(ps. not so live anymore lol. One more coming up after this one!)

Thursday

The thing with SXSW is of course the enormous amount of music to see. I’ve heard more people complaining already about a phenomenon I call ?the day of missing opportunities?. Thursday was that kind of a day for me. I started out making a day schedule and a night schedule, and I ended up missing about every band on the schedule, because of bad planning, long lines, running into people and venues that I wasn’t able to find.

I ended up seeing Pierced Arrows play the Side Bar, that was a surprise, because they weren’t scheduled or anything. I was hanging out with my friend Daniel Regan there. He’s the manager of Dutch metal band Textures, and his biggest job is managing Fiction Plane, band of the son of Sting. Not really my kind of music, but it was great hearing stories about how things go in the major label music industry. And it’s always nice catching up with Daniel about mid nineties metalcore, since we share a common background in that. Bands like Morning Again, Unbroken, early Caliban, that kind of stuff. Too old for kickbox moves now, though.

After a diner with Marco, Jeps and Daniel at this cracker food place called the Iron Cactus, I went on to see two of the few bands I actually managed to catch from my schedule. First of The Black Atlantic, a Dutch folk band from Groningen, fronted by Geert van der Velde of Ham Radio Communications, one of the hardest working men in DIY music business. It was nice bumping into him again, but after 2 songs, I had to leave to see Sub Pop band, Avi Buffalo. Young dudes, pretty cool band, but at this moment I can’t quiet recall what they sounded like anymore. It’s all getting somewhat of a blur. Went to see Iron Age for 20 minutes too, great metal / hardcore kind of band, that did an extensive tour with Rise and Fall a few weeks back.

As stated before, the rest of the night was a total disaster. The pinnacle of the disaster was seeing The Hague band So What….that was really one of the worst things I’ve seen this week. A total lack of any urgency, and Van Velzen’s brother on bass, or something. Anyways, I’d seen it for the night, and went home.

Friday

Fortunately, after thursday, friday happened. With renewed energy and chances, I made a schedule again, and after some email-checking and a small lunch at Freddie’s, I went to see Serena-Maneesh at Waterloo records. Their manager, Mark Vaughan, who also does bands like Shining Norway, invited me over for a beer. The band was amazing. Great shoegazer kind of rootsrock with a bit of noise here and there. Nice bass player too….and their gear…man, I’ve never seen so much cool vintage guitars (Fender Mustangs, Gibson RD’s, Mossride, etc.) and amps together. They have their own backline in New York, for US tours now. Took ‘m about 30 hours to drive it over to Austin…but it’s worth it. Love to have ‘m at Incubate.

After that, I went to see the Casiokids at Vice on 6th Street. Their manager, Christoph Wareign, invited me over. He’s good friends with Mark Vaughan of Serena-Maneesh, so it was kind of a British / Norwegian get-together, this afternoon. Casiokids played in a venue that was playing crappy house music all afternoon. Not that much people there, and the people that were there, were typical douchebag kind of people. I predicted nothing good would come out of this one, but I was wrong. Casiokids play a sort of synth-driver funkpop. Normally I’d hate this stuff, but it was actually really good. And they drew in a good crow, which was dancing after the first song, and didn’t stop until they were done. The guys were all multi-instrumentalists, and they changed a lot during the set. Which can give a rather pretentious feel to it, but in this case, it didn’t. After the set, all the girls wanted to take pictures with these fine Norwegian boys…I predict a great future for them. Hope I’m not mistaken this time.

I went on to hook up with Marco and Maartje for diner at Stubb’s again. When I was driving over there, I passed the Texas Rock Fest, where Crank County Daredevils, my favorite sleeze rock band was playing. My luck had definitely changed. I checked them out for 10 minutes, and they even played my favorite song ? Kings of Sleaze?. Good one. Diner at Stubb’s was special. After waiting for 40 minutes (that’s what they predicted when I checked in), we got a table, sat down, ordered, got a beer, and got our food 2 minutes later. Efficiency all the way. Lot of Dutch restaurants can learn from that!

Off to Encore to see Lithurgy, a black metal band we booked with Incubate. Unfortunately, they canceled, but I got the chance to see ‘m later that night at Headhunters. Pedaled to the Auditorium Shores to see the mighty Cheap Trick at 8 p.m. The thing with Cheap Trick is, that they made brilliant songs, and totally cheezy ballads at the same time. The set was constructed exactly that way. The payed tribute to Alex Chilton, by playing Big Star’s ?In the Street?, a song Cheap Trick recorded for the ?That 70′s show?  soundtrack. And ofcourse, they played ?I want you to want me? and ? Surrender?. Robin Zander still has an awesome voice, and Rik Nielsen was funny as ever.

Onwards to Awesome Color, who were playing the Ecstatic Peace showcase in Red7. It wasn’t all that busy, but they ripped. That drummer chick was really good, and I never knew you could actually play the guitar with an amp instead of a pick. Good show, good band. They  are still looking for a sock sponsor though…

On to Cymbals Eat Guitars at Emo’s Annex. Good noiserock band, perfect Incubate material. After that, it was time for some metal again, so I went to Headhunters to hook up with Walter Roadburn and Japi of 013 / Watt. First off, Jakuza was playing. They are on the Roadburn bill this year, and play a sort of combination between black metal and Bohren and der Club of Gore sort of calmer, saxophone orientated ambient rock. Pretty good band. Lithurgy was on next. Young dudes, tremendously fast drummer, and kick ass songs. Great black metal, but image wise, it’s not really out there yet. It’s just not ?threatening?  enough. Black metal needs to be dangerous. And no corpse paint either….

Went to see The Hague cute girl band Rebelle after that, and I was pleasantly surprised. This band really grew, and they are really out there on stage. Witty, funny, and tight as a m*therf*cker. Lot of Dutchies in the crowd. Too bad about the technical difficulties, because they really played a good set, and have good pop songs. I think they are signed to Sony or something like that. Could become a big one.

Off to the highlight of the evening; Les Savy Fav. Haven’t seen them for 8 years or so, but that sure left an impression. They demolished 013 back than with a fire extinguisher, and I’ve heard stories about them doing far worse stuff than that during their shows. It was busy as hell, quiet a bit of familiar faces, and the band totally ripped. Too bad about the bad sound, but the show was great. The singer tore down the stage lights, dived in the crowd (120+ kilo’s dude), and it became all too familiar where the singer of Fucked Up got his ethics from. Les Savy Fav are also on a mission to reintroduce the balding-slightly over weighted-bearded look,  and I hope it succeeds, then I might have a shot too…. Anyways, after lots of beer, headbanging, and general rowdiness, this great day ended with Les Savy Fav as a definite highlight. Oh, and I saw J. Mascis on just about every show I visited the last 2 days. I begin to suspect there are several clones of him walking around.