SXSW 2009 in a few words. My experience.

Hit play on the nomo video below while you read this. Its worth spending 15 minutes reading.

Nomo




SXSW in a few words.

By: John Obeidin

Right about the moment when I almost got trampled by horses, I realized how great of a time I was having at South by Southwest. Trying to make it into MSTRKRFT was nuts.

What? How could nearly getting trampled by horses be involved in a good time? Read on and my SXSW experience will all come about.


From my view of having been to South By Southwest once before to catch a couple of shows in a day, I thought I had a good perspective of what was going to happen over the weekend, but the whole experience of SXSW cant be described easily unless you spend a few days walking over nearly every single block in a large but concentrated area around downtown Austin. The festival exceeds any and all expectations of a person who likes listening to live music. The possibilities of shows to see and things to do are absolutely endless. I think it was somewhere around 2000 bands playing throughout the festival. My perspective only encompasses three days of the music part of the festival, I don’t have time to worry about the films and documentaries and all that crap in the weekend before.

I guess I have to start somewhere, but am not sure how far to stretch it back. I knew after last year that I wanted to go again, with very few reasons that would alter my decision on going for this year. I came close to not going early for family reasons, but the situation worked to my advantage, so off to SXSW I go.

I guess one of the biggest things about SXSW is schedule preparation, what do you want to see and do? The possibilities are endless. The schedule of sponsored shows is out weeks before the festival, but it is so gigantically monstrous that it takes a few hours to sort through. Then on top of that are all of the free parties and unsponsored events, which is really hard to grasp or find out everything that is going on. The free parties will be what I need to prepare for more next year. In all actuality you could just walk around and catch shows all weekend, but concentrating on certain things is a necessary part of SXSW. You truly never know what you might come across walking around, and I have found shows that I had no idea about just walking by.

I guess as a little bit of background to qualify my perspectives on music before I get into my documentation, the last couple of years I have went to concerts almost religiously. I have seen over 140 bands in the past two plus years. In no way am I affiliated with any magazines publications or websites, at least for the moment as of now. I just go as a fan of music and do a good job of documenting my experience in pictures and videos. My next progressive step would be to write about it more often. I think I will end up starting a website for my pictures and blogs separate from my myspace, facebook and youtube stuff. I might as well make my voice heard. I already have a pretty good base since my youtube account of mostly concert footage is around 800,000 video views. I guess I have a good base to start from. Rideincircles is my youtube username if you want to watch anything.

One of the last things that I will mention is the fact that I need a new camera. The camera I have is my tried and true pocket sized Canon A710. This little camera has now taken well over 10000 images, and the pictures were great until I dropped it on the lens a few months ago. The cool thing about it is that after dropping it, the camera now takes abstract images with colors greatly enhanced mixed with shadows. I have nicknamed these photos fourth dimensional, and never really know what it will look like until I take the picture. The 4-d photos look like I spent hours making Photoshop adjustments, but nope my camera just takes them. One of the problems still is that the light sensor is screwed so that I can barely take legible images during the day. The best images I did take came using manual settings all the way dimmed and my sunglasses in from of the lens to dim the light. It is time to get a new camera but nothing takes images like the 4-d mode. Aside from that, the video still works fine and is of good quality; my only problem is that mega concert bass will distort sounds pretty bad. Stubb’s falls victim to this with their really badass concentrated sound system.

Well that’s enough background info so here’s how it went down.

I wasn’t sure early last week whether to leave Wednesday evening or Thursday afternoon, my massive workload of importance ended up dictating the earliest I could leave was Thursday afternoon. Once noon came Thursday it was time to depart from my Square perspective of cubicleness to embark on my journey for the weekend. Before leaving Fort Worth I had to run to the store and buy another memory card and a case of beer in preparation for SXSW.

Upon finishing my errands and getting home with my new Wii for after SXSW, I promptly checked my email/internet garbage to see if anything important was sent my way before heading out. My first email in the inbox was from austin360 regarding the contest I entered the day before. It turns out that I was one of the lucky few who got in on 30 pairs of extra space available tickets for the Austin City Limits taping of the Relentless7 (with Ben Harper) Saturday night. Upon getting this news, this allowed me to relax some more since I now didn’t have to worry about getting into the Stubb’s Relentless7 show for this evening. The news made my day so much better, and it was already great outside. Regardless, I threw my stuff together and hopped in my car and headed out the door blazing toward Austin cranking Tom Waits and My Morning Jacket with the windows down most of the way there.

I ended up arriving right around 6 pm Thursday, and sent a flurry of text messages to see where I should head to first. I will mention a couple things at this point. First, I did not buy a badge or a wristband for this festival, it would be handy to have for numerous shows and that comes into play later in the story. The other is that I came down here by myself. Of course going with more friends is always good, but for the most part only a few hours of the day was I out and about all by lonesome. SXSW is truly for what you want to see and do. Company is great, but splitting up has no effect if I get to see what I want. I think I ran into or hung out with a dozen friends when I was there.

I proceeded to head over to Red River and stopped by Stubb’s to check on the Relentless7 and Andrew Bird show, but they said there wouldn’t be many tickets available and they would be $30. No big deal, keep walking. The odds were too slim to bother trying. At this point Michael and Kristen informed they just walked upon N.A.S.A. playing over Bird’s Barbershop off 6th. So that is where I headed. I just finished my second beer when I got there, and it was free and sponsored by Dewar’s so free drinks. NASA had a pretty good party going, and people were dancing on stage until someone almost spilled a drink all over the laptop. We stayed for a bit then moved on to get tickets for the Reflection Eternal show later at the scoot inn, and then we walked back to my car for contents in the cooler.

We decided that our next best course of action would be to head to the Habana Bar on sixth to catch Abstract Rude, Eyedea and Abilities and POS. The show was $8, but since I am a ninja I just walked right in behind the door guy. This night turned out to be mostly hip hop happenings, the Eyedea and Abilities show was good with lots of turntablism, but I have no idea why I wound up with tons of pictures of Abstract rude. At least Busdriver made a quick cameo in the midst of all this. The show was decent and so was POS, which we left early from. The meat of the evening is still to come though, or maybe zucchini if you’re a vegetarian.

After that its back to more walking heading to the Scoot inn for the Reflection Eternal show with Talib and his crew. Jean Grae was scheduled to play, but never showed up. It seems like parts of this evening are kind of fuzzy, but that’s one of the reasons I record videos and take pictures. It is impossible to remember everything when drinking is involved.

Back to the show, there are 2 girls and Talib on the mics in the band and they are pretty good. One of the girls was rhyming and the other was doing more singing. Once their set was over, John Forte came out and played a solo set on acoustic guitar, but Michael and Kristin were about ready to go if I remember correctly, or maybe I don’t remember correctly. Around 1:20 they decided to head back to Jess’s house, but I am a festival warrior and last year I spent 4 hours in the rain at Bonnaroo watching Late night My Morning Jacket and stayed up until 5:30 am for Kanye West’s Bonnaroo disaster the next day. There is still music happening, so that’s where I head to.

My next course of action is to head back to the Red River area and see whats happening. For the most part Thursday wasn’t very crowded at least not compared to Friday and Saturday. This ends up working to my advantage when I got to Stubb’s since the Relentless7 was still playing around 1:30 and they just let me in for free. I will save most of my Relentless7 banter for the Saturday part of this story, but I did go to high school with the drummer Jordan Richardson and man has he gotten better and better.

So at this point I decide I will record some videos and take pictures since it wont be allowed at the Austin city Limits taping. I have a tendency to do this more often when I am by myself. The way they were rocking out I wasn’t sure if it was near the end or how long they would play. Most of their stuff is all new and rocks with guitar playing by Ben Harper, I did end up recording Under Pressure when they played it, and I got lots of 4-d images of the show. Some were really abstract, but I took enough to get some variety and normal pictures.

I kept moving up closer and closer near the end of the set and looked to my right and ran into a fellow music nut friend of mine Caroline. We have both went to a few festivals and ran into each other at Coachella also, so it was no surprise to see here there knowing her love of Ben Harper. I am relatively sure I will read what she had to say about SXSW soon in the FW Weekly. Dusty was the other person who was with her and I ended up seeing The Watchmen with a lady friend of mine and him when it came out. No Surprises though, The Relentless7 played until 2 and rocked enough to sober me up enough to make it back to my car and drive to North Austin to get some sleep, and that was my Thursday.

Friday we started off a little slow, I brought an air mattress to sleep on but it slowly deflated through the night. Waking up on the half-empty mattress is like being trapped in a deflated marshmallow. I was still trying to recollect how the morning started, but eventually I remembered and we ended up heading to Burger Tex for grub. I got the Bulgoki, which was awesome last time in Austin, but this time the Korean BBQ burger wasn’t nearly as appetizing. Somewhere the quality fell off, I guess due to eating a different location. Still more than edible though. After that we spent too much time back at Jess’s house rsvping for shows on the internet that we never made it to before heading out. RSVPing for stuff should be done well before the festival, and the Fader Fort shows were booked by the time I figured out it was the place to be. That would be one major reason to have the wristband. RSVPing shows during the festival is so time consuming with the amount of shows out there.

We ended up deciding to head to the Myspace Records party with free drinks downtown. Upon arriving we were like, Where’s the party? Then we realized that it happened the day before. So much for identifying parties by numerical dates instead of days. Oops, at this point my friend Jess’s band Cockvandyke was gonna play at some dirtbag clothing event at 5 so that’s where we headed. We pretty much missed all of the day party stuff this day.

Upon arriving some band from LA was playing, they weren’t anything special. It was kinda warm outside, so we just sat under the shade tent that was falling apart with the wind. For the most part the weather was awesome all weekend. Eventually they duck taped the poles together so it wouldn’t collapse and shortly thereafter Cockvandyke was gonna start so we got up to check it out.

Cockvandyke is my friend Jess’s new band he is in, they are a loud four-piece thrash type band with 2 drummers, which kind of add to the mayhem of them on stage. They are still getting their rhythm down, but they are loud and say quack a lot. Not many people were at the show, but there was enough cheering after the songs to feel appreciated. We decided to head back to the car after they were done to grab beers and stuff.

On the way back to our car on the other side of the highway, we came across one of the free surprise shows that you come across walking around. From the distance we heard some Wu-Tang getting thrown down from The Compound, so immediately we headed over to see what was happening. The free show this time was GZA and the Black Lips. One of the best things about SXSW is the randomness of finding things and the collaborations that happen there.

We went inside and got free Dickies shirts since they sponsored it, and GZA was throwing down on some Wu-Tang and played a couple songs controlling the band with his rhythm. Had we have known, I am sure we would have gotten there earlier, but we caught I think 4 or 5 songs or so before there set was over. I have a couple videos to elaborate on with this.

Next upon returning to the car I decided to be spontaneous and create a random piece of art with some boards, a hose, a shirt, and some other random garbage lying around. When I was in Finland I was inspired by an underground art haven I saw, so I decided to make something out of nothing. There are a couple pictures of it in my photos if you come across it.

After my creating art spat, it was time to head downtown and split up with Kristen and Michael. They went to go see some more hip hop and I wanted to catch that1guy @ soho lounge, so off we went. I arrived at Soho at 7 something and it was $8 cover and Hamell on trial was doing a solo set, nothing major to write about on this one, it was just filler.

That1guy came out shortly thereafter with an upgraded Magic Pipe and his usual assortment/entanglement of wires midi controllers and other random instruments. I really think everyone needs to see that1guy at least once; he is by far one of the most creative artists around on the planet. This time around his set was pretty short though, I started recording the first song and caught my camera as the bass vibrated it off a ledge and then ran out of batteries. For the most part his set consisted of jamming out on the magic pipe, but he did play Butt Machine. I love how he goes straight into smooth jazz at the end of his set, but it didn’t take very long since he only played about 35 minutes.

After the short set, I went back to grab my batteries that I forgot earlier, and move my car closer to the highway. I can’t even recollect how many blocks I have walked so far, but its pretty ridiculous. One of the activities I picked up heading back to the car is collecting posters and stuff. If you have been to SXSW, there are posters all over the place on every pole, wall and column. I am not sure how many posters I totaled out with, but I got enough to make a ridiculously large collage of SXSW schwag.

Next up, I was unsure where to head, so I decided to go by Stubb’s and see what the Metallica show was all about. Upon arriving there were probably as many people listening to it outside as there were inside. That’s one of the things I love about Stubb’s, it is a great outdoor venue but completely intimate. I figured I would try and see if it was possible to get inside or anywhere near so I could see the band, but security was locked tight. When I walked around by the creek some dude was waiting. When I climbed a tree into the parking garage a cop kicked me out and I lost my schedule for the evening. No Luck other than listening from outside which sounded alright, so I heard a few songs and left since I saw them at Bonnaroo last year.

Now that I lost my schedule, I wasn’t sure where to head. I had texted my friend Kara, and she was at a bar a block away, so I stopped by to say hello. We ended up hanging out for half an hour or so while I tried to get my bearings on where to head. I had pretty much decided to see Nomo, and thought it was at Antone’s so I had to confirm the venue and address. Kara tried checking her iphone, but bandwidth was eaten up by the 9 million other people using iphones at the time. I decided to part ways and she offered to pay for a pedicab since it was a bazillion blocks away, but I declined and took the long walk to Antone’s. It was a long walk.

Upon arriving to Antone’s it was free admission to get in. Nomo was playing at 1 am and first up was St. Vincent. In the process of talking to people I found out she was an awesome guitarist who used to be in Polyphonic spree. Maybe she still is I am not sure. Her set was pretty good, and I recorded a couple songs. I know she is playing at bonnaroo later this year, so depending on the scheduling I may check her out again, but it’s not a mandatory set to have to see again. I would rather see her solo.

Now for one of my favorite shows of the weekend, Nomo. I came across these guys last year at Bonnaroo and they were the first band that played Thursday at the festival. I only saw about 5 minutes from the outside of the tent, but I knew I wanted to see them again. To me Nomo is like musical candy to my ears. The band is 7 Jazz majors from Michigan who came together in college. Their sound is heavy jazz-fusion with lots of horns and miscellaneous instruments scattered all around like bells and whistles. Maybe not whistles but every other instrument was up there.

Their set sounded finely tuned, and they have a steady groove of great sounding music. Lots of saxophone, trumpets and other horns along with keyboards and lots of percussion. They played a good solid hour and ended up playing the last part walking around the crowd with a saxaphone and some other instruments. I really would like to see them again even if it is the same show. They were one of my favorite shows of the weekend.

So now it is time to make the long walk back to my car and collect a few more posters for the day. Another great success at SXSW, but its amazing how much more could have been seen. I do what I can with my available time though.

Saturday morning we decided to get some grub at Flip Happy, which is a gourmet crepes restaurant in a trailer off Lamar on the other side of the river from downtown. My friends said it’s been on food network before, so it better be good. And good it was. It took 30 minutes to order and another 45 to get our food. I got the salmon wrap, but realized that I should have gotten something a little heavier for hangover food. It did have an awesome lemon caper cream cheese sauce in it though. We missed out on breakfast, which sounded better, but did get a Fruit crepe and holy god it was amazing. I didn’t have cash or else I would have ordered my own, I don’t even like thinking about it now cuz I totally missed out.

The major plans for the afternoon were going to Cockvandyke’s house party right off 7th on the other side of downtown from the highway. Mike and Damian from the band live at the house, and they set up the stage on the front porch and proceeded to destroy the surrounding neighborhood with noise. As time passed the keg slowly disappeared, more people showed up, Tonto and some other band played, fajitas were grilled and other typical house party stuff.

Around 4:00 my friend Josh arrived from Fort Worth and we continued with the festivities until it was about time to head out. One stand out thing from the party is that Mike who lives there brews some amazing beer, I got to try some chocolate banana brew that he made and it was awesome. He’s thinking about starting a brewery and I hope he does.

So around 4:25 we decide to hightail it to the Austin City Limits studio. My instructions were to head to the University communications building and get in line for a ticket and numbers to be given out. Once I got to the line, it wrapped around the building, and only about 20-30 more people showed up behind me. The tickets were space available so it was highly possible that we might not make it inside. Our numbers guaranteed our spot when we had to get back in line once the doors opened for the show. Now we had two hours to kill.

After we got our tickets and numbers for the Relentless7 show, we had time to kill, and we took Laurens advice and headed to the Hole in The Wall bar across the street. After drinking beer for part of the afternoon outside, and spending the past two days walking all over the place, exhaustion finally kicked in once I sat at the bar. I felt like setting my head on the bar and not doing anything. I ordered a beer, but then decided to get water and drank all of it before drinking again. We spent most of the 2 hours chatting among a mixed match group of Austinites, before getting back in line for the ACL taping right around 7:20 or so.

At this point there was a steady stream of people entering who had guaranteed tickets going to the show, but at 7:40 if they are late they have to get back to the space available line. I think all of them were in by 7:40 and staff started walking up and down the line counting heads repeatedly, which was getting us really nervous. My friend Lauren who works for the production crew informed us our odds were good, but the closer we got the more nervous we were. Like really nervous. Eventually we got near the door and we were let in.

From here on out the next 6 hours would be the pinnacle of my SXSW experience. Once inside they had free beer, and I was told to grab as much as possible. So two beers were in my hands going into the studio. We were given a couple warnings about taking photos and videos, and not long after the Relentless7 showed up. One of the cool things about the venue is its capacity of 320 and the intimacy of the venue with amazing sound and lighting. You couldn’t have a more intimate and up-close venue for a major band.

When trying to compare this to something, I had just watched the My Morning Jacket Austin City Limits show the week before, and that’s what I have to compare it to. I imagine that MMJ couldn’t have been any better than the Relentless7. At this point in time, I have only heard a couple of R7 songs a few times so I don’t know the song titles. It’s truly awesome to see tons of new material that sounds great, and have never heardthe songs before.

One of the things I heard a few times is people talking about throughout the weekend is how they want to hear old Ben Harper in the show. I am sorry, but this is an entirely new band with completely different sound. There will be no old Ben Harper played, but you wont have anything to complain about when the show is over. They rock; Ben Harper rocks on guitar, and my friend Jordan tears poop up on the drums. Their new sound is one of the bands that is revitalizing rock n roll. I couldn’t have imagined this show could be any better, and it quickly ranked in my top ten best shows ever.

Eventually it ended after a solid two hours. I don’t need to describe it too greatly since it will be on TV later, but not until October. Hopefully I can see my face somewhere on the show. Afterwards, I bought an awesome concert poster and a t-shirt, and then met up out front with my friend Lauren to chat for a few minutes before heading out into the abyss of SXSW again. She has an awesome job as a producer of the show and that pretty much sums it up.

So after the epic R7 concert we head downtown to see what’s next. Upon arrival to 6th street, we walk by The Radio Room where MSTRKRFT was going to play at 1 am. It was barely after 11 and we get in line, and they instruct us that the entrance is in an alley behind the venue. So off to the line we go.

At this point in time we had no idea of the crazy poop that was going to go down in an hour and a half. The line was moving slowly, but it wasn’t total badges and wristbands so we had a chance. Lots of conversations were sparked in line, but the line was barely moving. At 12 was Steve Aoki, and near the time MSTRKRFT was going to start some guy walked by and said it was badges only from then on.

At this point after waiting in line for nearly two hours, no one close wanted to leave. We all thought we still had a chance, and some people left and the rest moved in closer to the fence. At one point I tried to sneak past security and made it past 5 security personnel, but got yanked out by the last guy. Once MSTRKRFT started the badgeless people moved in closer and clogged up the alley. At one point four girls were grinding the security guard, but he wouldn’t budge. We started a big dance party in the alley that was encroaching on the security guards until it got to the point where they were pushing us back.

Eventually a cop showed up and tried to regulate, but after a few minutes the dance party was back and rowdy as ever with MSTRKRFT on the other side of the fence. Eventually we became too hard to contain, and the big guns were called in. First they drove a police car down the alley, but all it did was make people move out of the way. Next up was the horses and moderate aggression by the police force. We were pretty out of hand, and some people were not abiding so the police headed at us with the horses. One horse got right in my face, and I recorded it on video but it was kind of dark.

Eventually they cleared out the alley, and when the last of us got back to the street a giant uproar of screaming ensued. It is really hard to describe the whole situation of what happened, but it was wild and crazy and a blast to be a part of. Shortly there after they shutdown the MSTRKRFT show momentarily, but at that point we headed out around 1:30.

At this point there wasn’t much time left, and I knew what the last option was going to be. Monotonix at Mohawk’s. I had heard they were nuts, but that barely describes what went down at their show. I guess they play some songs, but for the most part they were playing drums in the crowd, and then they handed the drums and seat to the crowd, and climbed on the seat and started playing the drums while crowdsurfing. It’s hard to describe the crazy energy of the show.

Monotonix doesn’t give a poop about hurting themselves, at one point he belly flopped into the crowd from the roof of the tent. I saw blood on his shoulder and I am sure he didn’t care. Eventually they brang the crowd outside and took it to the street for the last part of the show. Their show was absolute madness and a great ending to one crazy weekend.

Upon the ending of the show, me and Josh went and got some pizza then headed back to the house from the house party earlier. A necessary sit down break was due before the Exodus of our SXSW experience. Eventually the time came and we split from Mike’s house. So that ends the musical journey and we head back to Jess’s house.

In the morning we woke and met up with Chance and Lauren for breakfast at Juan in a Million. When we were leaving josh ran into his aunt and uncle at the same restaurant. It truly is a small world. Then we headed back to pack up from Jess’s and leave.

I would like to say the journey was over, but being spring break and SXSW, the exodus caused a normal 3 hour drive to take over 5 hours to get back to Fort worth. In the middle of this I stopped by IKEA since its no where near my house, and I bought some food and poster frames. Then it was bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way to Hillsboro. Eventually I arrived safe at home, but it was a poopy drive to have a manual transmission.

All in all, SXSW reigns supreme in having the most live music available in one area, after spending the last couple of years regularly attending festivals, nothing beats the lineup that SXSW has to offer. Absolutely nothing on the planet. The main difference is proximity, lots of walking is required and it takes a lot more planning. I can’t wait until next year again, and I will plan accordingly.