Day 3 at SXSW (Day 5 on the road).
Hey There Folks,
Phew, yesterday was a big day.
Woke up in a hustle thinking Lucy Michelle was playing at noon. I was wrong. I'm actually on my way there now. So we checked in at Flip Arkulary's Mother of All SXSW showcases at the East Avenue Lounge which was just getting set up. Then some food and maybe try to get wristbands for some "Real SXSW" events. We got in to the Hype Hotel for free Miller Lites and Taco Bell Dorito Tacos. I can't remember the name of the band we saw (starting to get more common). We had a nice walk through the Austin Convention Center for a potty. We went up to Stubb's and got a Spin wristband. Not sure whats happening there, but we will check it out at some point this week. My brother-in-law, Yomi Desalu, works for MTVu and was putting on the Woodies (MTVu Music Awards Showcase). We really needed to get to that, but we were on the complete opposite end of town. Ugh. Luckily we were able to stop by the Side Bar and caught the end of The Midgetmen (from Austin). We walked in on them play Weird Al's "Dare to Be Stupid". Oh man. Then a great change over and Minneapolis's own The 4onthefloor. It was great to run into a lot of friends and the boys onstage killed it.
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| 1/2 of 4onthefloor |
My travel bud, Jonathan, ran into Fitz and the Tantrums on our way to the Woodie's. They were playing down the street at some little bar. We hustled up and got over there. They hit the stage a good 30 min late (great changeover, guys). The band was rocking, sound was rough, and somehow everyone was way shorter than us and really pissed about it. We got tired of getting yelled at so we left 4 songs into it.
We got to the Woodies and getting in was a shitshow. Much confusion. Luckily, Yomi was able to pull rank on the security and get us in. The wristbands got us free drinks. There were also free Popsicles. We saw one dude play who was pretty bad. We also saw Pusha T and Haim. Then we headed back to the East Avenue Lounge to represent MN. We caught the end of the Jelly Project, Actual Wolf, The Color Pharmacy, and a little bit of Ol' Yeller. David Leibe Hart from Tim and Eric was performing in the front yard. Pretty interesting.
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| Actual Wolf |
Jonathan and I broke from our company and tried to get into the Daptones showcase, but it was $20. So after a few missteps in hunting cool bands down in the mess of 6th st downtown (known to the locals as "Dirty 6th") we had to sit down at the Chugging Monkey for a few Whiskey Cokes. After an hour there we saw Modoc. Really great heavy blues-rock from Nashville. Pretty intense.
I got a text from Yomi at the Hype Hotel. He had wristbands for us for the Official SXSW Party. It was awesome. I got to see The Specials. They killed it. More free drinks and Taco Bell. It was great to hang with my brother-in-law. He's awesome and treated us like royalty even though we're scumbagging it this whole trip.
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| L-R: Jade, Yomi, Trevor, Ginny, Toussaint Morrison, Jonathan |
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| The Specials at Hype Hotel |
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| Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones with the Buddos Band |
Went to bed with fresh blisters on my feet. What a day. I wish I had a pedometer just to see how far we went.
Musical Side Note: get ear plugs. Seriously. Every venue with a
back yard stage and a front stage has loud as fuck in between music. And
as a matter of fact this whole fucking thing is loud as shit.
