(NERD=Highlight amongst many highlights of Day 2)
I woke up on Day Two asking what time it was the next day (definitely not morning).
1:45 was the reply.
"Shit! Dev is playing in 15 minutes!"
Luckily his Lightspeed Champion set was at the Urban Outfitters right by the University of Texas and our apartment just happened to be but blocks away as opposed to the mandatory bus ride and/or cab ride necessary to reach 6th Avenue where the majority of other SXSW activities were going on.
So we headed down after I threw on my Health shirt, jeans (purchased at Urban Outfitters none the less) and my new Saucony sneakers. Not a run, not a jog, but a brisk pace. We got there and couldn't quite figure out where he was. Did we somehow get the wrong Urban Outfitters even though plastered on the store's windows were bright notifications of a Lightspeed Champion set. A full length set might I add. I expected him to be performing in the ladies underwear section as Bloc Party had in 2005, but he was actually in the courtyard behind the store. He was like two songs in when Chloe and I made it out. I sat down and he immediately noticed me - waving and saying a quick quiet hello before then getting on with his performance.
Who should appear right after?! Why only Leia Jospe - my fave youthful New York event photog (and BrooklynVegan resident photog)! We've been flickr friends for years and we both share an abiding love of Test Icicles (pretty much our first connection on the photo-sharing site) so there was excitement to meet in person for the first time. Before the fest we talked about syncing up schedules and happily we continued to meet up time and time again throughout the fest, unplanned and planned for fun-tastic results to be revealed in my Day 3 post.
Dev's set was awesome. He had Mike his violinist which made me happy since it not only benefits the sound, but makes Dev a lot more comfortable to have company onstage. And guess what!?!?! Is this a first? HE DID NOT PLAY A SINGLE COVER!!!! Not even the Eugene McGuinness song that is so bonded to him it seems to appear in his sets more so than his own singles. But yeah - it still rocked. Afterwards I brought it up with him and it struck him as odd too that he'd failed to include a cover in his set.
"Never Met To Hurt You" (Good Shoes cover) Lightspeed Champion MP3 care of Who Killed the Mixtape?
So we gabbed and gabbed - it was really good seeing him again since I hadn't seen him since December. The last time we met up was to shoot his Christmas EP portraits in his flat the Big Chill and he has officially moved on from there (as has Simon) and is technically homeless, though it doesn't factor into his life all that much given he is on the road so much.
I asked if he was still planning to relocate to New York and while moving to the US by year end is still on the cards, his sights are decidedly more southern. Austin, TX in fact. We wants to get a house there in November to record his double album. Stay tuned. At year end he filled me in on all his plans for the double album. Granted time and plans shift, but if some stays the same, about a whole album's worth of material could carry vocals other than his own.
He said he'd get me into the impossible Q magazine party on Saturday (with Kate Nash) and we made casual plans to bump into each other at Press Here's party, but I totally dropped the ball on Saturday with calling him.
Edward Larrikin made his way over for a chat, at SXSW in support of his The Pan I Am project.
I snapped the two of them together then Chloe and I departed back to the apartment for memory card uploading and internet geekery. And guess what? We totally stayed in so freakin' long that we missed Be Your Own Pet's set at the Filter arty - one of my must sees. Thank god I saw them less than a week prior in Portland at the Doug Fir (my photos of the BYOP show on Pitchfork)
We did however make it over to the Filter party in time for Robyn. The second we got there who did I spy ahead of me? PEREZ HILTON, which was fairly predictable given who was "soon" to perform. I got a polaroid with him:
The people working the "door" (it was the top of an outdoor staircase) didn't even check the RSVP list and just doled out wristbands to anyone attempting to enter.
Robyn's set got underway quite later than billed to the point people surrounding me began questioning out loud to themselves whether they had read the schedule wrong and began assuring themselves that indeed they had and just happened to miscalculate her set time and that it was never supposed to be at 5. Well it was, but she didn't start until like 30-45 minutes later. It wasn't an entirely uncomfortable wait though. BYOP were gathered above her soundchecking band on an upper patio.
When it was time for Robyn to bounce down the staircase and rock the mic, she made it through one song before issues erupted. And you know what? Actually she didn't. While some of her bigger issues were able to wait until song number two, she actually had a little Ashlee Simpson lip-syncing issue about 30 seconds into song one. She dropped her mic and what is that I hear? She's still singing at the same volume? Her vocals for "Cobrastyle" (MP3) are still going? Robyn is lip-syncing? It must be said that she when picked the mic back up she made sure to ad-lib some vocals at a volume slightly higher than the choruses and such seemingly to prove she could sing in the live arena and that the vocals we heard while the mic was on the ground for too awkwardly long of a time were just for assistance - you know like how Uffie sings "live." Yeah...
Well all her programmed music decided not to work starting with song two so she abandoned her set list, took requests and performed SUPER stripped down numbers. The first up? "Show Me Love"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It picked up, got great and we headed out and over to the Fader Fort, but not before I decied that I would fo'sho be at her PDX show and then promptly bumping into Danny Masterson aka Hyde from That 70's show aka DJ MomJeans and Steve Aoki's current bitch. By bitch I mean Franki Chan replacement. Wait - this isn't coming out right. Or maybe it is...
Danny was very pleasant with zero pretentiousness present.
HipsterRunoff celebrated his birthday. I recommend that if you didn't receive an invite, you get in late on the party by checking out the post, though I hope/suspect you already have.
Let's speed this up shall we? I don't have too many photos from the following because my iphoto messed up and didn't save my photos and I deleted my memory card before realizing this truth. Single tear(s).
So yeah - we made it over to the Fader Fort where a Lou Reed tribute was well underway. We caught Joseph Arthur with a chick who he introduced in a way that I couldn't tell if she was apart of his regular band or a guest star for the day. She reminded me of Metric's Emily Haines, former girlfriend of Simon White (I'm gonna see if I can find a way to mention him in all my SXSW posts seeing as I'm seemingly on a roll having mentioned him in my Day 1 post. This task is underway for no reason at all other than I am weird). They played two songs.
My Morning Jacket played one song.
I hadn't seen them since Quart Festival in Norway in 2005. They were great, but said absolutely nothing and ran - literally ran - offstage. So abruptly that it kind of erased their entire two minute performance we'd just witnessed. An announcer came on and said it was because they had to rush to another gig.
Thurston Moore played one song. I have never seen either him solo or Sonic Youth live before (let alone ever heard a Sonic Youth song. Yeah. I just heard my first Captain Beefheart song a week ago. I'm well behind) and was a bit surprised by how into it he was. Like I think for being as into it as he was that he must be to a certain extent higher than most performers in all the performances he gives, but I'm really thinking he went above and beyond during his Fader Fort set. He jumped into the crowd, momentarily crowd surfed and then returned to the stage in a state of undress to make good with his amp and indulge in a relationship of non-gratuitous feedback.
In the mean time between every set Fluo Kids played on which was a little weird to be honest. Sometimes such opposing genres can co-exist in perfect harmony and sometimes they don't gel. They didn't quite gel at the Fader Fort but that doesn't mean either weren't enjoyable. They were just enjoyable when thought of as independent of each other rather than a joint package. Some set change overs were quick, some lingered on for AGES. After the tribute was over NERD took the stage and their set change over was NEW LEVELS. Longest one I've ever witnessed at any concert, but we are jumping ahead of ourselves. There was still one act to perform under the Lou Reed banner before everybody could Nose. That was Moby.
The bald one and his girls did their thing for a set and then surprise, surprise an unexpected guest adorned the stage for the second song and that guest was Lou Reed himself. And that was actually a surprise. "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" ha! How well does that Humphrey Bogart quote work?!!?! Because seriously - the only other chance to see Lou Reed during the fest was if you had a badge you could attend his key-note speech that was met with a lot of zzzzzs based on his stance towards new technology and music. Dave Allen has his say over on Pampelmoose about the address.
But anyway, I got to see him LIVE and without some $500 badge and I'm really thinking that worked out for me better in the long run - I wouldn't have preferred to catch him any other way.
They did "Walk on the Wild Side" which is maybe my favorite song or at least tied with "Perfect Day." My mom and I rewrote the lyrics to "Walk on the Wild Side" when I was in elementary school to sing to my cat Erin. Yeah. This family moment brought to you care of early Saturday morning broadcast (or maybe basic cable) TV. Or that shooting star at the end of NBC psa commercials: "The more you know..."
I wish I would've wrote something down about the set but I was too busy reliving it with everyone I know over the phone so sorry if details are sketch, but like Lou Reed said something really funny as he walked off stage about being punk. Like being first. I love his ego. He has earned it. Everyone cheered, he raised two fists triumphantly and then it was over.
So I walked back to Flou Kids because I was going to interview Pharrell and get a photo of him with NERD's Pharrell Williams, but things got a bit hectic.
In the mean time I hijacked TonyX's sunglasses while My!Gay!Husband! hijacked a photo of me. I like it better that way anyway.
Can we just say SoCo forever!?!!
And I met my URB editor Josh which was enjoyable! I snapped a pic of him but of course that was on the memory card whose files did not survive.
Now it was time for NERD.
NERD's set change over was INSANELY LONG. DISGUSTINGLY LONG, but I survived and it was worth it for a number of reasons. One - Chad Hugo was fucking WITH THEM. If you've seen NERD live before this album cycle, you know that Chad does not tour or perform live with them. But he was there! Rocking hot sunglasses! Their white backing band of Spy Mob as been replaced with a a new band that... isn't white.
Ch-ch-changes.
Set list:
"Anti"
"Brain"
"Killjoy"
"Back Seat Love"
"Maybe"
"Rockstar"
"Spazz" <<<< HOT TRACK
"Fly or Die"
"Tape You" (Paris Hilton style?)
"Lapdance"
"Everyone Nose" (MP3)
Encore:
"Run to the Sun"
"She Wants to Move" but yr hogging her, yr guarding her...
They were ace AND THIS IS HOW I GOT MY FIRST PHOTO CREDIT IN ROLLINGSTONE. As you may know from my SXSW Update post, my NERD photo appeared front-page on RollingStone.com for over three days, but the pic also appears in the mag with Chris Rock on the cover (currently on newsstands - page 35, soon to disappear into periodical heaven). But seriously. I don't know the word for it. Milestone isn't it, but like this was/is really meaningful for me. Something has been achieved. Much like an angel has earned it's wings, a concert photog has earned their camera. Or something. It's just really special, but let's save that for the Hallmark channel...
Yeah - so in the process of only catching NERD's first seven songs, we missed Thieves Like Us at the Beauty Bar. We made it over shortly after they had finished, but by that time they had disappeared. BOO!!!! I mean - seriously. Everyone I've spoken to over email about SXSW scheduling knows they were seeded VERY HIGH on my must-see list and their manager was SO NICE to add me to their glist given it was a wristbands and badges show and I of course am poor and didn't have one. So yeah. They're on the verge of signing so those looking for a follow-up to their Kitsune single(s) can start celebration preparations!!!
We even went on a mad hunt for some guy in a pink shirt who would apparently hold the key to Thieves Like Us' current location according to those working the event, but alas he was no where to be found.
Now it was 11. We were but an hour away from the Playboy party. Operation: Get in whatever it takes starts... NOW.
To be continued...
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