music - i love you but i've chosen darkness

...and another sxsw has come to an end. it's hard to believe this was my fourth year there...my god, i have lived in texas way too long. anyway, the last week has been a blast. it looked a little something like this...

tuesday - modest mouse at the ridglea in ft worth. its always a good time when the mouse is in town. it was nice to hear old standards like trailer trash, cockroach, and talkin shit about a pretty sunset, and the few new songs they played sounded much tighter than when they debuted them as live demos. missing from the set list were bukowski, ocean breaths salty, and broke (which had originally been on the list), so that was a downer. but it's impossible to not have fun at a mm show, so i can't complain. other highlights: dann gallucci in all his tattooed-neck glory, news of jeremiah's future return to the band, and watching idiots crowd surf to the slowest parts of trailer trash. seriously, what is it about modest mouse that attracts such a drunk, moronic crowd? crowd surfing? moshing? to modest mouse? you'd have thought it was a hardcore show the way the fists were flying. despite that, we still danced our asses off and had a blast. we finished it off with a 2am trip to IHOP with zach and toni, who came in from austin for the show. we were seated in the very back room, right smack in the middle of a cult/prayer group. IHOP is never a good idea...especially not at 2am. in arlington.

wednesday - stars and broken social scene at club clearview in dallas. stars were incredible live...tons of energy and passion. chick vocals typically don't excite me, but stars somehow make it work. broken social scene, despite having the best band name ever, have always bored me. their live performance was much better than their albums, but i still can't say i'm much of a fan. but i'd be lying if i said the enthusiasm and happiness on stage all night didn't bleed out into the crowd. stars and bss borrow a few members from each other, so the rotations on stage were constantly changing, and it was basically just a love-in with 8-9 people on stage at all times. a perfect night for remembering why you love music.

thursday - left for austin in the morning. got in and went straight to emo's to see stars and broken social scene again. sets weren't much different from the night before. next up were the constantines, who we only saw for about 5 minutes before leaving to head over to Lucky Lounge for Volcano, I'm Still Excited. they were bizarre, and with the exception of a few songs that really stood out, pretty dull. That night we got to Elysium early for Telefono Tel Aviv, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, and Calla. I was getting ready for calla the only way I know how...double fisting cape cods...when I Love You took the stage. They were really solid, but didn't play "we're still the weaker sex," which is obviously their best song, and the one i'd been looking forward to hearing. calla pulled the same shit by not playing "strangler," which is one of my favorite songs of all time. instead of sticking around to see the church (who, given my luck that night, wouldn't have played "Under The Milky Way") we headed over to exodus to see the walkmen. somehow they thought it would be ok to charge $25 at the door, so we decided against going in and instead watched from the sidewalk. exodus has giant windows that open from the outside right onto the back of the stage, so just by reaching down and opening up a wondow or two, it was like we were on stage with the walkmen. the sound was good, their air wasn't smoky, we had a perfect view, and it was free. perfect end to a near-perfect day. finished it off with pancakes at starseeds and collapsed into bed at 4:30am.

friday - french kicks at club deville. not impressed. the decemberists and secret machines at the Fader magazine party, which was the most pretentious piece of garbage party i've ever been to. not surprising, given how shittastic their magazine is. sadly, they had good bands playing, so we had no choice but to hang out amongst the mustachioed too-cool-for-school scenesters. the decemberists were great...perhaps i'll give that album another try. the secret machines bored me as much as their album does, though. great for listening to while I'm doing stuff, not great for staring at three ugly dudes standing motionless on a stage.

saturday - back to the fader party for the unicorns, who were unable to make it across the border from canada until saturday. their live show was better than i expected, so they were a nice surprise. (a highlight: "there are a lot of birds in austin. are they vultures? there are a ton of vultures at sxsw. this is a private party, right?") on our way out the door, i said a few words to david cross, who seemed as unexcited as us to be at the fader party. then we ran over to emos for international noise conspiracy and dillinger escape plan, whose showcase was being MCed by Andrew fucking WK. bizarre. DEP were tight as always, although their set lacked firebreathing, which is usually a favorite of mine. back to club deville for the unicorns (again). the members of the band, who look to be around 16 years old, apparently took their pants off for this set, so i'm glad i wasn't close enough to the stage to see that. isn't that illegal?

so im completly exhausted and it was all worth it. this year was much more crowded than usual, we didn't have wristbands, and the band lineups were all out of whack. but it was still sxsw... we ate a ton of amazing food, drank some really shitty beer, saw a ton of live music, and got to spend time with friends that we don't see nearly enough.

good stuff.