Greetings from the streets of Austin, PopWatchers! It is a horrid, drizzly day, but if there’s one group of people who know how to plan for inclement weather, it’s Canadians… and so I’d like to thank the organizers of the Canadian Blast for providing me this wonderful tent to sit under and drop a line to all my bloggy friends.
BREAKING NEWS: My mother has just called to inform me that Rascal Flatts canceled their concert at tonight’s Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I do not know any further details, but if I were a bettin’ gal, I’d say Gary and Jay’s pretty severe illnesses finally caught up with them, and I wish them, sincerely, a speedy recovery. Sympathies to anyone who had tix; why not use your raincheck to catch Dierks Bentley on Friday night?
Anyway, I think I’m the first EW reporter to hit Austin — Michael Endelman, Leah Greenblatt, and Shirley Halperin are on their way, and EW.com editor Adrienne Day is someplace prepping to play flute (we’ll let her explain that if she wants to) — and my journey in from Houston involved significantly more hail than I’d like it to. But after stopping at two gas stations and a Taco Bell to let the blinding storm pass, the family Saturn and I arrived in the state capital and got down to business. It took me an (almost) painless 45 minutes to get my credentials, but my badge and I are ready to go.
First band of my festival: Young Galaxy, out of Montreal, on Arts& Crafts. Melodic, shouty groove rock, with keys and tambourine,and a drummer who looked like George Harrison. I give them a tentativestamp of approval, but would have to hear more than two songs to reallyknow. But hey, Canadians (and the Arts & Crafts label) get a bigbenefit of the doubt. In fact, I can’t name a group of musical Canucksthat I don’t enjoy… can you?
A band called The Cliks are playing right now; I cannot hear themover the DJ booth, which has inexplicably been left on, and is playinga Wham! song. It seems as though they are garage-rocky, though. Oh!Wait! I can hear them now… and they are covering Justin Timberlake’s"Cry Me A River"! Well, okay then! That’s one way to get my attention,and to trump Wham!.
Next: a much-hyped young man named Luke Doucet. And then I have towalk across the street and attend Pete Townshend’s keynote address.Which will be about something compelling, I’m certain.
Look for more posts as the day — and the festival — roll on, and be sure to check in at our EW Flickr page throughout the week for hot pics of all the hot action. Hott!
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Hey…my brother’s going down there with “The First Communion After Party”! Good stuff
and just a heads up…people that live in Austin don’t say howdy.
I think you really need to check out the Fatal Flying Guilloteens. Not that I know anything about them or their music, but so far they’re in the lead for “best band name of the festival”, as determined by me. Also, they seem to have badly-applied face paint, which is always a sign of quality.
Oh yay, you get to see Luke Doucet!! he is fantastic and well worth the time to get into his songs…he is hard to categorize but if I was gonna try, I’d say he’s rootsy rock with a little country and a little something else (a la Hawksley Workman) thrown in there…
I hope you enjoy him as much as I do…download ‘Broken One’ and ‘Free’, them are some good tunes!
You know, maybe this is unfair of me, but ever since I was introduced to SXSW on “The Real World”, I kind of just dismissed it. That’s because it was pimped by something as phoney as “The Real World”. I guess I should get over myself, huh?
You know, the music scene in North Texas isn’t bad either. I used to go see this funk band called “Whitey” in the early 90’s – that was a total event everytime. God bless the Denton All-Stars!!!
Hope you have fun. I’ve been doing the film portion of SXSW all week, but I’m getting bored with it.
You should REALLY check out Dallas band, Radiant -
“Jimmy Kimmel’s Best Unsigned Band in America, Radiant Plays SXSW – Radiant was chosen by a panel of judges from Pontiac and Jimmy Kimmel Live and won the breakthrough booking of a lifetime – they opened for POD and My Chemical Romance, in Times Square, on New Year’s Eve in front of 2 million people. Now they are at SXSW -
thurs. march 15 SXSW party, nordstrom in austin @ 2pm
sat. march 17 SXSW in austin (Blackland Records party) @ the red fez at 4pm
For More Information: http://www.myspace.com/radiantmusic or
http://www.radianttheband.com
Signed -
A true Radiant fan!
Sunshine Underground!!!!! They are the must see at SXSW.