Wheeeee!
I'm ambivalent about SXSW; on the one hand, there's always some sweet ass bands running around, doing like 10 shows a day (this year, there's a high likelyhood that I'll be following Trap Them from venue to venue, only pausing to watch sets by The Red Chord and Wormrot). Many of the shows are free and there are always a large population of my best metal dudebros hanging around. Fun!
And who doesn't like a day of creeping out Trap Them punctuated by dick jokes with your best metal dudebros? Communists! That's who!
"I disapprove of fun and stalking Trap Them."
Last year at the St. Patrick's Day Action P.R./Metalsucks Showcase I attended (Clinging to the Trees of A Forest Fire, Withered, Bison B.C., Gates of Slumber, Scale the Summit, and High on Fire, among others), I achieved the pinnacle of my life, wherein Matt Pike allowed me to touch his guitar and hang out with him for a short period of time. If you meet me around, I'll be happy to regale you with the story, because it includes too many wild arm gesticulations and over-the-top shouting to to convey with the written word. But it was the best thing that ever happened to me, and now I can rest easy that the best moment of my life is over and it's all downhill from there. Also, Matt Pike is a really nice guy, and I got to see him in the wild, where he was still wearing a shirt.
It looked like this, but Matt Pike was wearing a shirt. It's kind of hard to visualize.
I tied a pretty good one on that night; meanwhile, my ride, codenamed Sgt. Boner, had followed some girl out of the venue only to find out several hours afterword that she had a boyfriend, and then went home, stranding me downtown. I didn't notice because I was harassing Bob Fouts and watching a The Artist Formerly Known As the WZA'd argue with a drunk girl about whether or not she was capable of kicking him in the face where he stood (spoiler alert: she was, in fact, capable of doing so). It was quite an evening, all right.
I've had good times at SXSW, make no mistake. But my ambivalence lies in the fact that millions of people swarm the city, effectively shutting downtown down, making it impossible to get from the north side of the city to the south side without much furrowing of brows and clucking of tongues. Also, when you try to get over to a show, the crowds that form stop traffic altogether.
It's like a swarm of cattle with dead, empty eyes forced themselves into skinny jeans and Grandpa shirts, only to stand around in the street rather than using the adjacent sidewalk.
That's right, more anti-hipster sentiments. Fuck you, hipsters!
Hey, dude, I'm trying to stand in the crosswalk and stare blankly at my surroundings, mouth agape. Why don't you take your...*pretentious scoff*...CAR to the freeway? *Resumes staring, mouth agape, at his surroundings*
It's fucking impossible to get anywhere and do anything with all these buttholes running around, cramping my style. Now, I've only lived here for a couple of years; I don't consider myself an "Austinite" and I don't like to get all high-minded about "out-of-towners" the way that Austin natives tend to. That's not my thing. I'm glad that I was allowed to move out here, because the alternative was so depressing. I'm pretty confident that by moving out here, I was able to avoid numerous DUI's and a career in moving around cans of carbonated beverages at grocery and convenience stores. But Austin is congested enough without all these mongoloid halfwit hipsters running around, creating lines at all the food places and wearing stupid clothes that are perfectly harmless but that I hate.
I just want them to go away. *Sigh*
Ranting aside, SXSW is always quite a thing, and I'm looking forward to checking out a bunch of it this year. I'm hoping to get a Friday off so that I can gallivant around downtown with Van Damned and The Artist Formerly Known as the WZA'd. I'll have at least three chances to check out Wormrot, which will be awesome, and I'll get to finally cross The Red Chord off my bucket list of bands to see live. Plus, there's virtually no way I'd rather spend my day than following Trap Them around like some kind of lonesome and pathetic Deadhead (perhaps a Trappy?). As a quick note to Trap Them, since there are no bushes for me to hide in, and an absence of darkness to skulk around in, I'll be much more visible than usual.
I'm hoping Brian Izzi has a prescription or Medic Alert Bracelet I can swipe.
Check out the half-hearted SXSW guide that The Artist Formerly Known as the WZA'd put together here; this will make it easier to track my movements (and plan your own I guess). Make sure, if you're in the area, to check out all the cool bands and buy some shirts, because we all know that you fucking stole their albums and learned the lyrics. Don't be a dick, bro.
Oh, and I guess there will be some movies or something also playing, and some kind of conference. And look for me in the Austin American Statesman under the headline "Daring Daylight Robbery of the SXSW Guitar Show Baffles Police: 'Who Is This Masked Dynamo?' Asks City Hall."
The perfect crime!
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