South By South West Day Three

Yesterday, I discovered there’s a lot more to Austin than the bars and clubs on and around Sixth Street. That outside this surreal stretch of road that looks like it’s pretty much out of a John Wayne movie (mainly because these places were actually built when the cowboys were mercilessly killing the Native American Indians) there’s a whole city outside, a proper, massive, beatiful city with big modern buildings and a huge river and tall trees and a semblance of normal life that doesn’t revolve around music and alcohol. So what do I do? I go to a show and start drinking.

It’s a slightly different gig though – an outdoor benefit for victims of electro-shock therapy headed up by Roky Ericsson, singer of seminal psychedelic group The Thirteenth Floor Elevators and an EST victim himself. His appearance was the main attraction, and with Okkervil River as his backing band, he let his gruff, powerful voice loose, which was an incredible sight to see. Of particularly personal note was when he played ‘I Walked With A Zombie’, which was the first song I ever learned on guitar. A truly memorable experience. Him playing the song, not me learning it. Nobody should have to ever hear that.

On the walk back from the gig, me and the person I was with – an important and powerful figure in the music world – bumped into a couple playing songs as they walked along the road. We got talking to them, listened to a few songs and then took them out to dinner. Well, I didn’t pay, but I was there. Anyway, their band is called Come Gather Round Us, and she’s a fairly established solo act herself (Catherine Feeny is her name), and I really recommend you check them out.

There were lots of other bands yesterday, too, most notably Dananananaykroyd and Rolo Tomassi and The Bronx and Vivian Girls and Lucero and Ebony Bones and Hockey - and that’s pretty much in order of how good I thought they were, from amazing to dreadful, but it’s the other stuff above that, for me, is really what SXSW is about. Bring it on!