SXSW 2008

Last Thursday my great friends Rathan, Chris and I drove to Austin in a spontaneous effort to take in a day-full of Austin’s yearly (and world famous) music festival South by Southwest. Ive been a few times in the past, however never have I totally indulged in the full two weeks of mayhem the festival provides. I vow that next year will be the year that I take it all (and I mean all) in, as long as I get my credential request in on time and well, if I’m even in Texas. Even though it was a sporadic day trip doesn’t mean it wasn’t epic, because it sure was. We were running on a few hours of sleep when we rolled into downtown Austin, parked the car and stumbled onto 6th street. We met up with an old friend at Jackalope’s and ate a hearty meal while enjoying Birds of Avalon. Between Jackalope’s and 4th and Lavaca we must have seen and overheard hundreds of bands and seen hundreds of odd balls roaming the streets. Austin is a beautiful place, but boy the “Keep-Austin-Weird” locals can wear on the nerves. Our main mission of the trip was to see The Weakerthans, a Canadian indie band that Rathan and I have loved for years and rarely get to experience live since they are from Winnipeg, Canada. I saw them for the first time in 10 years in Denver last fall and saw that they were on the bill for SXSW and told Rathan that we should go. Stephen Carroll their guitarist and media contact graciously hooked me up with a +2 on their guest list. It was 7pm and they werent set to play until 11pm, but I wanted to check in with that venue to make sure everything was okay before setting out to catch some other shows close by. On the way over I was handed a flyer advertising the free Doomtree showcase that night. Wow! There were a lot of artists and shows I wasn’t expecting when I arrived in Austin, but this hit me in the face. I love GOOD underground hip-hop and the this collective out of Minneapolis has been on the top of my list ever since I reviewed a few of their artists about a year ago. After securing our guest list spots with The Weakerthans, we dashed over to catch the Doomtree show. It was at an upscale night spot called The Marq; not you re run of the mill 6th street icehouse, but something you’d be more likely to see in midtown Houston. It was totally free, not packed, easy to get in and out and amazing. Every single member of the Doomtree collective performed including my favorites, P.O.S and Cecil Otter. There was no stage, simply the performer with a mic surrounded by about 30 or so people. A plus to that performance was the fact that Fab Five Freddy, hip-hop legend, was present and kicked it with us. After that show ended we walked a few blocks and entered the other venue just in time to see The Weakerthans killer show. Ive been doing a lot of live music this past week. I think I counted about 50 or so artists that I’ve watched.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 2:53 AM and is filed under Editorial, Music, Personal Work and tagged with 6th street, Canada, Doomtree, festival, hip hop, indie, John K Samson, Personal Work, south by southwest, SXSW, Texas, The Marq, The Weakerthans, Winnipeg. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.