Alright--as promised in my last post, here is my recap of my trip to the SXSW Music Festival:

- Thursday night we saw our first show: Train. Though traditionally I have not been a very big fan this band, their showcase at Austin's La Zona Rosa was a likeable enough introduction to the music festival.

- Next we headed over the rather unusual venue of the local Scottish Rite Freemason Temple to catch the Austin-based Knife in the Water (a sort of minimalist, alt-country group). Unfortunately, it took us so long to find the place that we only caught about the last 15 minutes of their show :-(.

- From there, it was back to La Zona Rosa for a show by the North Mississippi All-Stars--an up-and-coming band who recently received a Grammy nomination for best blues album. This show was truly the highlight of the evening--as Ian puts it, "they threw down." And, as a special bonus, I got to stand next to the singer's girlfriend during the show (well, at least it was a bonus until I found out who she was!) :-).

- Friday night we went down to Stubb's BBQ to see the Black Crowes preview material from their forthcoming album (due out on May 8). It was a highly anticipated event, and getting in was tough, especially for those of us non-record industry people with SXSW wristbands instead of badges (which have priority in getting in). Fortunately, the Stubb's people pulled a little trick--they went around telling everyone that the place was at capacity and that only badge-holders, if anyone, would get in. We judged correctly that this was merely a ploy to get rid of people, and stood our ground when even a lot of the badge people gave up and started walking away. We were rewarded with a brilliant show that the Crowes extended well past their allotted time!

That night we also saw the American debut of an interesting Manchester-based band called Elbow (they reminded me a little bit of early Radiohead) as well as a couple of bands (the Flashing Lights and the Orange Peels) at the Spinart Records showcase.

- Saturday afternoon we made a brief trip to the Austin Record Show, which happens to coincide with SXSW (probably not by coincidence). We came in search of several hard-to-find items, including a copy of the soundtrack album for the Jimi Hendrix movie, which Ian actually managed to track down with the help of some nice people from the Experience Music Project! I bought some, um, imports (read: bootlegs), and a good time was had by all.

On Saturday night we saw the American debut of Mad for the Racket--a sort of Detroit Rock supergroup fronted by former MC5 guitar player Wayne Kramer and filled out by some stellar sidemen. My interest in them stems mainly from the fact that Mani, the former Stone Roses/current Primal Scream bass player, has been playing in Kramer's live band. Mani's a personal hero of mine--a brilliant bass player and all around cool guy--so the opportunity to see him in a small club (and hopefully get to shake his hand) was exciting to say the least!

The show was incredible--we stood right up at the small stage, and got our ears blown off by the Racket's awesome wall of noise (we barely heard any vocals the whole time!). When the band started coming out, I yelled out "Mani!" and he turned around, seemingly surprised, calling out "Yeah?" in his Manchester accent. When he noticed my "Kill All Hippies" shirt (a Primal Scream reference), he pointed and smiled. As I said, he is one cool cat--I took B&W pictures with my Leica during the whole show, and both he and Wayne Kramer posed for me several times. Unfortunately, the Atomic Cafe employees didn't quite get into the "stick it to the man" spirit of the band's music--toward the end of the show they got sick of my taking pictures without a press pass and actually forced me to stand away from the stage next to a bouncer! So, I'm afraid I didn't quite get to shake Mani's hand as he walked of stage, but at least I got some killer pictures.

After seeing Mad for the Racket, we headed over to the Austin Music Hall to catch the Scottish band Mogwai at the Matador Records showcase. Mogwai are already well-regarded in the UK as an avant-garde collective who are helping to push the boundaries of rock, but after seeing them last night I think another honor should be bestowed upon them: they have surely eclipsed Spinal Tap as England's loudest band! I stood right in front of one their guitar players, who spent all evening fiddling with his effects pedals and machine heads in an attempt to coax ever shriller and more stomach-turning sounds from his Marshall stack. By the time their frontman (who actually did very little singing) announced that they were going to play "one more," I was ready to give my poor eardrums a rest. What he didn't say, though, was that this last song was going to last around 20 minutes and feature extended sections of deafening feedback. It ended up taking about a day and a half for my ears to recover from that beating!

Well, I'm back from Texas and horribly delinquent in my journaling duties! So, to make up, here are a few thoughts on the trip:

- Despite the town's recent tech-fueled gentrification, the Austin depicted in Richard Linklater's films (Slacker, Dazed & Confused) is very much apparent if you know where to look. One of my favorite sights was the graffiti on the railroad bridge across from the Lamar Street bridge--in addition to the timeless "Expect Mediocrity," someone had recently updated the old line about Clapton by scrawling "Eminem is God!"

- TV was another rich source of amusement for me while I was down there. As it turns out, Austin not only has a great music scene, but a flourishing community of public access kooks as well. One morning I got out of the shower to find one of Ian's local buddies introducing the group to "The Alex Jones Show"--a low budget, paranoid, ultra-conservative affair in which the eponymous host rails against everything from water fluoridization (shades of Dr. Strangelove!) to the government's secret ownership of the entire stock market! Apparently this guy is practically an Austin institution--a high-tech village idiot, if you will. In fact, he is so much of a fixture of thee local scene that he appears in Linklater's highly anticipated new film, Waking Life. Check out his website here if you are in the mood for a laugh. As the bumper stickers say: "Keep Austin Weird" :-)!

- Our rental car turned out to be a Daewoo Nubira. None of us had ever had the opportunity to drive this fine Korean brand, but now that we have, I think we've all come away with a new respect. The Nubira moved out pretty well for such a cheap little car, and even had a little button labeled "POWER" that we theorize changes the fuel ratios or something like that to give the car some extra punch! We went around all week warning everyone (including Ian's Mustang driving co-worker) not to understimate the power of our Daewoo, and backed these boasts up by driving that sucker into the ground! Let's just say that turning the vehicle using the emergency brake (Starsky and Hutch-style) is not a method generally recommended by the owner's manual :-).

- I'm inclined to agree with Jason Kottke's assertion that SXSW Interactive was a trifle underwhelming. Maybe I was expecting too much, but the opportunities to socialize with other geeks were not what I was hoping for. There seems to be a lot of clubbiness among the long time SXSW attendees that can be rather off-putting to newcomers like myself. Hanging around at the Fray Cafe, for instance, was somewhat entertaining, but it was clear that the cool people (i.e. the San Francisco crowd) pretty much hung out in a little clump at the back of the room.

The panels themselves seemed rather hastily thrown together (or, in the case of David Talbot's much-anticipated appearance, non-existant) and far too broad and unfocused in their subject matter. I can't tell you how many panelists I heard saying, "I don't really know why I was asked to speak about this topic," and in most cases I would say that I could have spoken as authoritatively as these so-called "experts." There were a few moments of interest, like the Napster panel (which, I imagine, was probably elevated by its association with the music festival), but all in all I don't believe I'd shell out the money for a badge again.

- The music festival, on the other hand, was incredible! Well worth the price of admission. But since this post is already getting a but long, I'll post more on that subject tomorrow...