Another concert- Howie Day. Solo. I've never seen him with his band, so it'd be nice to have the chance, but on the other hand he's better solo when he's playing with his pedals and looping and recording vocals and guitar on top of each other on stage. But these days his songs sound better with a full band unfortunately. It was at the House of Blues, which usually is kinda expensive, but it wasn't too bad. Josh came with me. It was a man-date.
Spring Break 2010- my last Spring Break. Probably ever, until I have kids and decide to take off work so we can do fun stuff. Thankfully I was able to do fun stuff. I went to Austin, to visit Tiffany, and in planning my trip found out that South By Southwest was the weekend I was going- one of the country's largest music and film festivals. Tiffany had friends that were volunteering for an organization, and if we volunteered too (basically picking up trash and recycling after the show, at a large-ish outdoor venue) we could get in for free for two days to the venue, and see some great bands! Count me in. I still have ACL (Austin City Limits) on my radar as a must-do music festival someday.
Now Tiffany had been telling me she had a surprise for me and that I'd see when I got there. Turns out Austin got a car-sharing program like Chicago's iGo and Zipcar (which is all over the country) and they have only Smart cars. So she got a Smart car to pick me up from the airport! Sweet. I got to drive it. Not too bad, even on the highway, though it REALLY doesn't like accelerating. Ever. And it had no cargo space. Like enough for a few bags of groceries. Kinda awesome though. And she was excited.
We returned it to its home near UT campus, with the other Smart cars, and walked back to her apartment, grabbing some late-night McDonalds on the way, cause she was hungry, big surprise :)
I left after class on Thursday, skipping Friday class so I could make it for the weekend. And that Friday morning our adventures began. We headed downtown to meet up with her friends, one who walked us all over different areas with good tents (like Levi's tent) where you could get in, sometimes get a free drink, random interactive stuff, live music, booths for buying stuff. We walked down Sixth St. where all the bars are, every one of which had live music all day, all weekend. by the time we finally got to Stubb's, the bbq place/bar that has a big outdoor stage, we had missed the first band I kinda wanted to see, called F***ed Up. Yeah, I know- they have one good song, and I wanted to see them scream their heads off. Oh well.
We did get to see the lead singer walking around apparently having gone for a mud bath after the concert. Or during? He's not an attractive fellow. The band shell is behind him...
We also missed Rogue Wave, who I had actually really wanted to see, and mentioned wanting to see, but Tiffany's friend was too busy touring us around Austin to hurry to the party.
And THEN the real fun started. This was a Spin Magazine party- Spin is a pretty well-known music magazine like Rolling Stone. They were hosting the party, and the tickets were like $80 or something and impossible to get. So getting in by volunteering was AWESOME, especially since we weren't on the "list" of volunteers but came in with Tiffany's friends, who had made nice with the bouncer, which came in handy later too- since the evening party was a separate event that only people on the list could get in to, but since we were in, and acted busy for awhile, we got to stay in without getting shuffled out like everyone else. Score.
While we were waiting for bands to start, a scooter scooted by. Someone said "hey, that's Mini Me!" I said "no its not." "Yeah, its Mini Me!" they said. "Holy CRAP its MINI ME." It was Mini Me. Verne Troyer. And he was MUCH smaller than I expected. He had his legs folded under him so he could reach the handle bars, and he had to actually CLIMB down off the scooter, which wasn't really very tall anyway!
And then he made his way through the crowd, and sat down next to...Lou Ferigno. The original Hulk. Weird. They hung out for awhile, signing things, lapping up the attention, then took off. Odd.
Meanwhile, this weird...Thing was walking around and Tiffany insisted I should take a picture with it. Uh, okay. Sure why not. Its like a blue Statue of Liberty or something.
Finally some music came on. We got to see Miike Snow, who I hadn't heard of but was pretty cool in fact. Some bands that were lame, but one band that was terrible and yet notable, was Hole. Yeah, Courtney Love's band. Reunited, except she's the only original member. Her guitarist was like 20. She was crazy. She screamed a lot. Swore. Had a raspy smoker's voice. And yet Tiffany's friend said she was pretty tame compared to back in the 90s. Wow.
Finally, after everyone was ushered out, and we "worked" for a bit, and got to stay, and went to stand in the front while all the suckers waited in line outside. We got to see a band called Metric that apparently I should have heard of, who weren't too bad. And then Muse came on, the main attraction. I got to see Muse for free. Yep. Hot. I don't have any good pictures of them, but some good video...
The next day was even better though...and WORSE, because the temperature dropped. Texas in March and it was like 40 degrees. I think it was colder than Chicago! I wasn't prepared. We wore all our clothes. But we still had fun.
Outside Stubb's there was another big bar across the street having a party. With a furry blue van. Dunno what that was all about.
Saturday's party had a stage at each end, and was hosted by Rachael Ray. Apparently Matthew McConaughey has a record label, and his first signed band was there, some rasta reggae band. And he was standing in the front rockin out in his green beret.
It wasn't until afterwards that I realized that he was enjoying the drugs as much as the music, because he was something-ed out of his mind. He could barely walk or see it seemed like. By the way, he's also from Austin and a big UT fan. He was also wearing flip-flops, and it was 40 something out.
But I urged Tiffany to get a picture with him cause she (or her mom, or both, I forget, since it was a year ago) loved him. After a couple nudges she walked over (I told her, you're a girl, of course he'll take a picture with you). Not a bad photo! He hardly even knew what was going on.
Then we got to see some bands that didn't suck, like She & Him- the "She" being Zooey Deschanel, from Elf/Yes Man/500 Days of Summer, who I kinda have a crush on. She has this sing-songy voice...unfortunately she looked less cute wearing a big coat since it was freezing. She said she had a cute dress on but it was too cold to show us. She played an electric ukelele. Had bright blue eyes. They play cheesy music that sounds like the 60s, but who cares.
Then we saw Andrew WK, a band that DID suck, though they're pretty well known. Lots of screaming. And crazy looking band members. And a chick in a spandex work-out outfit, who did nothing but rhythmically punch the air back and forth to the crazy beat of the song, as if she was doing calisthenics or aerobics but to hard rock songs. She didn't play an instrument. She didn't sing. Ridiculous.
Another band that didn't suck, Jakob Dylan (from the Wallflowers, son of Bob Dylan) who also had special guest Neko Case with him- who at the time I hadn't heard of, after I realized it wasn't Nico from The Velvet Underground. She's good though. He was good, though a little boring. And looking old and gray...
Here's a shot of Rachael Ray, she was excited to introduce each band, even the ones that sucked, like her husband's band who was so bland and unoffensive un-anything that they were like the tofu of rock bands. Completely flavorless in every way. And her husband looked ooooooold.
But thanks to Mr. and Mrs. T's sponsoring the party (the makers of the Bloody Mary mix) we got to have bloody marys and margaritas all morning to keep us warm, along with Rachael Ray's appetizers. Some complained that the food wasn't good. Uhhhh, its FREE!? Geez.
After that we left for awhile (cause we knew we had the hookup to get back in) and went somewhere warm and had some chili with her friends, one who had a car and gave us a ride home at the end of the night. Awesome, since it was like 1am and freezing.
In the afternoon/evening we saw a weird band called The Drums that sounded like The Cars and wore tight pants and slim ties and looked like Mr McFly and danced like I imagine he would. Saw Minus the Bear, who all these college kids were stoked to see (whatever, they were okay) and then this insane band called Circa Survive, and I finally found out what the genre of screamo music sounded like.
They looked like normal white guys, until the lead singer started screaming lyrics, like he was experiencing some combination of death-throes and blinding rage, and he screamed like that for the whole hour or whatever. The college "kids" around us loved it. And couldn't believe I didn't know who they were. They were terrible. The guy was wearing like Eddie Bauer clothes. Yet had long stringy hair.
And then, finally at the end, when the lights when out for a sec, suddenly he was in the crowd, on top of Tiffany and I. Like knees and crotch. We pushed and lifted until he got to his feet standing on the railing. Wish I'd gotten pictures or video but I was using both arms to keep him from crushing us.
Finally after all the college kids left(I call them kids mostly because they all looked and acted like they were about 15, and there were lots of very short Asian girls), the main event came on, the Scissor Sisters. I knew they were probably kinda gay, but I wasn't prepared for a guy in a wife-beater and vinyl pants when its 40 degrees outside. They were weird but entertaining. Seriously it was freezing and they were not wearing a lot of clothes and played for a LONG time. The lady looked like an unattractive version of Julianne Moore. With a weird dress.
Finally we made it back to Tiffany's apartment, and here are our wristbands from the weekends events- we had to get two different Stubb's ones each day for the day and evening shows. We did pretty well that weekend for not paying a dollar!
The rest of my time in Austin was spent seeing Uncle Bill and eating food. We had Chuy's tex-mex (free happy hour nachos with amazing margaritas), he made us steak dinners on Sunday after mass and we watched a movie, and then him and I went hiking another day. We also got some bbq at Rudy's- beef brisket- an amazing food I never knew existed. I need to go back there. Got to drive by the IRS building that had a plane suicide-crashed into it, also, if you remember hearing that story. Right by the highway. Chris' college roommate Isaac's sister Rita, who works for Uncle Bill's church, drove us out to Rudy's. Going back to Austin in March AGAIN for her wedding! Rudy's here I come... or Chuy's...they make this spicy ranch dip that rules.
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