SXSW 05 Elvis Costello, Ian Hunter, Robert Plant, Brian Wilson, John Cale, Nanci Griffith, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Mavis Staples, Sleater-Kinney, Judith Owen featuring Harry Shearer (?!), Robyn Hitchcock, Jimmy Elledge, Floyd Domino, Raul Malo, Shooter Jennings, Roy Head (doing “Just One More Time”!), Buddy Miller, Marty Stuart, James Talley, Dash Rip Rock, Daniel Johnston, The Rolling Blackouts, Yuppie Pricks, Selfish Cunt, the Bloody Hollies, Holy Fuck, not to mention the panel with a newly healthy and levelheaded Roky Erickson and the entire 13th Floor Elevators, the Faces panel with Ian McLagan, Robert Plant’s speech -- these are just SOME of the things I missed at this year’s glorious South By Southwest in heavenly Austin, Texas Tuesday, March 15th This year SXSW was a series of ups and downs for me. My flight to Dallas/Ft. Worth was up, bec on the crowded plane nobody sat next to me. The flight from D/FW to Austin was down bec I had a huge guy next to me spilling into my space. Then came bag pickup in Austin. I spied publicist Cary Baker at the bag carousel. He was easy to spot bec he was twitching maniacally. “Where are the BAGS?” he half-screamed. I asked if he could give me a lift to the Convention Center. He said OK with no enthusiasm: for one I was leaning on him, for another ten more seconds passed without bags. Then ten came: then the carousel stopped. “This is it! I’m going to find the manager.” People were still filing in from our plane as he dashed off with fire in his eyes. The carousel resumed in his absence and when he got back as luck, not mine, would have it, his was the first. He grabbed it and stood impatiently behind me. Every second was an hour as I felt his eyes burn into my back. I could feel he was having a Larry David Moment: having consented to give me a ride, he was now ready to go but kinda sorta felt morally obligated to wait for me. Seconds more passed, perhaps a minute, and, unable to stand it any longer, I said “If you go up to Avis I’ll be right there when my bag comes.” “I’ll wait a reasonable time” he said ominously, and dashed off with the speed of Mercury (which Avis doesn’t rent). As he disappeared I realized we hadn’t exchanged cell phone numbers. When two people make a plan as vague as ours they must have means to reach one another. But he was gone. It probably took five minutes for my bag to come. I dragged it up the stairs -- it had rollers, but no leash, so I had to stoop, with my two carry-ons weighing down my shoulders, like Quasimodo -- and walked across the drive through the wind and rain to the Avis stand. “Oh Mister Baker just left” they told me. I struggled back down and caught a cab. I cannot blame Cary for running off without me: he can’t help being who he is. I can only blame myself for not insisting we exchange numbers. After all, I’m in communications. I went to the cab stand. The first cabbie was an Indo-Pak guy with a mustache, around 40. “How much to go downtown?” I asked. He grabbed my bag. “Nineteen or twenty” he said, “or you can take a bus for 50 cents.” “Whoa,” I said, halting him. In a kindly tone, so he could make amends, I said gently “Why did you tell me how much a bus costs? I didn’t complain about the price.” “If you want to save money, you can take a bus” he said, in character. “Go to hell” I said, in character, and went to the next cab. He was a nice guy, from Ethiopia. That was two bads (I’m dropping this motif soon) (not to mention the notion of “a bad” as a noun -- when someone says “My bad” don’t you want to say “Goo goo, poo poo” to them?) but my visit to the Convention Center was bad/very good. I went into the rest room to change clothes. I came back out with my three bags and looked for my cell phone. No dice. I asked the girl next to me to call me, since my phone was set on loud and would surely make itself known in my luggage or coat. She called; no sound. I wondered if I’d left it in the cab. I dashed into the bathroom, but it wasn’t there. Then I noticed an Information booth. I asked if anyone had turned in a cell phone. She showed me a silver one (mine was silver) but it wasn’t it. I was disappointed. “Were you in the bathroom?” she asked. I said yep, and she handed me my cell phone in the white airsickness bag on which I had written notes -- and also in the bag was a $20 bill I’d apparently left with it. What a swell turnaround! I was in Tuesday, the day before the big crunch, so obtained my badge and bag by simply walking up to the booth and asking for it. Doing so the very next day would have been a long, long ordeal which, that day, I spied several times from the sidelines. My host Kent Benjamin came, we went to Cheapo, where I ran into Billy Davis, head of the Blasters fan club. At 6:00 we went to the Texas Chili Parlor, my traditional first stop, and met Steve Allen (of 20/20, L.A., now a Nashville musician/songwriter) and his Nashville friend Mike Webb, and were then joined by Dwight Twilley and his wife Jan, in from Tulsa. At 8:30 we all convened at the home of Ron Flynt, ex 20/20 now of Austin, for Twilley to practice with them for shows by both Dwight and Ron. Wensday Hooked up, in the pre-current sense, with Suzanne Sherwin, an L.A. musician who lived in Nashville for 10 years musicking and is now (for 6 weeks) an Austinite. We went to Hill’s Cafe on south Congress and chowed: best thing about the breakfast was the swell decor. Then I went to the Convention Center to circulate. Saw many familiar faces, including the wonderful Elizabeth Derzco’s. I parked from habit at the Red River open lot/mudhole for $7 and then remembered that SXSW had shifted diagonally to the other side of the convention center, necessitating a nice (indoor -- it was cold and windy) walk past the old sites and began an hour of being a pinball, caroming off of whoever I ran into. Got a in-house call from Margaux, a Belgian-now-English rock-singer I knew from L.A. We went to Threadgills on Riverside and after lunch I returned to ‘work’ the convention center, geting a street parking space with a meter which turned to “Fail” upon the insertion of my third quarter. Returned to Threadgills at 6 to see the Hacienda Brothers. By me, this is a supergroup, led by the great Chris Gaffney and his equal, Dave Gonzales of the Paladins. Chris led off with “Life’s Ups & Downs,” the Charlie Rich song . It only could have been better if the temperature was 20 degrees warmer. (Smart people were huddled around an open-pit fire.) There was a publicist-sponsored party in a back room which I inadvertently crashed seeking Kent. Didn’t find him, but saw a table of grey-hairs and settled for Ed Ward (a no-hair) and some others. Soon Billy Altman arrived fresh off the plane from New York. They all ate while I kept food at bay -- I wasn’t invited to this soiree after all -- and afterwards Kent and me took Altman to his hotel, stopping first to squeeze the Twilleys, again, into Kent’s car for a 9:00 showcase. We went to the Cedar Street Courtyard to see Susan Cowsill, Dwight twilley’s ex1, do a marvelous set; she is powerful, she is great. We then went to see Ian Mclagan at midnight at the Saxon. Thursday Had breakfast at Maudie’s with Kent. He took me to Enterprise on Lamar where I obtained a car. Went to the Convention Center. Got the SAME parking space with the broken meter. Went to the Trade Show. This assemblage of business booths was central to the convention when it was centrally located, but now could be missed. Inside, the concert stage was in a distant corner. While this may alleviate noise-intrusion into the merchants’ booths, it also deadened the air, making the room oddly quiet, and relegating the few, pathetic (situation) performers on the former pivotal concert stage to play, every time I checked, to a near-empty room. Went to the airport to pick up some french friends coming for the fete. Went to Threadgills at 6 to see Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez, but their set was hindered by the rock band on the patio at Bennigan’s across the street, whose thundering bass (and lack of a sound-absorbing audience) shook the street for blocks and ruined some of the Chip & Carrie’s quieter songs. Ran into Mark Leviton from L.A., and his fr Soleil. Weather better than Wensday, I went to 6th Street and dipped into a couple of clubs, then to the Continental Club for the YepRoc show featuring C.C. Adcock. There I called James Trussart, the french guitar maker, who said he was standing in front of the Continental. I walked out front, no James, and called back: he’d asked someone for the Continental on Congress and they sent him to the Continental Hotel at 7th & Congress. So much for the total penetration of SXSW on the town’s consciousness! He came to the Continental Club, we saw the Chatham County Line bluegrass group (in my mind harking back not to the bluegrass players of the 30s but the bluegrass college kids of the late 1950s), then down to 6th, then to the Tamboleo Club, far off the path on Bowie Street, to see Dead Sexy, the french cabaret-rock group: pretty great. Friday At 11 a.m. I went to the BMI breakfast on the lawn in back of the Four Seasons. My invitor, Charlie Feldman, told me to use his name if I had any trouble getting in, but no one was checking names so I waltzed right in. Food was excellent. A few acoustic-driven bands had the unenviable task of entertaining the audience of business-people. Then took a french friend to Kerbey Lane on Lamar, which I thought was Maudie’s. (Went in without looking at the sign. Did however notice the sign warning that you could not bring an UNREGISTERED gun into the restaurant.) Had an enormous blueberry cobbler. We went to convention center and popped into the Brian Wilson panel, then to the Australia Rocks!, or something like that, tent across the street. The weather had warmed but it was still windy. Then went to my appointment at an adjacent tent shared by Iris Distributing, where I saw one of their (distributed) bands and met Bryn Boughton, head of Iris. Then, heading back home, I passed Maria’s Tacos on Lamar, and got a great parking spot right in front. There was a makeshift stage between Maria’s and the cowboy boot place, on which sang troubadour Steve Easton. He was great, and I waited a while then saw Michelle Shocked. (Like last year, she still talks as much as sings. Is this country-rap?) From there I ran down to Congress to look at cowboy boots at Allen’s Boots, then came back and talked to John Doe backstage before his show. (I caught only the final song of Soda and the Million Man Band, a GREAT act.) Watched John Doe, then went home to rest. At 10 I went to the Elysium to see Wreckless Eric. My god, what a great performer, alone with his electric guitar. Brilliant, far outshining his Stiff album of the late 70s, which was pretty great. I had seen him by accident at the 1992 SXSW and was knocked out. He was tremendous, very dramatic, reminding me, at times, of The Sensational Alex Harvey. Then out to Opal Divine’s on west 6th to see Two Hoots and A Holler, my longtime Austin faves. Had to eat first at Katz’s Deli, which offered free parking (and subsequent club-roaming) if you eat there (and then put the receipt on the car’s dash2). Caught the last few songs of Two Hoots and they were fantastic, a great reassurance for me: the recent times I’d seen them at Ego’s, the low-ceilinged smoky local club, they’d seemed to be playing routinely, but this night they were stars -- what a version of the Phantom’s “Love Me!” - topped by singer Ricky Broussard smashing his guitar to pieces.3 Then I saw the Bastard Sons Of Johnny Cash from Carlsbad, CA, but didn’t stay for Burrito Deluxe, my main motivation being to talk to Garth Hudson, a long lost acquaintance, after learning he left the band. Walked across the street to Mother Egan’s and caught the end of Bruce Robison’s set. Saturday Breakfast at the Magnolia Cafe on Congress. Magnolia’s waiting-list announcement is broadcast into the gift shop next door (do they own it?). Then off to glamorous Cornell Hurd’s show, a wonderful, reliably great non-SXSW thing at the Texicali on Oltorf. However, the sun was unusually piercing, at only 80 degrees or so, and we headed for shelter, still listening to the wonderful country-swing etc. sounds, including a rockin’ stint by Bill Kirchen (ex-Commander Cody) and Marti Brom. Drove around 4:00 in incredibly hard rain (like a bucket upturned by god, the hardest I’ve ever experienced) over to check on Kent at the Dog & Duck, where the Pop Culture Press “expo” was on. They had moved everything to high ground when the rain hit, but just as decisively it disappeared and the music continued. That night I saw Harvey Sid Fisher’s solo gig at the Chuggin’ Monkey on 6th, a Busman’s Holiday for me. He has some incredible new songs. He invited people onstage to sing background chirps, but one of them, a total stranger to Harvey, sang the songs along with him, word for word. At 11 I caught Black Tie Dynasty, a band that sounds like the Cure 4, at Habana Calle 65.At midnight I caught part of Dwight Twilley’s well-attended show at the Vibe, then ran into Rosie Flores on the street and she suggested I go see Bobby Bare Jr. at the Parish, which I did. From there I bounced back to Habana and saw Ron Flynt’s band, doing his wonderful Austin/Southern California rock. Sunday Went to get some gifts on South Congress, and also out to Out Of The Past on north Burnet, and the toy store on Guadalupe near Antone’s Records. Went out to the SXSW picnic hoo-ha around noon and stayed til the Twilleys called Kent needing a ride to the airport. Where I also went. 1 The Twilley/Cowsill Saga, or “Attention Pete Frame!” (from Kent Benjamin): Jan Allison and Susan Cowsill were childhood pals in a Hollywood young actors/arts school. Circa '78 Susan and her bro John Cowsill replaced Phil Seymour as Twilley's drummer/backing singer. John stayed a couple of years, but Susan and Dwight stayed together a bit over 10 years. John Cowsill married Jan Allison, who became Jan Cowsill. After Dwight and Susan split circa '90, Susan and Vicki Peterson (Bangles) became best friends and formed the Pyscho Sisters. The Psycho Sisters started singing on the Continental Drifters records. Susan and (Continental Drifter) Peter Holsapple (div. from Ilene Markell) started dating and got married circa '94 and moved to New Orleans. Vicki followed as she was dating the C-Drifters' bassist. They joined the band. Dwight got married to Jan Cowsill and they moved to Tulsa circa '94. Russ Broussard replaced the original Drifters drummer. Peter and Susan had a child but got divorced. Susan and Russ Broussard fell in love and got married. Susan and Russ quit the Drifters, which kinda broke up the band. Vicki moved back to LA when the Bangles reformed. Fell in love with and married John Cowsill. 2 Damn new cars have dashboards that slope every which way but flat, making this difficult. 3 I asked Two Hoots bass player Vic Gerard if the guitar-smashing was something new and he said Ricky did it every couple of years now “but in the late 80s we used to buy old Silvertones for 20 bucks and smash one every show.” Tears came to both our eyes over the loss. 4 How, you ask, would I know if someone sounded like the Cure? I asked Arthur-Who-Looks-Like-Robert-Plant, a friend of a friend. 5 Che Guevara is on the restaurant’s logo. Is that altogether right? Does everyone dig Che, all Cubans I mean? He’s got a great face, beard, beret, which ranks him with James Dean, Chet Baker, and other facial icons, but isn’t it risky putting his puss on your menu? Not everyone Viva’s La Revolucion. Like when a restaurant on Melrose here called itself La Cosa Nostra or something like that. “This couldn’t be run by Italians,” I thought, “because they would be sensitive about associating with the shameful crime organization.” Of course, I was a amused in L.A. in 1987 when a coffeehouse named Gorky’s opened up. The place was decorated entirely in Soviet communist decor. What was great was the tongue in cheek: it was saying that communism is so long-lost a threat that we can mock it openly. Even nostalgically. AF - Harvey Sid Fisher - Vic Gerard (Two Hoots @ Opal Devine's) [Photo: S, Hernandez] Steve Easton @ Sin City Fasionistas @ Stubbs Ian McLagan outside Saxon Pub Paul Body at Al Kooper's Rainbow Grill party, January, 2005 (I saw neither of them at SXSW)