SXSW Saturday

Finally, my last entry of who I saw at SXSW! Saturday afternoon I headed down to the free "Mess with Texas" party at Waterloo Park. I was most interested in the comedy acts, as several comedians that I enjoy from TV shows like Best Week Ever were there. Paul F Tompkins told us why cake is better than pie, and Human Giant used a t-shirt cannon to distribute out old concert T-shirts. They all thanked us for taking the time to come to a FREE show. Who's bright idea was that? There were plenty of bands playing, including Pissed Jeans from the other night, but I only heard them in passing.

I headed down to my HQ Lovejoy's to see if I could actually plan something, and was pleasantly surprised by a free show by MS Led from Seattle. I don't know if they had an official showcase at some other time. I'm not seeing them on the schedule. They were pretty rockin'. I didn't right it down, but I believe they were a three piece, with a girl lead singer. More people got up and danced to them (including me) than other bands I'd seen here, so everyone was having a good time. Good start to the night. I remember debating whether or not to see Tift Merritt at The Parish or some band from Tel Aviv named Monotonix at Bourbon Rocks Patio. Going with my "bands that are from farther away are more interesting" theory, I went to Monotonix. I definitely made the right choice. I'm so glad I hadn't read anything about them beforehand, because apparently they do something similar every time they play and it was great to be a total surprise to me. [Spoiler alert if you ever plan on seeing them] They are a three piece consisting of guitar piped through a bass amp and guitar amp, making it sound like both bass and guitar are playing, a lead singer, and drums. It started out interesting enough, with the singer standing behind the drummer with his back turned to us for most of the first song. He then staged dived into the crowd, cool, but I've seen that before. Then, he pours beer on the drummer and drums, so that when the snare is hit, beer is flying everywhere. Now we're talking! THEN... he takes the bass drum out into the crowd. Before I know it, the guitar player is out in the crowd playing guitar and the bass drum. Eventually the whole drumset and whole band is out in the crowd, the lead singer is jumping off the bass drum into the crowd to surf some more, a big garbage can is over the drummers head, and beer is being poured on everything and everyone! It was truly crazy. The bass drum was hoisted into the air several times and the lead singer would play it by beating his fists on it. I am sure at one point all of the drum equipment and/or band members were in the air at the same time. The crowd wasn't huge and I was right up front, doing my best to help out. Somehow, I escaped injury!

I took the 9 o'clock hour off as I had to immediately go tell people about that show, and also had to get to the Austin Convention Center early enough to get into the Carbon Silicon show. The line was long, but it was no problem for me to get in. This was a more conventional show than the last, but I enjoyed myself just as much. It was just so cool to be looking up at the stage to see Mick Jones play and sing. I kept telling myself "I know that voice! I can't believe I'm hearing it live!" I have many of the Big Audio Dynamite albums and several Clash albums, so it was great to finally see someone whose music I've enjoyed for many years. The music in his new project is reminiscent of all his previous stuff, so I loved it. I don't even really need to mention that he didn't play any B.A.D. or Clash covers, but thought you might be curious about that. I acted (?) the drunk fool jumping up and down the whole time so I'm hoping to be in a video if ME gets to make one out of it. The whole show was broadcast on DirectTV, too bad I didn't get anyone to record it. Of course, I probably also reeked of beer from the previous show. I'm sure everyone gave me plenty of space. By the end of the show I had worked my way up to the third row or so, where I deservedly belonged instead of the frozen masses.

After the show I went to Emo's where I chilled out in the back area for awhile. After awhile a long line formed from inside to get back to the stage where X was to perform, but I was fairly certain I wasn't going to improve on my night so I decided to call it quits. I probably went back to LJ's, Mugshots, and/or Kebabilicious before heading home to reflect on my great SXSW experience.