I want to be in a cover band

It's been a while since I posted, mainly due to the fact that South by Southwest was going on last week, so I took off a couple days from work and watched a bazillion bands play over the course of four days. I'm attempting to write up something about everyone I saw, but that's proving to take a little too long. I did manage to finish my day 1 write up though. I tried to put links to both the band websites as the SXSW websites, because some of the bands have songs on the SXSW website that you can't find on their individual ones.




South by Southwest, Day 1, March 16th

It was cold as hell all day Wednesday. I had to work until 3:30, so we didnt' get downtown until around 4:30. We hit a couple of daytime shows before going to the night showcases. The theme for the first day was definitely cover songs.

The daytime:
Ghostland Observatory: Electronic pop-y dance music. Good for 2am drinking & dancing. Still entertaining in the daytime, but not like it would be late at night. The singer dances like a cross between Michael Jackson, David Lee Roth, and Maria Carey after she became a slut. A good start to the weekend.

Mono (SXSW link): I'll save you the trouble with their personal website. Mono is from Japan, so going to their website pops up the annoying "install language packs" prompt. Once we got downtown we headed to Emo's and saw some of the Mono set. They weren't very interesting (as the name implies), so we gave up on them and headed down to Guero's to see Matt the Electrician.

This marks the first time I have ever taken public transportation in Austin. It's a bit of a walk from 6th street to South Congress, so we took the bus. It was really uneventful for a landmark occasion. No crazy homeless people. No colorful characters. Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves never even showed up.

El Sol y La Luna: For those of you who don't know, El Sol y La Luna is a traditional Mexican restaurant in Austin. Once we got to South Congress, we had some time to before Matt the Electrician started, and since it was painfully cold we went ahead and got something to eat before the show started. El Sol y La Luna is tasty. Nothing could get my night started better than the Cuban platter. Plantains, rice and beans. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Matt The Electrician (SXSW link): After finishing up with dinner, we headed over to Guero's in time to see Matt the Electrician's set. It was still cold as hell, so that wasn't awesome, but they put on a great show. It isn't the style of music that I would have playing around my house all the time, but seeing them play live was entertaining. And to top it all off, he did a cover of Danzig - "Mother". Awesomecross.

The nighttime:
Knife Party (SXSW link): Listen to their song on the sxsw website. The recorded version is much better than the live version. Apparently they failed to complete the "learn to play your instruments" portion of being in a band. Also, from reading their website, their keyboard/synth got stolen. I suspect someone was trying to send them a message. We gave up 15 minutes into the show when they keyboard player started to end the show and the drummer said, "hey man, we've only taken up 15 minutes."

The Talk (SXSW link): After giving up on Knife Party, we stumbled across these guys by accident. They put on a pretty good show. Sake on Sixth is a small place, so it was really full. The lead singer was probably a bit too tanked, but they were a huge step up from the Knife Party disaster.

J.A.M.O.N. (SXSW link): Despite being named ham, this guy was a really good DJ. I really liked his set, but I felt sorry for him because there was no one at his show. I mean no one. Kat, Abdiel and I consisted of 3/5ths of the audience, and we left 30 minutes early to get into the Mike Doughty show.

Mike Doughty (SXSW link): You probably don't know the name, but Mike Doughty is the former Soul Coughing singer. This show was crazy packed. Abdiel tried to get into the show, but that definitely was not happenening as he was badge and wristband-less. There was a line around the corner of people that were waiting to pay cash. I was lucky to get there thirty minutes early because five minutes after I got through the relatively short line, there was a badge line that was probably 30 people deep . Doughty only did one Soul Coughing song (Soft Serve), which was awesome and the rest were all from his solo stuff. Really good overall. And no show would be complete without a cover song. Mike threw out Kenny Rogers - "The Gambler". I'm a sucker for cover songs. The only thing that bothered this show was that it was at buffalo billiards and for some reason no one could sit still for thirty seconds. So I never really got to listen to an entire song without someone trying to push their way to the front or the fucking Jack Daniel's girls giving away free shit (but no t-shirt for me) to people in the crowd. It made no fucking sense, they were pushing their way to the front to give away free drinks. Not cool. Give away your free shit in the back of the club. The people near the stage are the ones that want to see the show. I know it sounds complicated.

Micah Green (SXSW link): After the Mike Doughty show, we stayed around Buffalo Billiards for a while to rest and then decided to go straight to The Drink to see Duncan Sheik, Micah Green was playing before him. I had no expectations for the show, so I was pleasantly surprised. Micah's voice is a bit strange, but he makes it work. There was one new song that he played that didn't work so well, but I think he just needs to spend some time arranging the vocal harmony better. The terrible thing was when we were trying to get in the door.

Duncan Sheik (SXSW link): Duncan Sheik was the surpise Wednesday show for me. I had no idea who he was beforehand, so I didn't really know what to expect. Apparently he's the guy who wrote the "I am barely breathing" song from my sophmore year of college. Duncan was a great performer. He didn't play the barely breathing song, but his entire set was good. In keeping with the cover song theme, Duncan did a cover of Oasis - "Wonderwall", the perfect sing-a-long song. Unfortunately, no one, including Duncan, could remember all the lyrics so there were parts where he just backed away from the microphone until he remembered the lyrics. Solid.

After Duncan Sheik we passed out for the night. Kat had a 8am eye doctor appointment and I was feeling a bit tired myself.