Thursday's Edition of Fuzzy Unreliable Memories from Austin

The mix of a vacation to Austin (where I used to live), the first weekend of the NCAA basketball tournament (I'm an avid fan) and SXSW made for an intense few days. We got into town too late to do anything on Wednesday, so we headed straight for Magnolia for some migas. Nobody in LA makes migas like that (if you know of a place, please leave me a comment).

We didn't get a particularly early start on Thursday. Once we finally left the hotel, we decided to head straight to Guero's for some Mexican food. Good stuff. The normally reliable margaritas were disappointing due to some particularly bitter lime juice.

With our bellies full, we headed over to Peckerhead's for the Aquarium Drunkard/My Old Kentuckly Blog party. I unfortunately just missed Roadside Graves, but I heard they were fantastic. Caught a bit of Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band. Good vibe. We headed over to the Little Radio party at Red Eyed Fly and watched Alberta Cross set up their equipment for about 35 minutes before getting bored and heading to the Rhapsody party at the Mohawk. We'd hoped to catch the School of Seven Bells at the Mohawk, but had already missed them. Instead we watched a few songs from Glasvegas who sounded just like their record. Uninteresed in seeing Trail of Dead (I've seen them a number of times over the years) we headed back to Peckerhead's.

When we got back to Peckerhead's we'd just missed Those Darlins (who I heard were really good) instead catching the end of Dark Meat. Good energy, but not my thing. Megafaun was next. I can't remember anything about their set. The Henry Clay People were up next on the stage in the other room. They packed the house. It was a strong set and nice to see them draw a good reaction from a crowd outside LA. The Grates played after them in the next room. Good energy, but not particularly memorable. After they finished, Le Switch played on the stage in the other room. Again, it was great to hear an LA band draw a strong reaction from an out of town crowd. In some alternative universe I'd like to visit some day, Le Switch is huge and nobody cares about all the Pitchfork buzz bands that are still trying to figure out their guitar.

Starts to get a little fuzzy after this. You see, all the parties we attended had free beer, but you had to buy your water. So it was an economically responsible decision to drink beer. I remember stumbling around some studio in Austin waiting for Silversun Pickups to do a Daytrotter session. At one point I pushed open a door looking for a restroom to realize I was standing right in the middle of Peter Bjorn and John's Daytrotter session (sorry guys). They were running over an hour late before Silversun even started, so we gave in to our hunger pains and headed for Ironworks. While it was a step up from anything I've had in LA, it wasn't particularly memorable.

I can't really remember if we tried to see any bands at this point, but I know I didn't see any. We opted instead for Lovejoy's for drinks, then we stumbled over to back patio at Casino El Camino before ending our night (quite sloppily) at the Driskill. Ran into many friends along the way....