SXSW 2009 - Saturday

I hit the Convention Center today at noon on a mission: making contact with booking agents about a summer tour for The Daze, for whom I am the official unofficial manager. I ended up leaving around four, after having strategically dropped of a few copies of the "Blizzard Woman Blues EP", and went to the Twenty-First Street Co-Op to see Bamboo play a set in collaboration with Tigerpussy.

As soon as I walked into the concert I spotted a few things: panties and bras hung from the ceiling, a naked guy casually enjoying the show, someone smoking a joint-- all signs that Austin is alive and well despite the clusterfuck of out of towners that is SXSW. "Yes, son, those are Hippies," my dad might've said...

The Daze went on at six and started a strong set, but unfortunately I had to leave to head to a MTV taping of Late of the Pier inside the Bat Bar. My friend, a photographer named Pooneh, had asked me the day before while at the King Khan show whether or not I would be interested in taking part in the taping. Of course I said yes, a decision that led to me (black robe/red mask) picking up the Pier's drummer and carrying him off stage at the end of their set. It was really astounding how much preparation had gone into those fifteen seconds were we sequestered the band because, in the end, it only took a few seconds.

Other than the taping, today was a pretty slow day, and it appeared much of Austin shared the same malaise as I did. I was surprised at how welcoming the security was to me when I showed up to the taping. I mentioned it to one of the stage managers inside and he said "Everyone's tired. The only thing we want to do when we're done is go out to the bars, but then we can't sleep so we just end up staying up. Everything's pretty much on auto-pilot now."

Auto-pilot. That sounds like it would be really nice.

Thanks for checking these updates! Thanks to Austin for being such an awesome city, thanks to Val and RAPT Magazine for putting me in the middle of this big (fun) mess, thanks to everyone who made this weekend possible and even awesome!

- MF