yes, I really took this photo and showed it to everyone I knew and several strangers. It brought joy to all (or at least all who were old enough to recognize the dude from CHiPs). God bless you, SXSW.