So the craziness of SXSW is finally over. I have spent the last few days sleeping and re-hydrating myself, and I think I’m mostly recovered now. As I mentioned before this was the first year I’ve actually attempted to do some stuff for the festival (not including tagging along to a free day party last year). I had a relatively large list of things that I was aiming to do but ended up doing much less, mainly because I didn’t want to spend a hojillion dollars while (f)unemployed.
Wednesday I dragged Dane to the Datapop Party for some chiptunes. I’m not really familiar with the 8 bit music scene so I figured this was an excellent chance to hear some new stuff. Plus, it was free. The sound balance was off giving me a hard time hearing the band names when they were announced and the vocals for the band that did showtunes covers. The venue is sort of weird and echo-y, too. It’s an old Salvation Army, which means it’s basically a warehouse with concrete floors. Half of the floor space was blocked with fabric barriers. Maybe fire code means that the maximum allowed amount of people make the space look empty and they were trying to make it look more full by condensing the crowd? It could also be partly for reducing the echo, but they could have been set up further back if that were the case. At least there’s plenty of parking and they gave us free Red Bull. (Too bad the bartender gave me a sugar-free one. Pyrrhic victory FTL.) I liked everything I heard and had a great time bouncing around. I also discovered later the name of my favorite act of the night: Sievert, who has a bunch of music up for free. Please to be checking it out. It’s basically extremely upbeat drum and bass with Gameboy musics.
Friday night was the “official” Nerdcore showcase at Prague on Congress. Since it was listed as an “official” SXSW show I didn’t know if I could get in, but they didn’t seem to care that I was sans badge and wristband. They happily took my $8 and ushered me in. Man, that venue was wildly inappropriate for the type of show, but that’s a whole different story (or, more likely, Yelp review). There were a couple of non-Nerdcore rappers on the bill as well, and we walked in during the first (Phranchyze, for those who are interested…not really my style, as it was mostly straight hip-hop. Nice beats, though.) Up next was Terp2it, Austin’s local nerdcore artist. His stuff is more silly than most of the other nerdcore I’ve heard, but it’s definitely funny and charming in it’s own way. Especially the part where he did a freestyle rap using someone’s VW owner’s manual. I hadn’t heard any of Jesse Dangerously‘s solo stuff (just his stuff with Lars and Front) so it was cool to see him perform. I’m definitely picking up his albums on emusic as soon as my downloads refresh. Frontalot was next and, naturally, put on a great show. I was expecting Lars afterwards but he wasn’t scheduled to go on till 1am, and it was only about 12:15. I also started to notice that the bar was getting really crowded. And most of the people coming in weren’t nerds. No, they were of the popped collar/miniskirts with cowboy boots persuasion. Curiouser and curiouser! Well, imagine my surprise when a gold-painted man with curlers and a Rococo pimp took the stage and started rapping about their limousine. Zuh? I found out later they were Lord T and Eloise, who apparently combine crunk and the 18th century in Memphis. I cannot tell you if they were any good as they were absolutely DEAFENING and I had to jam my earplugs in as hard as possible so my ears would be undamaged enough to hear Lars when he came on. I can tell you that the people scheduling these things at SXSW probably need to do a bit more research. ANYWAYS. Lars came on after the craziness and put on a lovely show, despite the fact that his drummer was sitting in an airport on standby. We had the excellent luck that Jaret Reddick (of Bowling for Soup) was also at SXSW and was able to sing his chorus for “Download This Song”.
I’m pretty sure that SXSW officially ended on Saturday, but the nerdcore dudes played again on Sunday night at the Spiderhouse Art Authority. I liked the show much better as it was more relaxed and I was actually able to hear. Plus, by virtue of my Blue Sun shirt, Quani and I got introduced to all of the artists and got to hang out ridiculously late with them. All of them were super nice (especially Jesse) once I managed to get over my fangirl stuttering.
