SXSW Tour Wrapup
Hello there.
PF Hot Seat here, sitting shotgun to Meester Heironymous Volcano, who’s currently yelling at a driver in a ridiculously done-up Civic who can’t decide if he wants to go 75 in the right lane or 60 in the left lane. We’re in hour 15 of our Austin to Richmond extravaganza and perhaps the senses are all a bit acute at the moment. Such long jaunts in a van are known to beget altogether new senses and abilities: the 6th sense of hilarious/disturbing billboard detection, the 7th sense allowing the driver to know just when a band member’s bladder has reached capacity, the ability to sleep in cartoonishly contorted positions, and the unusual realization at the similarity between fast food restaurant exhaust and fart smell. Personally, I find that currently my arms and hands are moving somewhat independently of my brain. Not that they’re doing things on their own—more that, as I stare at them, they seem to have no significance as originating from my body. Oh, I see now that Jake is actually poking his arms through my armpits, having a larf. Hah. We joke! So funny! ( …only 9 hours to go.)
I realize that a whole tour has gone by with no blog reports yet. No excuse for that, I’ll admit, just the easily distracted mind of the professional stringband musician. Too many details have already faded to give a proper day-to-day report, but here’s a summary.
I’ll start on a more general note. You may not have a good sense of the life of the migratory stringband—hell, we’re not even clear on how other bands do it—but for us, it works thusly. Frequently we’ll roll into a town with no clear idea where we are sleeping. We Hot Seats are firm believers in the Priceline bidding system of hotel roomery, but generally we are looking in the under $20/room range. As you might imagine, this sometimes leads to hotel beds upon which you DO NOT want to sleep. More often, however, we end up staying at someone’s house. We have slept five abreast on the tiniest floor of the shittiest apartment, and we have lived like kings with separate rooms and meals aplenty.
Now, if you are a person that puts up traveling bands, you are automatically a saint and there’s a special place carved out in whatever afterlife you choose, just for you. When next you see a band on stage, if you can just tell that they can’t afford a hotel room, and don’t seem to have any friends in town, and if you have a relatively clean house with floor space and/or couches and/or spare bedrooms, you can instantly make 2-7 new friends, just like that! Now, I can’t speak for other bands, but when The Hot Seats come to stay at your house, we aim for the “Best Guest” award. E-v-e-r-y time. We’ll do dishes, we’ll sweep, we’ll empty yer trash, we’ll make you breakfast (and then clean up after ourselves).
In this way, we have been fortunate in our travels to have made some great friends. Some offer their homes and company ahead of time, and some turn out to be that particular saint who says at 2:30am, “Sure, you can come stay at my house! We have two guest rooms and I just happen to have made a massive 10 gallon pot of soup that I’ll never finish on my own.”
There have been too many hosts to name, and we don’t want to offend by neglecting to mention anyone by name, so I’ll stick to this tour and thank the following people: Don in Damascus (possibly our longest standing patron), Brent in Knoxville, Jon and Pam in Huntsville, Margaux in Ocean Springs (twice!), Brook and Gavin in Montevallo, Steve and Mary in Baton Rouge (Special prize for these two. No offense to any of our other hosts, but these two had gumbo ready for us to eat the moment we arrived, and an endless buffet of delicious sandwiches, boudin, beers and bourbon after the show. Phew1 Hard to top!), and Chad, Corey, and Christina in Austin. Every one of you, and any of our other hosts, you will all be welcome in the kingdom of The Hot Seats, some day after January 1st, 2012.
Again, sparing you the blow-by-blow account of these last 10 days and shows (almost wholly successful and tons of fun), I’ll lay out some highlights (and a few pics):
OK, so South By Southwest (SXSW) deserves it’s own section, I’d say. First of all, if you hear someone call it “South By,” you have our permission to grab his or her tongue and just not let go until it’s clear that they’ll use it more responsibly. Gag.
First of all, we drove from Baton Rouge to Austin, taking us right past Houston, which seems to extend about 60 miles past its corporate limits with just the worst sprawl we’ve heretofore seen. Texas, in general (and I’m not trying to start any fights here), has some of the loopiest highway systems that we’ve ever driven. Miles and miles of unnecessary pavement. And why not? There seems to be nothing but space. Interestingly, we drove into Austin under the cover of darkness and also left in that way, so we never did actually see any of the rest of Texas, aside from rest areas and pavement. Alas, such is the life, folks… unglamorous and pretty much constantly at 70mph.
Back to SXSW. If you don’t know, this is maybe the largest music conference in the US and A. I say ‘music conference’ and not ‘festival’ for a few reasons: 1) It’s primarily a trade show where agents, bookers, label reps, PR folks and an army of other ancillary characters in the music biz gather to press palms, schmooze, drink free booze, and look for the next big thing. 2) On the whole, the bands aren’t PAID. In fact, if yer an official SXSW band, you can’t even legally (contract-wise, at least) play other non-SXSW gigs within some absurd radius around Austin, so it’s a money-losing venture (short term, anyway) for most bands. It is, basically, a cattle auction of musicians. You stand on stage for 20-45 minutes and let buyers check out your haunches and discuss how best to sell you by the pound. Somewhat similar to our experience at the Edinburgh Fringe, except the Fringe is more diverse (no offense, Austin, but where’s your Spiegeltent?). Of course, it’s also a PARTY. Another great excuse for thousands of folks from all over the world to get drunk and hear tons of live music. This is a partial exaggeration, most of these people are pretty serious music lovers and appreciate-ers.
We found it interesting that many of the “showcases” did not feature up-and-coming bands, but the likes of Devo, REM, and Cheap Trick (!), along with dozens of smaller but still fairly well-established, well-promoted, and well-represented bands. Obviously this is a money-maker for somebody, but it does seem to defeat SXSW’s stated purpose. On the other hand, perhaps it does help ensure the presence and attention of thousands of people with open eyes and ears for almost anything with a pair of jeans and a guitar (or banjo, as it were).
We were booked for four unofficial showcases. There are certainly more unofficial showcases going on at SXSW than officials ones, the result being that you can stand on pretty much any block in Austin and hear two or three bands play. We also had a tentative plan to busk, but weren’t sure whether it was allowed – that internet is sure full of contrary information. Our first two days (Wed and Thurs) of showcases were middling in terms of crowd number, though we felt we entertained anyone within earshot. Friday’s showcases at The Baltimore House (a recording and practicing space used by a bunch of Baltimore emigres – very few people in Austin are actually from Austin, of course) and Central Market Westgate were great. At the Central Market we played with Shotgun Party. They were fantastic! Texas-swing-y, funky, maybe a little-Carter Family-y in their harmonies. Maybe more like the Cackle Sisters, really.
So we struck 50/50 on the actual booked gigs. We did, however, hit the streets everyday. On Wednesday, we set up first in front of a large fountain a few blocks from the main drag on 6th Street, but eventually ended up on a corner at 6th St and Brazos. During the daytime, buskers were few, and we saw no one else playing old-timey music but we were undeterred!
When we busk, we tend to stick to old-time and ragtime music—it’s louder and you can play it forever. The tenor banjo is also the loudest instrument in the world, perfect for a street with a bar and a rock band on either corner. The crowd response was fairly immediate, folks of all shapes and sizes coagulating temporarily on the sidewalk around us. It ended up being a much better venue for our music, carnival barking, sticker distribution, etc. Especially within the festival area, many of the listeners (but by no means all) seemed like this kind of music was totally novel to them – old-time, in particular. This was especially true on Friday when we met up with our dear pals The Fox Hunt (surely the only non-ironic mustaches in all of Austin). We blasted the crowds with double fiddle, double banjo, mandolin, guitar, bass and Jake Sellers. Perhaps we (I) got a little carried away with the “old-time music is the best music” schtick, as I couldn’t help but occasionally shout “Your haircut is never too ironic and your pants are never too tight for old-time music, Folks!” You really should have seen the haircuts and pants . . . really.
A few noteworthy busking moments:
I can’t say enough about how much fun this was for us, in particular the special Hot Fox Seat Hunt set. We didn’t watch much music, but you can’t really escape it – it’s pouring out of every bar anywhere remotely close to 6th St.
And now we are driving. Driving driving driving driving driving. And drooling. Drooling over the stop we’re about to make in Johnson City, TN to visit perhaps our most favorite BBQ place—Dixie BBQ. No need to argue with us here. We know everyone’s got their personal preferences, and it’s fair to say that some of our love for Dixie BBQ has simply to do with the experiences we’ve had surrounding our visits—the tri-cities being one of our haunts. But we also love them for their trays of un-sauced smokey hand-pulled pork, and the plethora of regional sauces. And garlic potatoes. And mustard slaw. And and and driving driving driving driving and.
Well, Jake says his hands are tired and he doesn’t want to type anymore, so that’s where I’ll leave this’un. We’re home for 10 days or so, and then back at it, this time heading north (hello Maine and Vermont!) and then slightly south, with some actual gigs in . . . (wait for it) . . . Virginia!
As Colossal Eddie’s Italian Great Grandpappy would say “au-reeve-a-dare-chee!”
