By Saturday, my feet were pretty much covered in blisters. Everyday of the festival up to that point, I’d walked about 8 miles, to and from venues, and to and from the house where I was staying. The only good thing about all that walking was that it counteracted at least some of the delicious Mexican food I was scarfing down throughout the festival. But walking a lot and standing up a lot comes with pretty much every festival. So, Saturday morning, I once again strapped on my Converse, and prepared to walk. A lot.
My first stop on Saturday was to a place called (I think) Mi Madres, where I ordered migas. If you’ve never had migas in Austin, I highly recommend it. They put strips of tortillas in the eggs, and of course provide you with stellar salsa and fresh flour tortillas to roll the eggs in. And I will not turn my nose up at free chips and salsa no matter how early in the morning it is. Freshly stuffed, I then walked about 1.5 miles downtown to the festival to catch Diamond Rugs at the Athens in Austin 40 Watt party.
I realize this is the third time I’ve mentioned Diamond Rugs in this blog, but this was the first full-length set I caught from the band (although “full length” at SXSW means about 6 songs). The band was fantastic. “Gimmie a Beer” and “Blue Mountain” are my two favorite songs by the group. “Beer” is sung by John McCauley of Deer Tick, and seems to be a good “single” for the band. “Beer” is typical Replacements-influenced rock by McCauley, but the horn section adds another sleazy element to the mix. “Blue Mountain” is my favorite new song from the festival. That one is an Ian St. Pe (Black Lips) song, and it’s about a stripper.
After Diamond Rugs, I left the 40 Watt party to walk about 2 miles east to a house party where Monarchs were playing. Monarchs features the music of Celeste Griffin, who is originally from Birmingham, then moved to Austin, and now lives in New York. Griffin has a beautiful, powerful voice–think Amy Winehouse or Adele–and writes catchy, often piano-driven songs. She’s backed by a crack band that includes Van Hollingsworth from the Magic Math. Together, the group swings. Griffin recently released a [mix tape][1], which explores her hip-hop side. Monarchs, though, is more of a traditional band. Griffin is very dedicated to her music, and captivating to watch live. The group is still young and relatively unknown, but expect to hear their name again in the near future.
Of course, after Monarchs I had to walk 2 miles back to heart of the festival, and to a bar on the west side of downtown where I caught the first several songs from Built To Spill. Built To Spill was a band I got into back in 2000, and have listened to fairly consistently since. They played a bunch of shows at the festival this year, and everyone seemed to rave about them. However, I think I caught them at the wrong venue. You could barely move in the courtyard, and because it was right next to a St. Patrick’s Day celebration, the venue was packed out with a bunch of drunk St. Patrick’s Day goers, talking loudly and basically being the idiots they think they have a right to be on Amateur Drunk Day. Built To Spill sounded good, but they had no energy whatsoever–something I’ve noticed from some (but not all) of the older acts.
That lack of energy, combined with people yelling in ears and jostling me around, caused me to dip out a little bit early so that I could head back to the 40 Watt party (about a mile away) and catch the last several songs from Reptar, a group from Athens that just signed a deal with Vagrant. Reptar has been very popular in Athens for a long time, and with good reason. The group is a blast to watch live, and the songs are nearly impossible not to dance to. I’m sure they get this a lot, but if you’ve never heard Reptar, they sound like MGMT or the Talking Heads meets Vampire Weekend. Very poppy, very dance cluby, but in that modern hip way that you imagine kids in Brooklyn getting off on. The crowd loved Reptar, begging them to play another song in their set.
After Reptar, I caught White Violet again, and once again was impressed. White Violet is now on Normaltown Records, a subsidiary of New West. The album should come out later this year. Many of the songs on the debut record are sort of fragile, structured ballads. But lately the group has been writing more traditional rock songs. One new song in particular reminded me of Tom Petty. Nelson is an artist to watch moving forward, and I’m interested to see how he develops now that he is performing and recording with a band.
Dinner was calling my name by this point, so I walked back to the east side of town (about a mile) to eat at a place called Angie’s that the portly fella on the plane also recommended. Angie’s was fantastic. They serve their tacos in these homemade corn tortillas that are more like chalupa shells–thick and chewy. I ate this tres leches cookie from Angie’s as I walked back to the festival, and it was delicious as well.
By this point, it was almost 9pm, which meant I needed to walk back to the same venue Built To Spill had played at (1.5 miles away) to catch Glossary, a band hailing from Murfreesboro, Tennessee. This time, the venue was not totally jam packed with green-wearing jacklegs. Glossary put on a great show. The second song in their set was one of the best performance I saw at this year’s SXSW. Glossary has almost ten albums out on the market, and they do tour, so chances are you’ll have a chance to see them where you live. Although it’s a genre that doesn’t get much love these days from music journalists, Glossary’s songs have that alternative-country flavor to them, with maybe a little bit of, actually, Thin Lizzy tossed in (the group plays a lot of dual guitar solos and harmonized guitar licks).
By this point, my feet were killing me after three long days of SXSW. My plan had been to see Jimmy Cliff play at 12:30am that night, but at 10pm, I cashed it in and walked the 1.5 miles back to my couch-bed. If you’re counting, that puts my Total Miles Walked for Saturday at around 10. Even with all the walking I did, this year’s SXSW was the most successful I’ve had in years. A lot of great bands played, and because I avoided the terribleness of 6th Street and barely had to wait in any lines, it felt like that festival wasn’t as huge as it actually is. Next year, though, I’m tossing cool to the wind and just wearing running shoes all day, with maybe some padded insoles.
[1]: http://monarchsfamily.bandcamp.com/album/ft-celeste-a-monarchs-mixtape
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