i went to South By Southwest 2009...part one

i will keep this brief, as i can assume that one might be starting to tire of reading so numerous a collection of tales on the same subject.

MARCH 17th
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STUFF I SAW
- Daniel Francis Doyle
- Expensive Shit
- Dikes of Holland
- White Denim

me w/ cool dog that hangs out outside some diner in north texas

i left for Austin @ 4:45am on March 17th with Nick, and after stopping to pick up Ian and Alison
*ZIP* ZING* ZOOOM*
13 hours later, we're in Austin. the weather is amazing. a bit traffic-y though.
so we decide to head downtown first to register and give the traffic a chance to go home and leave us alone. to our surprise we actually got badges instead of wristbands, which seemed like a really big deal at the time and i got pretty excited at the anticipation of the new universes of SXSW that would be open to me.
so upon retrieving these status-boosting badges, we promptly headed to the free "Tejas Means Friends" local band showcase across 35 highway @ Ms. Bea's to catch the end of that show.
we walked straight to the patio behind the venue and came upon a gentleman in glasses, surrounded by a heavy load of equipment, vigorously playing the drums and singing his sweaty heart out over several layers of angular guitar loops. it was an explosive wash of noisy-experimental pop. it was awesome. it was Daniel Francis Doyle. geez! what a great way to start off SXSW!
after Daniel was finished and the next band had set up, a small child stepped up to the microphone and declared "this band is Expensive Shit." srsly.

Expensive Shit @ Ms. Bea's

Expensive Shit was a great noise band...well, if you are into noise bands. which i am. and i loved it. lots of churning sine waves and feedback manipulation and non-tempo drums. sweeeet!
Expensive Shit was followed quickly by Dikes from Holland, whom i had been told by my local homies were great. it's true, they were. a noisy-punk band with lots of energy and driving rhythms. they were really solid live, considerably less intense than Expensive Shit, but i still really dug it.
the last band that night was White Denim. this was the only band that i had heard before, maybe that was why i wasn't very impressed with the way they sounded live. it was alright, but it kind of sounded like a jam band covering songs by White Denim. idunno. whatever. after that we jetted to our hotel to fall asleep watching cartoons. i shared a king size bed with Nick. he's cuddly.

*heart*,
- sean