SXSW

Nine weeks of exciting madness ended at South By Southwest last weekend in Austin. I got to Austin on Monday, and decided to kick off the festival by sleeping as much as possible and watching Breakfast At Tiffany's with my sister.

I got to see a few good bands - I ran into the guys from Dead Confederate, a band from Athens GA, who we opened for in Oxford MS. After their show, we talked for a few minutes, then I asked them when they'd be playing again during the festival. The drummer laughed and said "we're actually opening for REM tonight." Not bad.

Later that day, I ended up talking to another band from Athens called The Modern Skirts. They also informed me that later this summer, they'll be opening up for REM. In Amsterdam. Intimidating.

But honestly, no one's ever really listened to REM anyway.

We had the chance to play two shows - one at an event called Love On The Lawn and the next day at the Cactus Cafe. "Love" is a boutique store in south Austin, and (unbeknownst to me) is a pretty big-time lesbian hangout. Many people were there to see Patrice Pike, an Austin artist who made it really far on some reality singing show that's not American Idol. I think it was the one where the winner got to sing for INXS.

The Cactus Cafe is famous for having all kinds of cool acoustic artists from Texas. We only had about 25 minutes, but it was a fun way to end the tour.

I wish I could say that other highlights of the festival included seeing a million douche bag hipster bands from Brooklyn and Los Angeles, but there are numerous other places to read about that, and I didn't see many of them. The true highlights for me included seeing Wynn Walent play with Matt Singer. (Full disclosure/pre-emptive apology: they are from Brooklyn, but are not douche bags.)

Matt sang one of the funnier songs I've heard - some serious-sounding song about how he wished he was a better "orator, so I could do more chicks." Or something similar. Bless him.

Every time I've seen Wynn play, it's been superb.

Just solid dudes.

Golden Bear continues to rule.

All of them were certainly more enjoyable than just about everything else I saw. I think I could present the rest of the festival in Mad-Lib form:

Hello Austin, we're from [Los Angeles/Brooklyn/Austin]. We are a mixed-gender band consisting of [2-6] members. It's pretty rad that one of our members plays a [xylophone/trombone/turntable/computer]. The reason it's pretty rad is because this member of our band is [not very good/terrible/unconscionably bad] at that instrument. But you don't really care, because it's just neat to see that person playing it while jumping around. Besides, you're too busy [drinking free whiskey/trying to hit on some girl who works for MTV/eating free tacos] to listen to the music anyway. See you all soon!

I also had the pleasure of sharing my sister's floor with Wynn throughout the week, and competing in Snore-Off 2k8, which I'm pretty sure Wynn dominated. Rebecca Hewett is a saint.
Besides putting up with the snoring, she made me a birthday cake. Which was delicious.

After driving 19 hours in two days, from Austin to Charleston SC, this week has been spent at the beach with my parents. Next week, I fly to Hawaii to stay with Matt Hime. It's kind of embarrassing to tell people that, but exciting nonetheless.