SXSW Thursday

Thursday night I was already dead, having not slept much Wednesday night due to my overindulgence AND my lack of sleep Tuesday night too. Thank goodness I woke up from my brief nap to head over to Molotov Lounge to see the Madison bands. I missed the first one, Droids Attack, but they were classified as metal, and since that isn’t my thing I didn’t care so much. The Gusto started after I got there, they were punk and played fast, which I was glad to see since I hadn’t seen that style of music on Wednesday. There’s no glass in the windows of this place, so its open to the outside atmosphere which this night was relatively warm and humid, so there was a lot of sweating going on. The band commented about the differences between Wisconsin and Texas quite a bit, which I certainly enjoyed. The crowd was fairly small which disappointed me a little, especially since I had sent a note about the Madison bands to the UW alumni president down here hoping he would forward it on to the list, but he didn’t.

I had a nice conversation with the label guy, and while I didn’t get the details I ought to mention that the reason there were Madison bands down here this year is that their label worked them in. So, if anyone out there wonders why they didn’t get into SXSW this year--other than the fact that they didn’t apply—having a label probably helps.

Screamin' Cyn Cyn and the Pons were the last Madison band, and they were awesome. I bought CDs by both the bands and listened to theirs tonight for the first time. I think every song on the album is less than two minutes long. It’s great! Back to the show. Their bass drums was half filled with those plastic balls you jump into at a carnival or chuck e cheese or whatever. The woman guitar player was dressed in a prom dress, the lead singer had make-up on and I think he was meant to look like a doll or something, the bass player had this brown outfit with a headband, and the drummer had a big beard and a plain white T-shirt. Very diverse and interesting look. The lead singer ran out into the crowd a bit, which was cool. At one point he ran out into the open window at the front of the place. The lead singer, bass player, and guitar player occasionally did this leaning backwards into eachother without falling down thing which was very very cool—I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that done before, sweet! The guitar was really cool looking, a silver sparkly (Les Paul maybe?) which looked well with the prom dress. At the end of one song she was playing some ending licks and charged a few steps into the crowd with every beat, right in my direction which was enthralling. I’m running out of adjectives to use to describe the experience! I told her about that moment after the show. The second to last song she sang lead and it was about no one RSVP’ing for her dinner party. She ended up lying down on the ground in the middle of the audience at the end of that one. Unfortunately, I don’t think this one is on the album I bought. I should note that this may be the first time that in addition to blogging about the bands I’ve seen, a band has blogged about me! I’m the smart guy.