I promise, I’m really going to write it up this time, just not today. For now, a few details. I saw all or part of 46 individual shows over four days with two duplicates (Thermals and An Horse). My music distribution wasn’t at all consistent. In fact it went 15, 16, 4, 11 (wed-sat, respective). But Friday was also the day I saw Metallica, so there was no way anyone could top that show.

Last year sxsw was all about cover songs; while I didn’t take any notes about what cover songs bands played I have multiple entries in my notes that say things like “Another fucking cover song! wft?” (and that is w-f-t not wtf, proving how drunk I was). this year was not so much about cover songs, but I do have my top three:

1. Amanda Palmer – Creep
2. Airborne Toxic Event – Goodbye Horses
3. Silversun Pickups playing the opening notes to the Master of Puppets break solo between songs

Sure, the Silversun reference isn’t exactly a cover, but it was really funny (to me at least). Now time to get some sleep before my flight tomorrow.

So I never did get around to writing up SXSW 2008. And now that I’m trying to go through my notes to remember what bands I saw, I see that I didn’t even write down all of the bands that I saw. I did write some short lists though:

Top three austin meals

• Polvo’s
• Enchiladas y Mas
• Rudy’s

Top three disappointments

• A Place to Bury Strangers day show at red eye fly. Yes, I understand that playing loud is your deal, but it sounded like shit there. Oddly enough, I saw Holy Fuck later in the afternoon and they were a million times louder and better.
• The triumphant return of hoaks pizza. As crazy excited as I was to see the return, the new girl completely sucks at getting the pizza to customers. Too fucking chatty. You can’t be chatty and listen to death metal, so I expect her to be gone by next year.
• Devtochka at cedar street. Not that it has anything to do with devotchka, but rather the venue. Cedar street sucks when you can’t get near the stage. All you can hear from the middle is the conversations from the back. Not the best concert-going experience.

Best shows from bands I had never seen before

• The Helio Sequence – Since there are only two of them I would say that the show was a bit boring, but I really like their album so it was fine by me.
• The Forms – I can’t even remember what they sound like now, but I know I was pleasantly surprised by how good they were.
• Holy Fuck – HOLY FUCK they were loud.
• Spindrift – they get double points because I had never even heard of them. Jack and I just stopped to see what they sounded like because they had the hugest band and most eclectic set of instruments I’ve seen in a long time I double-neck guitar/bass? Steel string guitar? Some kind of electric harp? Weirdo accordian box thing? Let’s throw in two drummers to complete the sound.

Oddest SXSW moments

• Pouring a lonestar tallboy on the drummer from monotonix during their set
• Watching Icelandic metal
• Watching Wing perform “Back in Black” by AC/DC.

I’m slowly working my way through the SXSW 2009 list, but April has already taken a first stab at the list. Maybe I’ll get off my lazy ass and post something over there about my love of the Dead Milkmen or at least the shows I’m thinking of seeing at SXSW this year.

With the torn ACL, it’s been impossible to go to shows at all. I finally felt like I was capable of standing through an entire show and took the opportunity to finally catch Blonde Redhead. Of course, I didn’t make the decision until the show was completely sold out and I was forced to spend my afternoon responding to posts on craigslist until I finally lucked out and found a ticket for a reasonable price. Craigslist is still awesome.

This was my first show at Terminal 5, which is a pretty nice venue. The soundsystem is good and it has two balconies. I’m not sure how early you have to get there to get a good spot on the balcony, but it seems like it would be totally worth it. The place is huge and since I got to the show late I was stuck in the back and could barely see anything because I always get stuck behind the white guy with the afro.

Blonde Redhead sounded awesome, as expected. I loved how they were all business. They played for an hour and a half and I think they maybe spoke to the audience three times. And twice it was just “thank you”. But they played the hell out of their songs, so it didn’t really matter. I would pay to see them again.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. The downtime with the leg left me a lot of free time to check out a bunch of bands that I’ve been meaning to over the past few months. And to top it off there are some other random music notes.

• I’ve been crazy obsessed with Ladytron lately, which is really funny because I recently read a list of music to find from my work hard drive at NI and Ladytron was on the list
• Cansei De Ser Sexy – I admire any group that can come up with lyrics like “Let’s make love and listen to Death From Above”. Death from Above was awesome too in a totally different way, you should check them out (you may recognize their song “Romantic Rights” as the theme song to Human Giant, the best thing MTV has given us since Head Banger’s Ball).
• I’m not exactly sure what to make of them, but I’m really liking “I’m Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You” by the Black Kids. If nothing else their band name is funny.
• Keeping with the dancing thread, Los Campesinos “You! Me! Dancing!” (unofficial link). Wow, I’m totally gay for cheesy dance music. Awesome. I blame the percocet.
• Unless you were really paying attention, you probably didn’t know that Portishead (yeah, that’s right) played a live show last weekend at the ATP festival. Now that would be amazing to see. They’re playing a couple other one-off shows, but I still have my fingers crossed that they’ll start playing more. Look on youtube for videos from the show, including a bunch of new songs.
• Sarah turned me on to Blockhead, beating John in the Morning on KEXP to the punch. After listening to the cd on Sarah’s recommendation I heard John in the Morning play one of the songs last week.
• Another Sarah recommendation, 24 Hour Party People, a (for all practical purposes) true account of Factory Records and the Manchester music scene in the late 70s through the 80s, following bands like Joy Division/New Order and a bunch of other bands (or at least songs) that you’ll recognize. Totally worth watching.
• I watched Hostel again over the weekend. I thought the movie was pretty good, but I’m still amazed at their choice for music during the sex scene with the Slovakian girls. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about because you were…distracted, the song is “How Do” by the Sneaker Pimps. That song predates the movie by about 10 years. It’s really too bad the Sneaker Pimps got rid of the girl, which if I remember correctly they did because they were tired of her getting all the press. To her credit, she was both hot and has a sexy voice. She’s always going to win over the nerdy guys who play all the instruments, write all the songs, and arrive having eaten.

I can’t wait until I can walk so I can start going to the rock shows again. Oh yeah, and my knee still hurts.