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Saturday, 19 March 2005
Short and Sweet!
Just when you start to think that you have had enough and you
begin to wonder if perhaps the worn out saying about 'too much
of a good thing' just may be true, life inevitably finds a way
to run up and slap you in the face and remind you that you are
always capable of more. This was my Saturday, my SXSW day number
4.
My morning started out a little later than usual, but still
included a walk around the neighborhood in a quest for cookies
and juice. I then spent some time writing and reflecting and
it was at this point that I realized I was not sure I was going
to be able to make it through another night of SXSW. I had become
overloaded. I wanted nothing more to do with music, barbeque,
or anything that had the word "Y'all" in it. I wanted
to go home and listen to the crappy music I always listen to,
something familiar, something worn out, something not "indie".
I think that I was not the only one that felt this way too,
as it was a lot later in the day before I got the daily "we
will be there in fifteen minutes to pick you up, you better
be ready sucker" call.
 Of
course Saturday progressed as all the others had; a ride, some
dollar tacos, and the start of the day shows. In an effort escape
that overloaded feeling by listening to something familiar I
headed to the Red Eyed Fly and managed to catch Nicolai Dunger's
set knowing, without doubt, that he was of course going to be
great (Nicolai is another favorite at Hybrid). I was not disappointed.
Nicolai put on a sweet show and I felt that my mood was starting
to improve.
As my mood started to improve, the weather's started to take
a turn for the worse. Just as the next act, Centro-matic,
started to play it started pouring rain. Luckily, well actually
by design, I was standing on the side of the stage that had
cover, while several other fools got drenched. The down side
to standing under cover was that pretty much everyone else,
also by design, was also standing under the cover.
There were enough people that had I wanted to leave I would
never have been able to get out, making it extremely fortunate
that The Frames were on next. As it turns out this was
The Frames' very last performance in their North American tour.
Needless to say they went all out and I had an amazing time.
It was such a decent time in fact that I found myself craving
barbeque again!
After spending a little time finding both a ride and some likeminded
participants, I was soon busy eating some great food. The food
was so good that I almost failed to notice that a family and
their 20 screaming rug rats had infested the restaurant. I think
what may brought my attention to them was the restaurant's collective,
disapproving, sigh as the screaming runts stumbled through the
door. I will spare you my tirade on those people that I call
breeders - particularly those breeders that insist on having
full litters of children. Had the food been anything short of
great, I would have lost my appetite.
To say that I drug my feet getting from dinner to the shows
that night would have been an understatement of great proportion.
Despite an improvement of mood that allowed one more night of
barbeque, I was still not sure I was ready for the possibility
of disappointing music. I found everything I could to delay
going to the shows; I wandered around, I talked to strangers,
I even called some friends back home just to see what was going
on. I finally found myself, somewhat unwillingly, accepting
the fact that I needed to do what I had come here to do. I realized
then that I hadn't even really spent much time looking at the
list of bands for the night. Had I looked at the list, I would
have realized that Alternative Tentacles Records was
doing an expo that night. Once I saw that my pace doubled and
I made my way over to The Jackalope.
The Jackalope is a long room with the bar in the middle, like
an island. As I walked in I couldn't really see where the stage
might be, and it seemed that the place was kind of empty. As
I made my way to the back of the bar I could see that most of
the people were jammed together in the corner opposite of the
door, and that was where the stage was. I slowly started worming
my way through the crowd and ended up on some stairs next to
the stage where there was an AMAZINGLY beautiful punk rock girl.
As I stood there, my attention split between the girl and the
stage, I realized I could not really make out much of the stage,
and I was behind the speakers so the sound sucked. I was forced
to make a difficult decision: continue standing where I was
and check out the girl, or take advantage of an open spot right
in front of the stage. I decided the music was more important
and so I quickly found my self front and center to possibly
the smallest stage I had seen in a venue all week.
The stage, if you can call it that, looked very makeshift,
in fact the corner of the bar itself was only 5 feet from the
front of the stage making it very crowded at times. It was,
to me however, perfect, as the stage was probably only two feet
off the ground and I was standing so close that I was getting
more sound from the band's monitors than I was from the big
speakers that were to the side and behind me. It was extremely
intimate, and very 'punk rock', I loved it. I had gotten there
just as one band, Dash Rip Rock, had finished and another
band was just getting going.
Just as I was getting situated Jello Biafra stepped
up on stage and introduced the next band, who just happened
to be the 'special guests', Metal Urbain. According to
Jello, Metal Urbain is a French punk band that has been around
since the '70's. This was not the original line up, however,
I do believe that a couple of the guys have been with the band
since the start. The kicker about this band isn't that they
have been around forever, it is that they do not have a drummer,
they use a drum machine! I guess they have been using drum machines
since the very beginning, too. I, like probably anyone reading
this right now, had more than a little trepidation about this
drum machine idea; what's punk without the Animal like
cretin chained behind the rest of the band smashing the piss
out of drums? All apprehension was put to rest however the minute
the band lurched to a start. I have to say that having come
from a background of both punk rock and industrial music, I
had never thought of putting the two together, but here it was
six inches from my nose, screaming at me in French and it was
amazing. It even rocked when they had to stop for a few moments
to reboot their drum machine (note: no one got my South Park
reference when I yelled "fucking Windows 98").
I was having such an amazing time that it took several minutes
to realize that the guy I was standing armpit to armpit with,
both of us seriously jamming out to drum machine driven French
punk rock, was none other than Jello Biafra himself! He had
introduced the band, stepped off the stage, and was thoroughly
enjoying the band as a fan. Listening to really great music
that I have never heard before, and in this case never thought
of, is quite possibly the most favorite, and one of the most
special, things I get to do in my life. It is the reason I do
things like SXSW. It is the reason I am willing to listen to
hours of shitty music, if there exists the possibility of hearing
just a couple minutes of something new and great. And there
I was in some shit bar in Austin Texass, listening to an old
sweaty guy swear at me in French, jamming away next to Jello
Biafra, a man that I both seriously respect and who has had
a decently large impact on my life. Now tell me, how fucking
cool is that? That is the reason I love punk. Only at a punk
rock show can a French guy, old enough to be the dad to most
the kids in the audience, single-handedly lay to waste countless
days of anorexic kids wearing $200 threadbare jeans with their
shit filled whiny songs about not having enough heroin in a
matter of minutes. And all that with a drum machine to boot!
As Metal Urbain finished up, I was busy recovering from a top
twenty moment in my life. I must have had a goofy smile on my
face because the guy next to me just laughed and told me to
just wait tell the next act. Just as I was wondering who the
next act was, a crazy old guy, old as in 60 years old, dressed
in a costume that can only be compared to a Mexican wrestling
costume, comes jumping on stage. Jello introduced him as Blowfly,
the Original Dirty Rapper. Turns out this cat was rapping
in the 60's before rap even existed and even then he was cursing
up a storm. The guy must have had time to perfect his trade
as the minute this cat grabbed the mike nothing but the foulest
of foul came out of his mouth. Things that would probably make
a whore blush - it was great! I wish I had my pad and pen to
write down a few lines because it was funny shit. What was really
amazing was the further into the set we got, the more and more
girls came walking up to the front of the stage, they loved
it! I must say that this really confused me (still does). Later
that night I had a chance to quickly talk with Blowfly, and
I have to say that the guy is really a very cool person.
After Blowfly came the last act of the night, Munly.
JD actually caught up with me at the front of the stage (I think
he may have missed the great Blowfly). I was really amazed that
Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots were able to get everyone
they needed up on that little stage. With six people and some
decently sized stringed instruments, it really was impressive,
and again, intimate. Munly has a truly remarkable voice with
an impressive range that isn't common (so I am told by those
in the 'know'). Probably best known for his work with Slim
Cessna's Auto Club, Munly was performing music off his fifth
solo album. Despite Blowfly's performance leaving the crowd
wrapped up and rowdy, the minute Munly & The Lee Lewis Harlots
started playing everyone's attention was on the stage. This
is my kind of country music, soulful, honest, and in my opinion,
very accessible. I was really stoked to get to see Munly, someone
that I have listened to for sometime now, this close up and
personal. They put on an amazing show that made a very cool
night even better.
As the night wrapped up and I made my bay back to my ride,
it was impossible not to think about what I would have missed
had I stayed home as I had felt like doing that morning. It
was also hard not to look back on the last four days and not
start to feel the excitement build for SXSW 2006. Despite the
sleeping on hardwood floors, the long boring car ride, and the
damage done to my intestinal track I would have to say that
SXSW 2005 was a great success for me. Even a shit mood start
of the day turned into an incredible final night, making for
a perfect 'story book' ending to a very cool first trip to SXSW.
Friday, 18 March 2005
The Fun continues… or at least something continues.
Friday was not as interesting as Wednesday or Thursday. My
day started off late with a not so quick walk to the local Fed-Ex
to get some stuff mailed off. I did get to see a large part
of the University of Texass, nice campus, too bad everyone (the
girls) had all left for spring break.
 After
my hike I caught a ride, ate some tacos, and headed into town
to start off with a day show at Emo's. After sitting through
a couple bands we finally got to The Frames. If you have
not gotten the change to hear The Frames yet, you're missing
out. This Dublin band rocks and they are a bunch of funny and
very cool guys. Needless to say most everyone at Hybrid Magazine
can be considered a fan. After a great set we headed around
back and spoke with the band for a quick moment.
After promising that we would catch The Frames show again later
we headed up to
Exodus, a night club that has setup a stage just for SXSW performances
which, I must admit, is a really odd setting for a show. The
ceiling was very high and the walls were stucco. There were
really no interior doors, just large archways. It was kind of
like being in a cave or an old Mexican mission church, all it
needed were some bats. There was also not much of a crowd, adding
odd vibe of the place. What crowd there was consisted of friends
of the various bands playing as well as the few people that
heard the noise through the windows from the streets. Despite
the lack of crowd, and the funny vibe, it was still a good show.
The bands included Apollo Sunshine, The Glass Family,
and Purchase New York.
At that point the tacos were no longer cutting it and it was
time to find more food. We decided that a full meal was not
really what we craved so we headed into a cool little coffee
shop. Of course in SXSW tradition no space where a band could
set up is wasted and there was a band playing in the corner
of the coffee shop. It was nothing to write home about but I
still found it funny that no matter what direction you turn
there was a band in some stage of setting up, playing, or breaking
down. To be honest the constant onslaught of noise can get to
be a slight bit nerve racking, especially when the noise is
not always all that impressive.
With a meal completed and a stomach tamed, I started off on
the long walk to Red's Scoot Inn. There was nothing particularly
interesting about the walk other than I could tell at that point
I was starting to get a little burnt out. Mostly because it
was now Friday, and the local Austinians were out in mass, there
were far more people on the streets compared to Wednesday and
Thursday. With more people came more non-sense and the cops
appeared ready.
Arriving at the Red's Scoot Inn I found the place packed, something
I did not expect considering Red's is a place that I would consider
'off the beaten path' - given that it not very close to the
rest of other SXSW venues. Most of the bands that play there
are local Austin acts as well. The people there were very cool
and I had a good time talking with a couple cute girls. The
adage is true, time does fly when you're having fun and I found
it was time for me to head back into town to catch my first
official show of the night.
On first arriving in Austin I had heard horror stories about
long lines and impossible waits to get into shows, something
that, as of yet, had not a problem for me. Upon getting to Emo's
with hopes of seeing the Aquabats I realized that these
horrific tales were all together too true. The line for wristbands
was wrapped halfway around the building. The line for badges
(who have priority over wristbands) was wrapped all the way
around the building and neither line was moving! Obviously my
little wristband was not going to get me in if the priority
badge holders' line was twice as long as mine. I decided it
was time to re-evaluate my night's plans. A quick look at the
schedule left a sour taste in my mouth as there was really nothing
I wanted to see that I knew I would be able to get into (a serious
statement when you looking at 50 venues to choose from). I grudgingly
decided that I would spend the night at the venue where the
last band I wanted to see was playing (figuring that I would
eventually be able to get in to the see that final gig).
Quite grumpily I hauled my sorry ass over to Club De Ville
where, much to my surprise, there was no line. Deciding to test
my new line luck I quickly located the men's restroom and my
luck held out as there was no line there, either! My luck died
with the smell of the bathroom as I found out that the toilets
were not flushing, so I quickly did my thing and got out before
I was blamed for the malfunctioning plumbing.
With thoughts of the plumbing still in mind I decided against
grabbing a beer before finding the stage. On stage Blackfire
Revolution was up. The first thing you notice is the huge
stack that the guitar is playing through (8 feet high is my
guess (this includes the antlers at the top)) and, if my memory
serves me, the band only has two members, a drummer and the
guitarist. They were crunchy, hard, had a shit ton of distortion,
and after all the line bullshit, it was exactly what I needed.
Immortal Lee County Killers were up next. The band wasn't
half bad, and the crowd really dug them. The drummer was off
the hook jumping around the stage like a horny monkey on crack
(a theme I found that was prevalent throughout the night). They
were easily one of my favorite performances of the night.
Next up, and probably the most memorable band of the night,
was The Woggles. I think when this band came on stage
the crowd doubled in size and, I think, age. This band is right
out of the 60's, well more that 70's band that hadn't gotten
the memo that the 60's were over. This is not to say that they
were crap, just not my kinda crap. I was however probably the
only person not into this band in the crowd. The people LOVED
these guys. The Professor, the front man for the band,
was all over the stage and often down in the crowd signing and
dancing (sometimes at the same time), everyone ate it up. I
felt like I was attending a cult membership rally.
I was not sure how The Forty Fives were going to be
able to follow such an act, and in my opinion the energy level
did die when they took the stage. The crowd also thinned out
a little as well. Which is too bad because The Forty Fives are
a good band, very solid, just not a lot of horny crack monkey
business to them and there is something about horny crack monkeys
that make them addicting, perhaps it is the crack? Anyhow during
their set I found myself somewhat entertained by watching the
"cute guy", that all the girls had been staring at
work his magic on some chick. Of course this is that funny situation
where the "cute guy" was standing behind me and the
girl kept making eyes and waving at him, and the whole time
I am trying to figure out why some chick is waving and making
eyes at me. Experience has taught me to look behind myself BEFORE
waving back to girls. This is, of course, when I noticed and
started to pay attention to the "cute guy". The whole
thing was like a mini documentary; "The male approaches
the female, tripping over some nerdy kid who seems to be pretending
to hold a movie camera. The male, after recovering from the
trip, then gets female's attention with a small joke, to which
she laughs at far too easily. The male then moves on to the
next stage of flirtation…" all to a sound track by
The Forty Fives.
After the show it was another long walk back to the waiting
car and a short trip back to my floor space which looked much
more inviting after all the walking. Like I said at the beginning,
Friday turned out to be not nearly as fun as Wednesday and Thursday.
Hopefully things will pick up.
Thursday, 17 March 2005
Day two!
Today was a good day. The weather started warm and the sun
was out. This
is a good thing when you are spending time walking around and
in tents.
The day started late with a breakfast or lunch of two 99 cent
tacos (much
love for the taco stand!).
After the tacos we wondered around for a bit to find the KCRW-Filter
party. Before jumping into the party and partaking of the free
stuff, I made a stop in the CVS (local drug store) to pick up
some much needed earplugs as well as to get some inserts for my
shoes as my Chucks have not proven to be the wisest of choices
for a full day of standing and walking.
A couple of earplugs and a pair of ‘old man’ inserts
later I found myself listening to Long-view at the Filter
party, while other members of the Hybrid crew were busy acquiring
free cell phones and 30 minutes of service. After a short walk
we arrived at the Team Clermont Party (a PR company for some great
bands). The party was at the Emo’s Annex and Magnapop
was playing. It was good to hear the girls still have ‘it’.
While at the Team Clermont party we were also introduced to Sparks,
a 6% by volume alcohol that tastes nothing like alcohol and packs
a serious amount
of pop with various forms of caffeine and what ever else they
could fit in there. Needless to say I avoided this, never mix
your uppers and your downers I always say.
 A
short walk later (this time through the ‘boonies’),
we found our selves at a small Austin band party with various
local acts putting on a show. It is always fun to see bands
support other bands and this was no exception. We made sure
to catch Zykos again as well as Chris Simpson.
We were having so much fun that we ran out of time and I had
to run to catch my fist festival show of the night.
With sundown came the cold again, this time I was prepared and
didn’t let it faze me. My night start off at the Hard Rock
Café; on a whim I had chosen to go see a band called The
Legendary Porch Pounders from Ogden, Utah. This was the three
man act that claims to never practice, they just like to get on
stage and jam and jam they do. This little blues and soul band
was a serious dose of toe tapping ass shaking music, and while
there were not many people in the crowd the few that were there
did do some dancing. In fact, I would guess that a good majority
of the band’s audience followed them out from Utah. If you
get a chance to see these guys I would recommend it.
With the boogie still in my soul I bounced down the street a
ways and got to the Elephant Room, a low light smoke filled bar
set up below street level to catch the Diplomats of Solid Sound
from Iowa City, Iowa. The four man group barely fit on the little
stage, mostly because they brought with them a 70’s era electric
organ complete with its own table sized amp. This thing was not
supposed to be hauled around so the band seems to have fashioned
some kind of wheel system so they can roll it. Yet despite the
big pimping organ I just was not impressed with their sound. While
the crowd that was busy downing drinks was bobbing their heads
to the beat I just was not feeling the solid sound. Perhaps it
was just me but their music seemed less jazz or funk and more
the music to grocery shop by or get your teeth cleaned to. Jazz
should challenge the listener, not make the listener wonder why
he is still sitting on his bar stool, so I left.
A long hike, a short line, a quick security pat down, and a quick
dodge to avoid getting puked on by a drunk and I was standing
in front of the stage at the Austin Music Hall waiting for the
Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers from Nashville. Simply
put I love Rockabilly, Hellbilly and all the other derivatives.
I now also love the Shack*Shakers, these guys rock. The crowd
was mixed in ages and I would say they now love the Shack*Shakers
as well. If you have not caught their show it is a harmonica playing,
sweat dripping, snot flying, and eardrum pounding experience not
to be missed. Still dripping with snot I made my way to the bus
stop.
After quick bus ride and a short discussion with the bus driver
about Italian Renaissance Era art I found my self staring at a
long line wrapped around Emo’s Annex. MXPX, my reason
for being in the line, was already playing on the other side of
the tarp covered chain link fence and while I could easily just
skip the line and listen to the music from the outside I was determined
to see the band – If I just wanted to listen to music I could
bust out the iPod, I wanted to see a show. I spent a short time
analyzing the line and decided that most the people in line were
cash paying and not wearing wrist bands so I march up to the front
of the line where the girl guarding the entrance looked and my
wrist band and started to let me in when someone grabbed me and
threw me out. This new pushy gate guard started yelling at me
about how I needed to wait in line to which I responded I was
wearing a wrist band. His response was that I needed to wait in
the wrist band line, to which I said what wrist band line. Mr.
Pushy walked up and down the long line a few times and finally
decided that there was no wrist band line and grumpily decided
to let me in. Two steps through the line and I was pushed back
out again by Security telling me I need to wait in line. This
time I was not nearly as polite and told the guy in not so
many words that he can jump off a bridge. This was probably not
the brightest thing but some hand waving later I was finally in
the show. I always find MxPx to be a fun and silly show and that
is why I like to catch them when I can. A lot of people do not
like them or make fun of their pop sound, but this was the skate
punk noise that I grew up with and I still like it. The band performed
as usual, with the exception that Mike dropped his bass on the
guitar toss. It is hard to believe that these guys are almost
in their thirties now, still rocking hard though!
After leaving Emo’s Annex I headed down to a bar that has
put in a temporary stage just for SXSW. The place is called Sake
on Six and I was there to see Run Chico Run from Victoria,
BC. This is just two guys playing a whole lot of instruments.
They both bounced around from keyboards to bass to guitar to vocals
to drums and back again. I was impressed that two guys could make
as much sound as they did. They were very much that current indie
noise. Again not a lot of people in the bar, but those that were
there seemed impressed and it did not leave a bad taste in mouth
so I would have to say they were not bad.
 Another
short walk and a quick flash of the ID and I was standing right
in front of a couple speakers stacked 8 feet high. After the
first few notes from Lucero, I was glad I had my earplugs
in, as this was one loud rock band! I really enjoyed these guys,
and would have to say they were the highlight of the evening
for me. With a sound that I would describe as Tennessee’s
version of the Pogues and soul wrenching lyrics reminiscent
of a whisky inspired Social Distortion this band has
a lot of elements that really spoke to me. I was not the only
one either as the crowd was very into the show and dispite the
cold growing in numbers. This is a band I will definitely keep
my eyes and ears on.
After a cold long walk back I feel asleep as soon as I had found
my floorspace.
Wednesday, 16 March 2005
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
– Plato
I should start of by say that this is my “cherry” South
by Southwest and
that I have wanted to attend SXSW for sometime now. Needless to say
I have
been really looking forward to this week and, as of yet, 2005 SXSW
has not
been a let down.
The Hybrid crew and I packed into a car last Friday and made the
road trip
to Austin. I do not remember much of the trip as it was well after
work on
Friday when we left and I had not gotten much sleep the night before
and I
got little to no sleep on the drive down. So much of the drive is
a blur,
but I seem to remember many episodes of Sealab 2021, now a
theme for our
trip, on the portable DVD player, a lot of new music on the stereo
(of
course) and a visit to the Dr. Pepper Museum, at least I hope that
was the
Dr. Pepper museum.
After arriving in Austin, and making a claim to a spot on the floor
that
would be my bed for the rest of the week, the barbeque onslaught began.
It
seems that on every corner there is a barbeque restaurant. In fact
the
smell of meat smoking is a twenty four/ seven reminder that we are
indeed
in Texass, and of course we have been religiously adhering to the
tried
and true ‘when in Rome’ philosophy. I have eaten more meat,
beans, and
barbeque sauce in the last several days than I can honestly say I
have eaten in
the last year, and I have no plans to slow down now, despite what
my
intestinal track may say!
To further our ‘Texass experience’ we also made a trip
to the Alamo, the
official tourist trap of Republic of Texass. The Alamo is as you would
expect, “museums” that have more trinkets for sale than
artifacts on
display, but I have to say that the Davie Crockett Coonskin Cap is
pretty
damn cool.
I doubt that you’re reading this for the Coon Skin caps so lets
get
started with the music. We started the festival off at the Emo’s
day
party. Emo’s is set up with multiple stages that you can run
back and
forth to and when there is nothing you want to waste eardrums on,
you can
hang out between stages and get in some excellent people watching.
My
times are relative and when I bother to look at my watch. The rundown
was
as follows:
1:05 PM – Great Lake Swimmers – a decent sounding
band consisting of a
banjo, a guitar, and the drums. The band is from Canada and this is
their
“First show in the U.S.”. I find banjos to be like redheads,
they can be
either really really good, or they are really really bad, there is
no in
between. Great Lake Swimmers pulls it off though.
 1:45
PM – Octopus Project – Cool sounds and not too bad
for a short
listen, but I don’t think that I could take a whole show from
these guys.
They are just instrumentals and do a lot of experimental noise, what
I
call sound board band.
2 PM – Voxtrot – Do not remember much about these
guys, somewhat of a
boring over done indie sound.
2:30 PM - Castanets – These guys took a while to set
up and they seemed to
be having audio problems. Due to the audio issues I didn’t stick
around
for too long, but the rest of the crowd still liked them though. They
have
a modern folk music sound that is very popular right now.
3 PM - Zykos – A cool local Austin band that is playing
that popular indie
noise. Definitely a crowd favorite.
 4:45
PM – Mono – I believe this is a Japanese band, if
I remember right. No
vocals, all instrumental. The terms ‘layers’ and ‘levels’
come up often
when describing the band’s sound; heavy, intense, and thick layers
of
guitar, bass, and percussion. It reminds me a lot of the more melodic
stuff from Buckethead.
I think it was time for barbeque at this point. I have to say that
it was
a cold day, wet and cold and this made the bad bands even more unbearable,
but I did enough whining during the day so I will hold off here.
The festival starts at 8 PM and goes until 2 AM. With 50+ venues
to choose
from and with a new band playing every hour it works out to be a lot
of
bands playing. My night started out at 9 at the Fox and Hound. I was
hoping to catch Holly Williams but when JD and I were just
about the
only people in a huge cold tent at ten minutes 'til nine, I figured
it was going
to either be an intimate night with Holly or the show had been canceled.
Sadly the show had been canceled. That was a well spent half hour
in the
cold.
Since the planned show was not going to happen, we ended up in Friends
listening to a band called Jetscreamer. They have a cool sound,
kind of a
country twang fast rock. The problem was that all their songs sounded
the
same. They used the same effects on the guitar and used the slide
which
got very very annoying very fast.
After the ‘all slide all the time’ show we headed down
to Red Eyed Fly and
caught Scott H. Biram, a serious favorite of mine. Scott started
early and
played late. It was an awesome show and seriously made the night for
me.
If you have not had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Biram live, he is a
one man
show. He is loud, drunk, obnoxious and one damn good musician. In
my
opinion Scott is probably one of the best, if not the best, young
modern
country musicians today.
 At
11:15 it was back to Friends to catch Midlake, a favorite of
Hybrid. It
seemed that there were some serious technical difficulties which took
the
band far too long to work out because they were only able to get in
three
songs before having to start packing up again. It does not really
matter much
I guess because I couldn’t hear much of the band - because a
couple of loud mouth
chicks next to me would not shut up. One was explaining her contribution
to
humanity as the executive assistant to some big chain record store’s
CEO.
The music industry is far too full of itself.
Around 12:10 AM and after one heck of a long and cold walk (the sacrifices
we make for art right?) I found my self at Opal Divine’s Freehouse
listening to Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, an excellent Bluegrass/Folk
band
from Bristol, Tennessee. This was a much different crowd from what
I had
seen at all the other shows of the night. Most of the people were
a little
older, a little less crazy and yet much more enthusiastic and energetic.
There were a lot less people too; however this could be due to the
fact
that we were in a tent in the cold. I also have to say that they seemed
to
be doing a better job with the sound system.
At 1 AM Peter Rowan replaced Doyle Lawson and company on stage.
As
expected, Rowan was amazing.
Around two, after some serious walking, some 'Dillo riding (a local
late
night bus), and some drunk dodging the Hybrid team met back up. We
were
all cold, tired, foot sore, and ready for bed. An excellent beginning.
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