the ryan king

Holy shit batman! South by Southwest rocks!

I’m sitting in the hotel, just getting stuff packed up and ready to roll out. The party’s not over, there’s still stuff going on tonight, but my flight is leaving at 4pm today– I gotta get back to SF, I’ve been gone for 8 days now. Anyway, here’s a quick run-down of the rest of the trip:

Thursday, I saw Aberdeen City at the Blind Pig Pub (they rock!), then over to Film School at Club Deville, then Hurra Torpedo at Fox and Hound.

Just a little note about Hurra Torpedo– I think they would be best described as “awkwardly erotic norwegian appliance rock.” Seriously, the band is three Norwegian guys in matching track suits (which are falling halfway off their asses), who bang on appliances (stoves, washers and dryers). They did the best version of Total Eclipse of the Heart I’ve ever heard. Then they smashed up the appliances.

After this Mark, Nicole and I ran over to see The Refugee All-stars, who’s documentary we’d seen earlier that day. A great show, which we followed up with a quick trip over to see Chin up, Chin up a Chicago-based indie-rock band (a pic).

Our final show of the night was Nickel Creek at Stubb’s. They were fun and even did a cover of Britney Spears’ Toxic (to help a stuggling, working mother out).

I’m not sure how we did it, but in 4 hours, we saw ‘awkwardly erotic norwegian appliance rock’, west afrian traditional music, indie rock and bluegrass.

Did I mention that SxSW rocks? Those fools who left after Interactive don’t know what they’re missing.

Alright, enough with Thursday, on to Friday.

Yesterday I got started even earlier, heading to a party thrown by Filter at about noon to meet up with Mark and Nicole. I saw a couple of bands there including a great one called Illinois. After picking up some free shoes from Saucony (yay schwag!) I headed over to The Drink to catch Birdmonster with Willo, Misty and Ted.

From there, I went to meet up with Buzz and some old friends of his at The Boiling Pot, a cajun seafood restaurant. We were there because Buzz wanted to hear The Twilight Singers, who were playing at an invite-only party across the way. So, we sat on the deck of the restaurant, ate crawfish, shrimp and crab with our hands and listened to some rockin’ music.

The rest of the night consisted of Brakes, Tilly and the Wall (tap dance rock!), an attempt at Billy Bragg (but it was packed), The Lashes (ew, high school girl rock), DMBQ (cheesy japan rock), The Spinto Band (tight six-piece rock) and finally Tapes ‘n Tapes (good tunes, awesome drummer).

I wish I could stay until tomorrow, but I’m not sure I’d be able to survive.

Wow, I’ve had a great time at SxSW so far.

I got here last friday and went straight into party mode and haven’t stopped yet.

On Saturday, Sunday and Monday I went to a bunch of panels, most of which were very interesting. I also met a bunch of people (who’s cards I’ve collected and need to email sometime) and made new friends (and dodgeball connections) from all over the place. And that was just the first part of the week.

As Interactive wound down, all the web geeks started rolling out and a new crowd began to arrive, now the town is overrun with music industry people and music fans and, most importantly, musicians.

Starting yesterday its been all rock, all the time. Just yesterday I saw The Slip and Denague Fever at Emo’s Annex, Calla at Red Eye Fly, Aberdeen City at Dirty Dog Bar, Brightblack Morning Light and The New Pornographers at Stubb’s and then…

The Flaming Lips!!!!

The Flaming Lips played a secret show at Fox and Hound at 11PM last night and I got to see it! Kris and Buzz have photos (they got up on stage to take them!).

After that, I planned on walking over to Emo’s main room to see Trail of the Dead, but I totally crashed, so I headed back to the hotel for some rest.

I’ve also seen a couple films– yesterday I watched LOL, a film about what happens when people are addicted to the interweb and it causes drama in their face-to-face lives. Not to name names, but the guy sitting next to me totally missed half the movie while playing with his crackberry.

This morning, I saw The Refugee All-star Band a film about Liberian refugees in Guinea who formed a band while living in refugee camps. The best parts? The band was sitting in the row right in front of me, took questions during the Q&A and will be performing tonight! They’re worth seeing live.

Anyway, off to more music, later.

For awhile, I’ve been buying most of my music from the iTunes music store. Not any more.

I just got a shipment from Amazon with 6 CDs in it, which brought more excitement that a download never could.

I know others are going the other direction, but I’ve found that buying all my music digitally is just too ephemeral. I love having a shelf full of gem cases for my CDs.

Sure, whenever I get a CD, the first thing I do is rip it to MP3. Still, I really appreciate having the physical media.