Early yesterday morning—with groggy eyes and bags heavy with magazines, media kits and optimism—the Paste entourage made its way to the Atlanta airport, bound for Austin, Texas, and the music conference to end all music conferences: SXSW. The seven of us arrived in Houston around 11:00 a.m. and piled into a white Chevy minivan for the final three-hour leg of our journey. Having not seen much of the U.S. between the Mississippi River and the California coast, the Texas landscape was beautifully alien to me—fast-moving low-flying clouds, big skies, long flat fields of green grass, grazing cattle, live oaks, scrub and small patches of cactus, the muddy brown of the Colorado River and the occasional cluster of Palm trees that seemed strangely out of place.
We stopped at Charlie’s Hamburgers & Mexican Grill in Brookshire, Texas, along the way. The sign out front read, “More than two dozen sold.” Inside, a note on the menu board told of a $.50 price increase for items containing beef due to the recent case of mad cow disease in Canada and its effect on the market. We gladly offered our extra change to help out the meat industry, all except art director José Reyes who gave up meat for Lent. He held strong in the face of taunting and temptation by the rest of the Paste crew. (But the true test will come with all of this week’s free beer and barbecue parties.) So we feasted on piles of guacamole burgers, onion rings and tacos (vegetarian for José) and headed back out on the highway to Austin.
Just outside of town we made a pit stop and I bought a big sack of pork tamales from a man selling them out of the back of his van. They were the best I’ve ever had, and yes—just as Norah Jones recently admitted to Paste (see our April/May issue when it hits newsstands in two weeks)—I’m a foodie, too.
Austin is a beautiful city and the sun was shining as we pulled in. The architecture that stands out most is a tall, shimmering-green skyscraper, the Frost Bank building, which could’ve been transplanted straight from the Wizard of Oz’s Emerald City. After dropping our luggage off at our suite at the Hampton, we headed down the block to the Austin Convention Center for press registration. Fortunately we missed yesterday afternoon’s computer crash, which delayed the process for hundreds of conference attendees.
After we picked up our requisite laminated passes, a few of us caught the end of a rock-writing panel hosted by British magazine Mojo’s Sylvie Simmons and also Jaan Uhelszki, who used to work with Lester Bangs at Creem.
Later in the evening, the Paste editorial staff stopped by restaurant/bar Threadgill’s for the annual “Hacks and Flacks” (publicists/writers) dinner. The walls were adorned with hundreds of classic, framed, black-and-white photos of music icons like Frank Zappa and Emmylou Harris. It was a fitting spot to kick things off and it was whole helluva lot of fun to put faces with names (so much communication in this business is through telephone and email), meet old friends and talk music, which is what was on everybody’s minds. Seemingly, the icebreaker questions of the night were, “So who do you work with?” followed up by, “What artists are you planning on seeing?” It almost felt like being back in college, out at a bar or a keg party and being asked, “What’s your major?” Still, after the introductions and a few pints of my new favorite Texas microbrew, Big Bark, everyone loosened up and had a great time.
But by now, I’m sure you’re ready for the meat of this update. This is about the music after all…
(Pictured top right: The Deathray Davies)
Some of us went our separate ways last night (so as to increase our ability to catch as many bands as possible). I struck out alone on a long walk down S. Congress St. to catch New Orleans band The Iguanas at The Continental Club. This was a non-SXSW event but it was worth a few extra bucks to see the bilingual, latin-flavored party-rockers strut their stuff. As I sipped on an ice-cold Lone Star and waited for the show to begin, I noticed an orange tool box sitting on top of one of the amplifiers. A sticker across the front read, “I killed a six pack, just to watch it DIE!”
Just after 10:15 the band took the stage in front of the club’s red velvet curtain and launched into a set of snaky tequila-soaked grooves, augmented by accordion, saxophone and some tight harmonies. The crowd swayed in time, hypnotized by the music’s vibrations. But as it always goes at SXSW, after 30-40 minutes it was time to move on. At this conference there are at least five bands (usually more) you want to check out every hour of every night. You can’t see ‘em all, but you try your best.
When my cab pulled into the Club Deville parking lot at five ’til 11:00, I had to wait a few minutes to get in. The place was jam packed and the fire marshal had already been by to make sure no one went in until someone came out. I made it inside and through the back to the outdoor stage just before Dallas, Texas, band The Deathray Davies began their set, nestled against the face of a 30-foot-high cliff. These indie rockers released the excellent Midnight at The Black Nail Polish Factory last year. I’ve since seen them twice and they’ve become one of my favorite bands. With six members on stage—including a keyboardist, two guitars, bass, drums and a percussionist/xylophone player—the band masterfully recreates the texture and depth of its studio recordings while adding the intensity of a hi-octane live-rock show. And to up the stakes a bit, legendary rock’n’roll superfan (and quite an astute gentleman, I might add) Beatle Bob joined The Deathray Davies mid-performance, dancing his ass off and shaking a pair of maracas. This show was the unequivocal highlight of my night. After the show I spoke briefly with Beatle Bob, who kindly gave me an annotated primer on how to make the best of SXSW. He had many nice things to say about Paste and we were all quite flattered, as Bob really knows and loves music.