Raw for Lent: Day 22-26

Day 22 - SxSW!

Departed San Antonio around 10am, after visiting the alamo.

Arrive austin about 11am, to set up for the show. Played first to open the showcase. Tons of awesome bands--

Acorn Bcorn - straight up old school kinderwhore style riotgrrl music, reminiscent of Babes in Toyland a little, Marina's voice more sonorous than Kat Bjelland's. Interesting set up-- side by side kits played with the feet primarily.







The Back Pockets - Weirdness to the power of 10. Came dressed like they were going to a Woodstock themed party at Studio 54. Set up an elaborate in front of stage thing. While the band played, a guy danced around fucking with the audience and pretending to be ascientist. The music was pretty eclectic, mostly like someone really likes the big builds in Arcade Fire. Would be at home in the Elephant 6 family. Overall, recommend seeing them. The show is worth it and the singer's voice alone is mesmerizing for at least 3 songs.






Agent Ribbons - HOLY TWEE batman! Agent Ribbons combines sweet 50s doo-wop chord progression with saccharine sweet vocals bemoaning all the liars the singer has
met. A duo, the guitar does more work than you'd think it should, especially given the relatively simple styling, and the drummer's call-and-response back ups make it so you don't even miss the bass.




TacocaT - Oh, TacocaT. Why is this band NOT on K records? Can we get them on K? They're adorable, fun, light and giggly. They are twee-rock, with irreverent lyrics about things like getting a new issue of Cat Fancy, smoking pot out of a vaporizer and the venerable (in girl band circles of late, anyway) Tanya Harding. This band is soul-related to EAR PWR for those who are familiar.






Christeene - I do not, still, 24 hours later, totally know what I think of Christeeene. When I first saw him, I was like "What the fuck?" granted, we were at a queer show, but he was wearing a fright wig, smeared make up (courtney love circa heroin) and had bruises painted all over his body. Then he climbed on stage and revealed some bizarre underpanties contraption. The show, though, was intriguing. The dance moves were fun and the backup dancers ridiculous and the rap would make Lil Kim blush. I don't think I would ever purchase this music, but my new friend Joey said I was in for a treat. If you like haunted houses, penises (there was a lot of penis, not gonna lie) and just draw dropping weirdness, then you just may like Christeene.






Went over to Whole Foods Austin...my new love affair. If I were ever here and not raw, I would probably gain 8000 pounds. They have a RAW station. It's almost entirely raw and it has apple pie and they carry those Hail Merry tarts that are the best thing I've tasted in a very long time. Like, if they get them in NC, I will eat them. From the raw station, I got a broccoli cashew salad and avocado kale salad. They were both good but I think I preferred the broccoli cashew.

After dinner we wandered over to see Last Year's Men, who played great. I procured me a tee shirt with which to rep them on the road and at home, then we bounced to the BrooklynVegan showcase and caught Screamales, who were fine.

We left during Andrew WK.

Day 23:

Whole foods for raw falafel and raw tzitiki, broc cashew salad, another Hail Merry raw tart (meyer lemon) and coconut water.
Day party trek started with meeting up with our friends Lost in the Trees (Orchestral Folk Pop) who we had just missed due to ill timed eating/walking, then we headed to the Paste magazine party for We Were Promised Jetpacks, whose show was PACKED but epic. Big guitars, big scottish voice, little, young, scottish dudes.

They were immediately followed by Blitzen Trapper, who were loud and otherwise not noteworthy. We decided to walk to Cheer Up Charlie's to catch the Love Language, some other hometown buds, who played an amazing set. Upbeat, 60s influenced guitar and key pop with some noisier elements, then we wandered all the way back to Waterloo for Lucero, who are not my cup of tea but I respect the hell out of the band. They're country-twinged bar rock, and have a far reaching influence.

We went to the Mohawk for the Jagjaguar/Dead Oceans/Secretly Canadian party. The first band was not worth talking about, but!

Gardens and Villas were an erasure-esque synthpop band whose lead singer had a quiver full of FLUTES! (This fills me with glee) They were poppy and fun.

Bear in Heaven went next and I learned...that the lead singer of Bear in Heaven, an amazingly catchy synthpop band, has NO RHYTHM. It was hilarious, and the songs were great as always.




We bounced after Bear in Heaven, and I ate some Kale chips at the hotel.

Day 24:



MY SHOWCASE! I ran my first ever SXSW showcase for Permanent Wave, Tom Tom Magazine and Break Yr Heart up off the North Loop. It went as follows:

Attia Taylor (attiataylor.bandcamp.com) - keyboard and vocal loop songwriter




WOJCIK (wojcik.bandcamp.com) - hard hitting guitar songs with a rich alto voice


LAM! LAM! (lamlam.bandcamp.com) - this is my little pet project, electropop



Spooky Qs (spookyqs.com) - queer songs about amazing things (the new record is ENTIRELY repurposed protest songs!)



Shondes (shondes.com) - poppy, theatrical folk rock, with an edge and electric violin



Jeepneys (soundcloud.com/jeepneys) - groove heavy, world music influenced with live guitar and live rototoms



Inches to Pixels (reverbnation.com/inchestopixels) - rockabilly feeling four piece with a raging female drummer




Seashell Radio (seashellradio.com) - folky boy/girl duo with the ability to rock!



Duck Fight Goose (duckfightgoose.bandcamp.com) - shanghai chillwave



Red Light Cameras (reverbnation.com/redlightcameras) - pop punk songs about giggly topics, like bicycles and juice




This show was presented by
The Permanent Wave (thepermanentwave.org)
Tom Tom Magazine (tomtommag.com)
Break Yr Heart (breakyrheart.com)
MonkeyWrench Books (monkeywrenchbooks.org)

After the show (where I scarfed a couple of raw bars) I met Kyle for some whole foods, which was a HUGE meal for me-- happy "tuna" salad (which was AWESOME), an avocado, a raw tart and a pint of cherry tomatoes. We wandered down to try and get into the Merge show, but couldn't, so we just decided to go home. I was pooped.

Day 25: Saturday, or, the big one

We got a little bit of a late start and hit whole foods for the first meal; I went ahead and tried actually ordering a "to go meal" from the raw "restaurant" (station) in Whole Foods. I got the pizza, which was almond and flax crisps topped with raw marinara, spinach, mushrooms and macadamias, nutritional yeast and garlic and came with a side, so I got the broccoli cashew salad. I also got some fruit salad, a kombucha and I tried a "lemon cheesecake cup" from the raw cafe which was totally vile. We headed over to the Deville and Mohawk, whose day parties were mad busy. We tried to get in elsewhere and finally ended up seeing, well, a lot of nothing. We stopped by Bull McCabe's Austin and watched a little basketball, then we went into Beerland and saw Terrible Twos and Bass Drum of Death, and they were both pretty rad. We then headed to sidebar but the band was ridiculous so we bounced.

I headed back to the car to grab a sweater and some Raw bars, then went directly to Red 7 to wait for my boys to start. First act I saw was called Odonis Odonis, and they were pretty noisy guitar feedy stuff, with a synth pad drummer.

Up next was some band whose name I forgot but they were not memorable.

VELVET TEEN then got up and shredded. Velvet Teen are a 90s/early 2000s rock and roll band with great guitar interplay, a little synth backing occasionally and lots of energy and good time. The only downside was that I was standing behind that couple who were like, bro-ing out and fist bumping the whole time.

Next was Breton, whose set ended literally 3 minutes after VT's but sounded really good so I plan to check them out. Then came Twilight Sad, a scottish band who were sort of cure-ish, and built up decent grooves but overall kind of dull. The power went out in the middle of their 2nd to last song which was pretty lame.

Jetpacks came on at 12, and I stayed for a few tunes,



but then decided to bounce to make sure I got over to Braid. Braid are an emo/post-hardcore band from Champlain, IL. They are also one of my favorite bands of the past few years. The show was not super full when I arrived, only $5 and I got a great spot up front. The boys were bantering like an old comedy team. It was truly a joy to watch them, and they played tons of awesome tunes, including almost every single one I wanted to hear. I really wanted to stick around and try to talk to them for a minute, but we had to get up at 7:30 to get Kyle to the airport.

The walk back to my car was ridiculous, by the way. I haven't ever in my life been asked if I wanted to party more times.

Day 26:

I dropped Kyle at the airport, filled my car with gas and went to Whole Foods to grab some more provisions for the road. I picked up one more Hail Merry tart, some apples, some bananas, some kiwi berries, cherry tomatoes and some of the hail merry treated nuts.

I met up with my high school friend Emily who now lives in Austin and we reminisced about the weirdness that was high school for us. I lost track of time a little and before I knew it it was almost four, which meant I really needed to get on the road. I mainly just noshed on my fruit and nuts from whole foods and arrived and got settled in OKC. I was way tired and crashed out pretty much AT 10pm.