Relive Fred Armisen’s Hilarious Trip to SXSW in 1998

The music portion of SXSW officially begins today, and before it became a swirling, soul-crushing gauntlet of corporate sponsors, bands everyone’s already heard of and never-ending lines with no apparent beginning or end, South by was a simpler place, full of available cabs, sparsely attended panels and, most of all, hope.

…It was a place were a pre-SNL Fred Armisen could wander in with a camera and wreak havoc.

Armisen’s career in comedy started with homemade videos like the one above, which was filmed during SXSW in 1998. Watch as he pretends to be a clueless German journalist while interviewing Janeane Garofalo, a mentally challenged journalist while interviewing Steve Albini and several other…types of journalists.