Austin, Texas is home of the South by Southwest Music Fest. The city turns into a major party, with hundreds of cool, indie bands playing in dozens of clubs within a few block radius. Plenty of parties thrown by record labels and promoters, and lots of barbecues! Jefe's experiential was musically-oriented, full or Texas beer and tasty wraps! There was so much going on, here are my highlights:

 

 

Thurs. 3/18

 

TONGUE at Emo's

Liz, the singer from Cali band TONGUE, has a deviant electricity that goes beyond her hottie looks and screaming vocalisms. She leads her band of banshee attackers like a tripped out woomon on a strange mind-licking trip.

Check out the testicular salute to Tongue here

 

Friday, 3/19

So many highlights! Fun fun fun!! Suffice to say, my genitalia was in an uproar, as the cockrocking in Austin went beyond the norm; and I dropped some Buffalo chips at The Buffalo Club for:

...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF THE DEAD

These guys rock the house ala Sonic Youth meets Brainiac, guitars ringing and chiming, hard beats, hard chords, and a pervading sense of humor that makes it feel like the whole audience is composed of the band's friends. Which could very well be, given the Dead boys are from Austin. The drummer gets up to sing, the singer plays drums; there's a constant switching of instruments, but there's no let up as the intensity level just rises. These guys were more fun than a barrel of muh...muh...muh...monkeys.

Check out the Trail of the Dead Homepage here

 

Appleseed Cast at The Electric Circus

Holy Captain Emo, Batman! Appleseed Cast are one totally toasty, emossified, emotionally rescue. I've been hearing their Deep Elm record "The End Of The Ring Wars" for months in the Radical office, and these boys delivered the pain, angst, and probably a few hemorroids as well, at a very cool, very big venue known as The Electric Circus, which had indoor and outdoor stages, bands everywhere, and.....beer!

Deep Elm homepage here:

 

EMO's Jr. - SPEEDEALER and ZEKE

Speedealer at Emo's Jr.- what more can I say about ex-REO Speedealer, (go to their official site here at http://www.testicle.com/reo.htm), other than the fact that they are the hardest, tightest, fastest and sometimes slowest band in the land. It was the first time I heard new members Eric on guitar, and Harden on drums, and although the Dealer Wall of Sound wasn't up to snuff in my opinion, they still whomped butt...almost as hard as...

Zeke, motherfucking Zeke, heavy as fuck Zeke, faster than your sister Zeke, just brutally rocking, with guitar solos blazing, neck tattoos straining, the drummer giving everyone the finger, and the bass player spitting out into the crowd! It made me wonder what the fuck were these bands doing on the small Emo's Jr. stage instead of big brother Emo's next door?

Zeke homepage (ZekeYou.com) here

 

Hot Dang! Let's go fer some ribs and Neurosis. These death metal fuckers played Stubbs, a huge outdoor arena/barbecue place. Neurosis served up more than a wall of sound, it was a wallop! The thing I like about Stubb's aside from being outside under the stars, is the fact that there's so much room to move around, inside and out, the food is plentiful, and there's even room to watch/listen to the band from outside. Quite the site of coolness. Even High Times magazine had their party there, and that smoked (hehe)...

You know where to go for more, don't you? Yeah, it's Neurosis.com, where else?. Or click here

 

SAT, 3/20

Saturday's high light was At The Drive-In from El Paso, TX. Is it Emo, is it Rawk? It's Rawkin Fuckin' Emoliosis, it's Corn-Emolio, it's one of the most energetic bands I've ever seen, with cool-ass afros, and a guitar player who is a kinetic whippersnapper if I've ever seen one...

That homepage you want to drive to is here

 

All in all, South By Southwest is a great place to party, an amazing place to see music. 6th Street, the main avenue for most of the clubs, closes down to thru traffic at night so it becomes a pedestrian paradise, since it's also Spring Break for the University students, and the prevailing atmosphere is one of a big happy and happening party.
SXSW also has Panels, which I didn't have a pass for, and there's a huge exhibition hall where you can get more shwag than you can handle. All this biz stuff goes down at the Austin Convention Center, which is basically downtown and within walking distance of any club.

 

Here's the official SXSW website. Tell em Jéfe sent ya, and maybe I'll see you next year! huminahumina...who know de ansa?

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