SXSW - Day T minus 1

Dear Austin: You're looking good. Yesterday, Kimball and I ended up driving into town in search of coffee. We had intended to just hit up the first Starbucks we saw, but we ended up on Congress heading downtown. There's a little strip of stores outside of downtown that smack of recent development. It's a little like (but not exactly like) Hennepin leading south into Uptown. Jo's: great coffee (the kind where it still stays kind of a dark and muddy rich brown when you put half and half in it) and I had a delicious sandwich with roast beef, provolone cheese and hot peppers. Another beautiful thing about Austin? There's patio dining just about everywhere and I heartily approve.

Kimball gave me the ten cent tour of downtown Austin, which looks like it's waiting for something. I have this sense that a certain percentage of the population here battens down the hatches for the second half of this week, hiding out with the complete "Friends" on DVD and potted meat while the storm that is South by Southwest passes. I started to get antsy about not knowing where I was or what was going on, so we headed to a bookstore to search out a Lonely Planet guide.

I had to settle for a Moon Handbook to Texas, in the hopes that perhaps I'll make it back down here again to somewhere other than Austin. When I plopped the book down in front of the cashier, she asked, "Planning a trip to Texas?" I couldn't help but note a bit of ice in her tone. Fucking tourists, she's probably thinking. Damn hipsters. I'd be thinking the same thing, honestly. One of the striking things about CMJ is how little impact it has on New York. New York just doesn't give a damn. It's like some kind of giant blob creature-- pour all the .45 slugs and crossbow bolts and MIRVs you want into it, it's not stopping. Austin seems to take this all a lot more personally. I have mixed feelings about descending like this on a town-- I experienced New Orleans on the cusp of Mardi Gras and also around Christmas, and I much preferred it sans Gras. I'll have to come back and hit this place up some other time.



After a bunch of lunch, work, Simpsons on DVD and reading, we head downtown. (I'm going to straight up admit right now that I'm having a hard time keeping my tenses straight. From now on, I'm going with the present-- it's just much easier.) Nothing much is cracking other than an open bar at Sidebar, but we're rolling in half an hour shy of midnight, which is when Sidebar's shindig ends, so instead we meet up with the folks from Pirate Publicity for karaoke at Beerland. It's always a bit odd to meet people you've only dealt with via e-mail. It's not so much that they aren't like you expected-- you just never expected anything to begin with. You begin to think you might kind of know these people, despite the fact that all you ever talk about is what bands are coming to town or what you're runnning in the paper that week. Which, by the way, sorry Brooke, but I still haven't sent you that tear sheet on the Annuals.

Karaoke apocalypse ensues. First of all, I don't care if you can't sing and you do karaoke. Honestly? That's part of the appeal, but this is just transcendentally bad. "Welcome to the Jungle," etc. Things take a turn for the better with Brooke and co.'s killer rendition of "Tempted" by Squeeze, and then it shifts into overdrive with Stensby's heartfelt rendition of "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M. He even gets felt up by a couple of comely lasses.

There's actually more to SXSW than just the music: it's also a film and interactive festival, and that part's happening right now. So basically, what you have in town are film geeks, computer geeks and people who do everything with music but play it. It's like a high school where some strange disease has killed off all the popular kids. It's like "Revenge of the Nerds." Take that, you jocks.

The night ends with a trip over to a party sponsored by Virb and PureVolume called Tejas2007. Virb is a kind of MySpace-type joint, but even more musically-oriented, apparently. PureVolume is also some kind of music promotion thing. Regardless, we show up at the front, where there's a staggering line to get in, and then, magically, the Pirate people pull a "Goodfellas" and go around to the back where we're ushered in. And it was all filmed in one shot.

There's a Wii going with some folks playing the bowling game from Wii Sports, and there's free vodka and Red Bulls and also vodka and Izze and some kind of frozen drinks. It's hotter than a muhfugger, but we dance anyways. The DJ's spinning mashups of The Knife and other indie darlings and I wonder to myself what this space would be used for when it's not a dance club for the music industry. It's probably an empty storefront, but tonight, it's like the AV club and the tech crew for the musical and all the kids from band hanging together, reveling in their self-made world. And it's good, because if I had a comfy bed to go home to right now, I probably would, but because all I'm looking forward to is a loveseat and a sleeping bag, I'm down for whatever.