SXSW Day 1

Welcome to day one!

Why has it taken me this long to relive SXSW? Well, it hasn't really. I wrote this out a bit ago, but surprise, surprise - it's insanely long. Maybe embarrassingly long given there is documentation of four more days to follow. I couldn't tell. Whatever. I have now overcome my length inhibitions and am just posting it. Hopefully you survive! :D

I bought my airplane ticket the Friday before and very quickly I found myself deep in the heart of Texas for SXSW. After a red-eye flight on Monday night, I was in Austin Tuesday morning after a brief layover at George Bush International Airport in Houston (yes, there is an airport named after the Senior Bush) having not slept in two days. Rad times! That Tuesday I got up to nothing other than watching Bill Cosby and the Fresh Prince and geeking out about Hipster Runoff, before and after Greg Panda Toes met him -- a "[highly bloggable]" meeting might I add. Go ask Greg about it. Hint: HRO talks exactly like his blog. We stayed up until 6am the night before SXSW's Wednesday kickoff laughing and laughing which put us in a great position to conquer the day-parties bright and early... obviously... not. Yeah... After we - Kappy, Ryan, Greg, Chloe and I made plans to pretty much sit pretty at the Forcefield PR/Terrorbird party all day due to the ace line-up, I didn't actually wake-up until 15 minutes before These New Puritans' afternoon set there. Needless to say I wasn't exactly in the mindset to power through, get dressed and catch a cab one minute after waking, the time frame necessary in order to make it in time for their set, so with that I missed my first must-see set of the fest. We made it out around 3 and headed directly to the Fader Fort to catch the Kills.

Me vs. Greg before we'd even entered our first party. So fresh, so clean i.e. sober

There was no line to get in, but there was a very long line to get crossed out on the RSVP list and be gifted with the white wristband necessary for entry. It moved fast enough though.

There were also picketers protesting Levi's human rights violations given the party was occurring at a Levi's store. They walked up and down the line of people waiting for wristbands with their signs as well as across the street in the hot sun.

First act of the day were the Kills who put on a very visceral performance. The last time I saw them was in 2005 and I wasn't as blown away by the performance, maybe because I don't remember them having a  super charged fan. Any-who... god damn were they good. They are so involved in each other and that very involvement draws you in. The Kills are very magnetic. While I'm keeping this short and sweet about them, know that they were a true highlight.

Dave Allen was also at the show and filmed a song which you can and should watch on Pampelmoose.

Enough coughing to make you think they've caught a nasty flu or are performing their free itunes single "Cheap and Cheerful." Let's go back in time with:

"Fuck the People" The Kills MP3

This track appeared on a Domino comp CD in 2004 I think. Maybe 2003. I just know I bought it at some Newsagent in Baywater via the NME. Yeah. I was young. So sue me for reading it. My first aural exposure to the gruesome twosome.

Chloe and I took off from there with the intent of making it to the Forcefield party, but I kinda mis-directed us. Then mid-traipse, my phone (which I reactivated for SXSW) went off. It was Peter with These New Puritans calling to remind me of my interview with the band was due to start... now. Umm... interview? Seriously - I had no idea. I thought it was scheduled for the next day, not Wednesday, so I didn't even have my digital recorder. I asked if we could just do polaroids and he asked if I had my polaroid camera on me. Indeed I did, so we booked it over to where they were after he gave us the street address. On our way we passed a venue and the music coming from the live band was INSANE. We paused very briefly so I could try to memorize the venue's name so I could google search its schedule later that night and produce the name of the band currently enlightening my ears. About a block later we realized we'd overshot the address, doubled back and found out the venue we'd passed and the band that had stolen my heart by way of my ears was These New Puritans. It sounded familiar, but at that point my itunes hadn't been stocked with Beat Pyramid, so I hadn't recognized the song.

Pretty much the first thing I asked once Domino Record Co.'s Peter and I were face to face was: "Do you know Gary?" He nodded and said yes giving absolutely no indication that my favorite Domino employee was indeed at the fest. It wasn't until after I'd returned to PDX that I was confronted with photographic evidence that Gary was at SXSW!! And I didn't get to meet him in person! Noooo!! He's my favorite! Before he jumped continents to work for Domino USA, he used to work for the label in London and in perhaps my favorite role of his, he was Test Icicle's product manager!!! I used to attempt to sell him ads in my mag Toaster. In an early phone call he taught me the correct way to pronounce their name. He was always fun and supportive and of course Test Icicles are [still] my favorite band and Domino is my favorite label (I even started a flickr group dedicated to the label), so all I can say now is: I blame you Peter.
I'm only half kidding ;)

TNP went about an interview with MTV:

Peter and I talked about the possibility of These New Puritans touring the States in support of their debut disc Beat Pyramid. The current consensus is that he'd like it to happen and June is the probable time. In all likelihood it'll be a New York/LA affair, but if they can find a spot as support on a national tour, he'd jump at it. Hear that? Bands booking US tours in May without confirmed support you have found your answer in These New Puritans.

What will your new London tour-mates be like? Well, they will fall like expensive fabric on a model if told to stand somewhere with no direction necessary. This was demonstrated when MTV was shooting them. They told TNP to stand still while they filmed around them and without direction their heads dropped in poetic nonchalance as their gazes drifted downwards. They became like some living art installation. Without direction!

(Never has them nicking their name from The Fall been so appropriate.)

Will they want to engage in conversation with you or be willing to during long rides in the bus or van and during lulls at soundcheck? Drummer George will as he's quite chatty, but the others not so much. They're great at brooding though and looking pretty, so who needs conversation when you've got that grace going on?

Will they be addicted to wifi and trying to take control of your laptops? You're GarageBand sessions are safe as These New Puritans have little to no interest in computers and the internet. Do they read blogs? No. Do they use email, facebook or myspace to keep in touch while on tour? Not so much except for George did own up to favoring Facebook, so there you go - little chance of after tour friend requests to stir up your social anxieties of whether to accept or not to accept.

And their dismissal of the internet is actually almost semi-believable. Like they didn't know what blogs were. Eventually George volunteered that his favorite as Style.com and a Catwalk site (one that requires a password to enter). I don't really consider those blogs, but simply websites. Then he made the comment: "we were a blog before we were a band."

Huh?

He explained they had a domain name before any music. Domain name does not equal a blog. I then remarked on how they were more like Menswear in that respect with building a name before tunes. None of them had ever heard of Menswear! I'm not even British and I know about them. I think everyone does. New levels of naive. Or intentional naivety as a piece to add to their puzzling image. Simon White's current management activity certainly fans the flame a bit too I'm sure or at least his top myspazz friends does.

I promised to email George some blogs. He seemed gung-ho about it. Any suggestions?

These New Puritans = Most bizarre band. In a good way all the way.

"Numerology" These New Puritans MP3

George and a girl K-I-S-S-I-N-G in the name of fashion on flickr

Chloe took a photo of me with TNP in my line of fire:

We hit the pavement probably a half hour or so later, maybe a bit later, intent on finally making it to the Forcefield party. My oh my! Who is that that I spy on the sidewalk? Why only the Allen of my eye hahahaha :) That's when Dave clued me into his Kills footage and we had an enjoyable though brief gab before splitting our separate ways. We planned to meet up again, but I think that's the last time we saw each other during the fest. Bummer time! It happened like that a lot with people I met/planned to meet throughout the fest - it's kinda too hectic to keep any plans intact - most interactions there are seemingly up to chance... But now it was onto the Blow!

It was my first time seeing Miss Maricich live!!! How it has been THIS LONG I do not know, but... I missed her Sasquatch set by minutes but then chillaxed with her for an hour after. Tthen I was too exhausted from working a full-time day job and semi-dissolusioned with live music by the time of her PDX Pop Now performance in August. Then I was out of town for her Holocene Halleluwah fest set.

Even in finally catching her live I wouldn't exactly say I caught her live. I arrived at Emo's well aware that she was already on, but having to pause to conjure up my ID at the door. While rummaging through my Marc Jacobs tote someone hit my arm to get my attention and it was Rob Simonsen saying hello. Just a few days prior I'd been at Everyday Music selling CDs to partially finance my airplane ticket and we'd discussed the parties we were most looking forward to. Of course the Playboy party was at the top of my list and the Terrorbird/Forcefield PR party that we were presently at had been at the top of his list and first he'd mentioned. His journalistic home of The Mercury provided SXSW his badge. Lucky boy! I was there badgeless, but the only night it actually mattered was this night. All the others it was smooth sailing.

So after the brief hello we quickly went our separate ways and I found my way into Emo's outdoor segment in time to see her saying goodbye and asking if there was possibly enough time for her to perform one more track. She was met with a "no," but after a hem and a haw, she went ahead with it anyway - thank. god. Her final song? "True Affection." She had us raising a hand and waving with her to the cadence of one of my favorite tracks. She had some self-depreciating words to add at its close about not understanding why everyone would want to see her and then she was gone.

We booked it back over to the Fader Fort and it was time for Does It Offend You, Yeah? Yes, they did offend me, but first they impressed me, so we'll start there.

SO MUCH ENERGY! Obviously they're doing something different as I can't raise many fingers on my hand to indicate other electronic jam-bands I'm aware of. They opened with instrumentals and loads of enthusiasm. Guitarist/singer/cowbell connoisseur Morgan Quaintance reminds me so much of Will Smith circa Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. And not in the stereotype of "all black people are alike" - ie can sing, play basketball, know everything about rap music ever,etc... but in his demeanor, the same sly grin across his face, hair-cut, dress sense - to the EXTREME, pretty much everything. Watching him onstage is entertaining enough, then you add how engaging he is and it really draws you in. Can someone please sign him up for a half-hour sitcom? Jerry Seinfield has long hypothesized that sitcoms are dead. Seinfield raised the bar too high so now more traditional situational programs flounder, but Morgan could SO bring it back. Basic television or HBO. I would get a cable subscription (or just start checking bit torrent sites more often) if the latter were to occur.

All of them, from drummer Rob Bloomfield, to co-frontman James Rushent and synth operator Dan Coop were SO into it - from start to finish. I think everyone wanted to join their band at that point and they extended the invitation, sort of...
When it came time for my favorite song of theirs - "Let's Make Out," Morgan took possession of the vocals live that are sang by Sebastien Grainger on record. And what version of the song did they play? The extended mix - not the radio/myspace edit - thank god! Anyway, Morgan extended the mic to a certain member of the audience. A certain member of the audience that happened to be Joe Lean of Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong. I know every word and sang every single word. And you know what? I'm going to venture out onto the diving board and go as far as to say I sang more of the song than Morgan even if you take out his mic sharing as when he'd pause for air, I'd still be going. Anyway, of course they're going to pander to Joe Lean, but then Morgan passed the mic to a guy standing right by me who didn't know the song as well as me - totally skipping over the girl shouting along to every lyric. Cue a furrowed eyebrow on my part. What can they now expect in Portland? A pre-show meeting with me where I inform them someone's going to join them onstage for the song when they open for Yo Majesty at Rotture. That someone being me. They owe it to me hahahahahaha

They included "We Are Rock Stars" in their set (the song that served as my introduction to them forever ago) and closed with "With A Heavy Heart (I Regret To Inform You)" which was so much more appealing in the live arena than in my itunes. James handles vocal duties for that song and jumped off the stage to interact with Joe Lean:

before returning to the stage and his fellow band members for a chaotic close that ended with him rolling on the ground while Morgan jumped around swinging his guitar.

"We Are Rock Stars ( I Like Horses Edit)" Does It Offend You, Yeah? MP3

It must be said that my favorite open bar of the festival was at the Fader Fort. Let us take a moment to the bow to the gods for an unending supply of SoCo! It served as my first introduction to the goodness that is SouthernComfort and made a lover out of me. YUM!

Sipping some, I took in stood near the DJ set-up. In my ear came Eddie Murphy's prose:

"My girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time!"

Who could it be serenading me with the inspiration for my DJ troupe name? 1/2ALIVE's resident MC Curtis Santiago who so lovingly introduced Meg, Louis and I in similar fashion when we opened for the Teenagers just two months prior. Soon I took sight of the majority of the 1/2ALIVE gang - with TonyX rocking some insane...ly awesome pink framed shades and My!Gay!Husband! talking about Europe and blow jobs. Tyler stayed home due to heel injuries.

Next I saw Greg of Finger on the Pulse aka DJ NeverForget! Hadn't seen him since Lo-Fi-Fnk were in town in 2007. We talked about how Moby was the surprise DJ at his event the night prior so of course I made mention of HipsterRunoff's attendance. That sure spunked up and already bustling conversation.

Greg will be in town in May and Portland's party of the month will be going down on May 17th at Backspace. 1/2ALIVE will be there too! More details to come, but your calendar should be marked with the date in the same amount of time it took you to read the two preceding sentences.

Hear that? Mark down May 17th at Backspace on your calendar - digital or paper.

YACHT was up next. As we'd entered the Fader Fort we passed Jona and Claire and Jona stopped us. It was nice being recognized. Portland represent!

In total oddness I realized I hadn't seen him live since June 2nd!!!! Holocene's Birthday Bash night! How can you live in Portland and not be seeing him more often than that? I missed his MFNW set by seconds, but met Erik in the process, so it wasn't entirely a lost cause. Just as I'd never before seen the Blow, Chloe hadn't seen YACHT live.

Anyway - last time Claire only briefly joined him in his set. This time around? She was up there the entire time! New songs = David Bowie more than ever. Huh? Know they don't sound like David Bowie musically, but they do require dancing shoes and all seem to be shouting "Let's Dance!" regardless of lyrical topic. Topic wise they're all so positive, but would you expect anything less? One song encouraged listeners that you can live wherever you want to. I only half believe that. I think it's crazy that simply being human is in and of itself illegal when it comes to living in many foreign lands and it is REALLY HARD making it happen - living abroad when not apart of a program and sometimes even in the instances of being part of a program. I don't doubt that my dreams of Berlin will eventually come true, but making it happen is tough enough to exhaust someone out of wanting the reality. And I really don't believe that statement holds true to citizens of Haiti. At all. But who says YACHT's message is supposed to apply to the poorest nation in the western hemisphere? It's not exactly the land of record sales, blog hype or a tour market.

My mom also brings up the age factor and how in certain countries being over a certain age counts against you when attempting to enter legally into a country such as the point based system for acquiring a visa to Canada and the UK.

They sang their song about re-use which I was very happy about. The only other time I've heard it was at that Holocene show and I fell in love with it on the spot, so it was uber-nice hearing it again. The whole set was composed of mostly new songs, save "See A Penny (Pick It Up)" and one other. With most bands even a set with three new songs, let alone the entirety of the set being new un-aired material is not much fun. YACHT debunks that statement.

Claire and Jona got down in the crowd for a good portion of their set, turning the cement into their stage.

The performance was almost to the levels of his YACHT on a yacht show which is saying something. It was very fun.

>>Jona is crafty, crafty, crafty as in the only one finding a use for SoCo other than drinking -- pouring<<

Afterwards we headed back home at that point to reboot (and upload our memory cards), but only after adding some more bottles of Vitamin water to our bags care of the Fader Fort.

The evening could only be described as a bust at best. We planned to go see the Black Ghosts performing alongside Cut Copy and the Tough Alliance as a part of Modular's showcase. I arranged guestlist a week before. Greg called up the Black Ghosts' publicist trying to snag a spot himself before we left and she replied that there was no guest list. We were like, "OMG - she's flat-out lying." Only she wasn't. We cabbed in down in time to make their 10pm set, surviving a harrowing experience of the cab driver who could be under-described as a crazed tyrant who demanded a phone number from us, wouldn't let us leave the cab, etc... Anyway, we get there and guess what? There's no guest list. This blog name has never been so true. Ever. Because there wasn't even a guest list for my name to be left off of. We spent some time texting the publicist about the lack of guest list with no reply and called our night there over at 10:30 when people began leaving indicating that the Black Ghosts' set was over.

We called Ryan who was still back at the apartment to check out the Todd P NYC site (that Stephen Moshi Moshi had informed me of a few days earlier over email) and feed us the info about the Dan Deacon/Paper Rad show at Emo's.
The line was atrocious! Make that lines. There was one for badge holders and one for non-badger holders, the line that we fell into. It was at capacity already and any and all badge holders got to go first. When we took our spot in our line, the badge holders line was twenty strong. From there it multiplied and multiplied and multiplied and regardless of the fact that we'd now been in line for ages and before much of the badge holders, they all got to go ahead of us when a few attendees would leave, making room for two more at a time to enter Emo's. Umm... yeah...  I didn't have Dan Deacon's number on me, so I called Meg for it and then I called him, only his phone was off and it went straight to voicemail, so goodbye to that idea. We wandered up and down sixth only the only public-ish parties going on all were super sucky and had a cover charge. At some point before midnight we called it a night and decided to go to a convenience store to grab some nosh before cabbing it back to the apartment. We promptly got thrown out of said convenience store. Yeah. We were probably the only non-intoxicated people on the street that night too... Kappy was buying liquor and the woman did not believe I was over 21 and wouldn't sell it to her until I proved I was of age even though I don't drink beer... I set my bag on the counter to get out my ID and money to pay for the Fritos I was getting. This action prompted the woman to yell at me that that's not what the counter is for and I was like, "Okay. I'll take my bag off." By uttering that I was apparently being "mouthy," while telling me to get out. She then got security to ensure I did even though my immediate response was "okay." Okay... She then threw Greg out because when she asked his age, he replied 19. Even though he wasn't buying alcohol his age was apparently enough incentive to kick him out... Then she wouldn't allow Chloe to buy alcohol. Chloe is 26.

We went home and tuned into the internet.

Yeah. Wednesday night ROCKED!

Myspazz run down:
The Kills
These New Puritans
The Blow
Does It Offend You, Yeah?
YACHT

Comments

[Panda Toes]

Ha! Wow. I totally forgot how ridiculous that night was:

Lying in beds across the room with the lights off in total silence, breaking it only for the occasional (O.K., maybe frequent) idiotic giggle? Is there anything more 4th-grade-slumber party than that?

Then having the biggest let-down of a night ever? But gosh, it was hilarious:

Psychotic Store Clerk: How old are you?
Me: Twenty.
P.S.C.: Get out of my store!
Me: Uh, wait - what? Why? I want this Powerade (I'm jacked and athletic).
P.S.C.: And you, put those beers back. I saw y'all whispering about 'em.
Me: I told her she should buy Fritos for her friend that got kicked out and couldn't get 'em.
P.S.C.: Get out of my store!

Longest. Comment. Ever.

[Nilina]

"You won't be able to get water unless you pay for it"

[garydomino]

ha, my friend tim told me you'd linked to that terrible photo of me! peter never told me he met you, but we were both so hectic and frazzled i'm not surprised... coachella is next!