SXSW shows, insite from a month on the road…

So James and I rolled back into Somerville last night after a thirty hour drive from Austin, TX back to Boston. Our only stop was for a four hour nap at a friends in Nashville, otherwise we drove straight from the warm to the cold in less than two days. I think the last blog left off in Baton Rouge so I’ll fill in the details between then and when we got to the madness of SXSW and how that all went:

Lafayette, LA- we played a show at a funky cafe in a college town in Louisiana, people were nice, but I was felling pretty exhausted and dragging ass a bit hoping to have a minute of rest between there and getting to Austin.

New Orleans- I had a show at a DIY space near the train tracks in the part of town between the french quarter and the ninth ward, so kind of a sketchy part of town, but the folks running the show were young indie rocker, vegan, anarchist, types and really kind, they even made the bands beans and rice for dinner. I was excited for the show because I was playing with two other touring bands on a label that I think is pretty great, and has also expressed an interest in my music. The bands were “Shapes & Sizes” and “the Castanets”, both were pretty interesting, S &S were more on the indie side of the kind of rock you can still dance and shake too, they were pretty fun, the Castanets are more of a dark indie folk with noise kinda outfit, but definitely very brooklyn and art rock interesting. It was fun for me to have a break from the singer-songwriter coffee shop kinda clubs I’ve played half the time on the tour with Martha, I guess in general I feel more at home with the indie bands making all kinds of out there sounds than the ballads at the cafes, so it was a good shift. For my part it was a bit tough to play a solo show amidst bands and I missed James and his glockenspeil, but I’ve been kinda bonding with my accordion this tour, I’m not sure if people appreciate it but I’ve had a good time playing it for the more open minded folks. It was fun making new friends at that show too, my hope is to have Shapes and Sizes and the Castanets play my loft sometime soon.

i should also say that we took a tour of the Ninth ward which is pretty much a field now as most of the houses have been condemmed, but there are x’s on each building with numbers from the army that state the date they checked the house and what they found, bodies or dogs & cats, it was really sad, some houses had spray painted on them “two dead dogs”. the goverment has fucked new orleans so much we should have impeached that mother-fucker just based on that, in their hour of need he gave them the shaft, it’s such a beautiful city and it’s really sad…

Hattiesburg, MS- all i’m gonna say is never play a town a month or two after they have a smoking ban, because you play to nobody. Everyone was on the deck smoking and drinking and I was in the bar playing to the bartender and one patron, but they seemed to enjoy it, on the bright side I still got paid, had a great dinner, and a nice glass of wine because it’s a nice joint, but man, yeah, never play a town after the law changes, the smokers will not have it and rebel to the outdoors…

Houston, TX- we met up with James (the dude who plays glockenspeil and drums with me these days) who flew into town for the last five shows and to drive the long haul home with me. The weather was unreal, it was quite literally a monsoon, there was so much rain, so hard, I thought the car might drown in a flood, there were six to twelve inches in parts of the road. But the strange part was that people said that it was normal Houston weather, but who knew they have monsoons in Houston, did you? the clouds were so dark and menacing that at one point when we drove outside the city to find our hotel we looked back and a massive black hovering cloud was lingering at the top of the tallest buildings and bellow was light, it was beatifully frightening. Partially as a result of the crap weather not many people came out to the club, didn’t help that the local act cancelled due to a cold, so we had about six people to play to, but they were very nice, the best part was going to the gas station to buy a few beers, since the venue was byob, there were some drunks outside the station asking us to buy them a cold one, and that is the weird thing about gas stations down south, they are more beer stores than gas stations. Even weirder was that we went to buy a six pack for about $7.50 and then saw the same six pack next to the cashier for $5.00 but it wasn’t cold, hmm, so we switched and drank warm beer. Later at the hotel we were glad to just lay down in a somewhat clean hotel bed and watch Seinfeld, it was the rest we all needed before going to the madness of SXSW.

The Madness of SXSW: wow man, SXSW is crazy, that’s all I can say, we read that there are over 2,000 bands there, but it feels more like 200,000. There are so many people, hipsters, hippys, punk kids, metal-heads, you name it, it’s like a rock circus and it’s kinda cool but more scary and disolutioning than anything. We arrived early on Thursday and had our first show that afternoon at a club on 6th St. We were there around 2pm (our shows was at 4pm) and the place still wasn’t open, the first band (who was supposed to play at 3pm) was sitting outside wondering what to think, the soundguy and organizer were trying to keep cool but as it got closer and closer to 3pm it became clear that there was a huge fuck up, basically the club didn’t open until that poor band was supposed to play and they had to catch a flight afterwards back to Nashville, they played to a few patrons who had entered the bar, they played and then took off. Meanwhile the soundguy was trying to cut our set time and we just had the premonition that there was nothing we could to to make the show not suck at that point. Of course when we were setting up I realized I didn’t have any quarter inch cords and the club of course had none, so I was totally up shit creak and had to bum chords off of bands who were leaving and it was kind of a mess. When we finally got into our set we did ok, the sound did kinda suck, and we were frustrated in general. There were all of 10-20 people at the bar, only two of which were people I invited (a lawyer I work with and some promoter guy), we did get the press in there doing some video and photo stuff, but who knows what that was all about…anyway, point is, first show was kind of a bust. And i realized yet again that for every 20 industry people you invite to your show, you’ll be lucky if one of them actually shows up, but in a way i’m glad they didn’t because that was a really badly run show…

Shortly after our set there, around 6pm, we went to a house show and played on someone’s porch to 10-15 people drinking beer on the lawn, it was nice in the sense that it was laid back, but I got that feeling I’ve had a good deal on this tour which is that sometimes you play to people who don’t want to hear anything new or experiemental, they want middle of the road folk songs, and that is something I’m capable of but I really have had the urge to drop that, so James and I played accordion and glockenspeil, and of course, people seemed a little weirded out, I played one song on guitar and at the end people came up and said they liked the last song, of course…At that point, I was a bit strung out from the first few hours at SXSW, luckily I didn’t have high expectations or anything, but it was a rough start.

I then went out into the madness of 6th st. and went to see my compadre, Stephen Brodsky’s, show at the Hydrahead tent, he opened the show solo to a bunch of metal heads who love the hard stuff, but I think they appreciated him because he is really talented and has a great voice and the “cave in” fans were happy when he played some of those older tunes. The rest of the night was absolutely mad and involved going in and out of other shows, yep rock records alt. country show, some indie shows, drinking a fair amount, running into people, and then oddly enough ending up at a hotel room around 3am were a guy named Andrew W-K interviewd Steve, they were all ripped on good weed, and the interview made absolutely no sense, or rather, there was nothing even mentioned about music whatsoever, they waxed poetry and made rap songs, it was the Ali-G of the the stoned out rocker underworld…meanwhile James was sleeping in the car and had hurt his foot and it was hard from him to walk, and he was pissed at me for taking off, but we met up at 4AM and drove to a friends house and crashed on some couches…

On friday we went to Denny’s and then started the next day of madness, our show was at a place called Epoch Coffee which is pretty damn far from all the excitment, kind of on the north side of austin. but it was our best show because people were nice and they appreciated us musicially, everyone had something nice to say and either wanted to swap or buy a cd, it was good times. the other musicians were also all really good, a band from LA called “valley arena” played and were nice enough to let us use their drums. then a band i can’t remember the name of played, and were great, then us, then “joshua english” who had a picture of his cat on his guitar, then some british guy who some very literal songs, it was nice, it was an outdoor show on what seemed like a basketball court, but it sounded great and the vibe, again, was awesome, our best show of the weekend.

we then went and played yet another house show which was again sort of frustrating, this time because i made the mistake of inviting this singer-songwriter chick i know from new england (who will remain nameless purely because i don’t want to start a myspace fight…) to play a few songs, she showed up early, made a sign with for the show which didn’t include my name strangely, then proceeded to play a really long set leaving everyone else with very little time, james and i were kind of not into it, played our 3 werid accordion songs that no one appreciated because again, they probably wanted to hear straight up folk or whatever, and then we left. on a nicer note I’d like to say that the host, Michelle, was a really nice woman and I appreciate her efforts a good deal, i just felt like my lesson of the night was “don’t do anyone any favors” because sometimes it comes back to bite you like it did with that girl (who i will never work with again). I had the feeling of these ruthless self promoters out there that just make the scene a total bummer, because meanwhile I’m out there helping people out, giving people opportunities to play to built in crowds at my loft and helping touring and local acts constantly and then once in a while you do that for someone who turns around, takes more than you offered and then pretty much shits on you, and it sucks…so yeah, that kinda sucked…(i think i’m done the female singer-songwriter scene, not that i was ever in it, but i’m retiring permantly due to insanity of dealing with caddy opportunitic girls playing music that is sentimental and boring…)

i escaped back to the action and met up with some folks, saw Thurston Moore play (sonic youth), that was cool. saw some hollywood actor at the show who blew me off when i said “weren’t you in “hedwig and the angry inch?”, too cool for school. that is the biggest bummer of SXSW, everyone being “too cool for school”, and i will use these two quotes by other people that express my own sentiments to explain:

“It’s really nice to play to you people because i feel like SXSW kinda sucks and is just a bunch of hipster wannabes who dress better than they play, so thanks for being here and being supportive….” (said by the UK dude we played with up at Eppoch)

“Yeah, it does suck when you come all the way to Texas and SXSW and then play a show to nine douchbags and then it’s just like myspace all over again…” (said by Fletch, a really cool guy we stayed with in Austin)

as far as that last myspace comment, let’s just face it, myspace is cool sometimes, but for every cool person there are AT LEAST nine douchbags a day who email me about their shitty record and the truth is i don’t care. good music finds me, i find it, it doesn’t need to come soliciting me like that….

is this rant ridiculous or what? i’ll finish off my SXSW and otherwise sentiments enough to say that i learned a really invaluable lesson on this tour. The first part is make sure you are playing to audiences that are worth a damn, because if you are playing to people that are not open minded or into like material then it will be a bust. That was mostly my experience touring with Martha, let me state that she is really cool and I like her as a person a lot, but musicially we didn’t really compliment each other and basically there were a few shows were i felt left out in the cold and it was because people who are into the kind of music she makes sometimes can’t appreciate what i’m trying to do, and that also goes the other way. Indie people don’t appreciate middle of the road singer-songwriter stuff and people who enjoy Sarah McLaughlin, Amy Mann, and other pop folk singer-songwriter types don’t really appreicate what I’m trying to do sometimes, so lesson learned. It didn’t help that Martha is a lesbian and that scene seems really insular, as in they support their own and not outsiders, i think for her it’s a great market and it’s cool that they will come to her shows and buy her cds, but it didn’t really do me any good in building a fanbase.

Also I learned not to do anyone any favors if it seems pretty clear they will never return them or even bother to say thank you. It sucks that this world, let alone this industry, has turned into a bunch of self-interested narcissistic people that can’t see beyond their own creations, but it makes me sad when I feel like the only thing worth a damn is having a good community of people who are supportive of each other. That is what i’m trying to create at my loft, that is what my friend “Siwat” is trying to do with his compiliation, that is how i feel we can survive this industry, so it’s dissapointing when it backfires and people just are selfish.

On a side note I saw “frank smith” play and they were so good and i missed them soo much because it was fun playing with them in Boston but they must have gotten sick of the cold and this scene and now moved to Austin. we also went to the Asthmatic kitty party and listened to some good indie rock art folk tunes, and i saw Shapes & Sizes and the Castanets again and realized that even though indie music has an exclusiveness to it that i don’t appreciate sometimes, at least musicially they won’t shit on you if you sing and play the accordion, they can see that you are trying to find a sound that is your own and not drown in the multitudes of mainstream music. but who am i? i think i will only survive this industry if i build a community around me of people i like and care about and who support what i’m trying to do. and then i have to make music because i love to make it and not because i need the attention, i may never achieve the fanbase that i wish i had or garnish the success that i might have hoped for when i set out to make my own music. but at least i’d feel good in a community worthwhile. sometimes i wonder if i can find one or rather make one in boston, sometimes that seems like a hard feat, sometimes i think the east coast edge and the cold and the hipster attitude are so shitty that this place is a bust. but all i’m gonna say people, is that i have a lot of love, and if anyone is interested in creating a loving music community of people who support each other, i’m down for it…