rock the isosceles: an interweb novel.

it's time for the sxsw recap kids! i apologize for my tardiness but i've been busy and stuff. duh.

(this will be long)
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pre-music fun:

monday night i took the red eye to austin (first time doing that - bonus was that on my sf - houston flight i had an entire row to myself - helloooooo, nappytime!) - got in around 9:30, met up with sarah and made our way to the hotey where we roused aubs & willo out of bed and dragged them to las manitas for delicious delicious breakfast! w00t! then it was time to pick up my badge (most horrible photo ever taken of me evaaaaaar. seriously. so bad.), after which we promptly headed back to the hotel to work a bit and to nap. sweet, sweet sleep. texted buster to get his arse over to our hotel and went to dinner at the rio grande (former real world austin house), where we met up with willo, aubs, ryan, and camalamadingdong. the wonders of dodgeball never cease.

after dinner it was time to kick into ONE NIGHT ONLY mode, as buster was due to fly back to seattle at 6 o'clock in the am. sarah & i managed to get into an interactive party by looking cute & pathetic with our music only badges. score! (thanks to ryan for sweet talkin' the nice lady at the door, too!) the sf/nyc/seattle crew rallied. drinks were had. photos were taken. more drinks. another bar. more drinks. hugging, not slapping. yet another bar. even more drinks. willo met her new boyfriend(s). more hugging. line debacle at pv lounge (ahem, it's not that cool kids). drinks drinks drinks. met ben lashes and buster & i went on a lashes scavenger hunt - i collected all six! ben drunk dialed my boss against my better judgement & protests. spilled my beer on rick webb. sorry rick. buster left for the airport - we headed back to the hotel. it was 4 am. ouch. one night only is the best man. THE BEST.

wednesday - day one

slightly hungover (damn you, buster mcleod!). breakfast at IHOP. aubs orders off of the senior menu. heh. eggs make everything better. and then it's on to the rock!

IODA day party:
the twilight sad - very, very loud
uncut - wasn't really paying close attention. oops! i promise to listen to them though.
honeycut - funky monkey, bart davenport. good times.
apostle of hustle - i love andrew whiteman; also, best band name evarrrrrr.

dinner at malaga (tasty tapas!) with ted, misty, harry & alice. yippee!!!

time for more rock:

the pipettes - cute cute cute!
oh no! oh my! - they were alright. just alright.
frightened rabbit - awesome awesome awesome.
the postmarks - i think they should tour w/ the subs.
the broken west - better live than i expected, and i like their cd more now too. except that the guitarist committed one of the deadly sins of live rock & roll by chewing gum & singing. ewww.
annuals - loved them, the singer reminds me of a muppet - or the boys from spinto band. essentially, the same thing.

after rock it was time for death metal pizza. then home to bed! yay music day one!

thursday - day two

misty, willo, and aubs, and i brunch at magnolia cafe - omg we're venturing outside of downtown austin! the server almost didn't give me my eggs florentine because he was unaware they were serving it - even though it was on the specials menu. good thing i take my eggs very seriously.

day rock:

amy millan @ the onion party - she was wearing awesome red pants. i love her.
the oohlas & prototypes @ the bust magazine/baeble party
tokyo police club & andrew bird @ the onion party (again)

i ran into the changes at the bust/baeble party too! yay, i love those boys. you should be listening to them.

after a fan-freakin-tastic dinner at the woodland with willo, aubs, and jordan (consisting of cornbread muffins, fried oysters, corn fritters, and spaghetti sans meatballs. and free wine left over from aubs' wine party during interactive - score!) it was time for night rock:

joan as police woman - although i only saw like two songs b/c she kind of bored me (sorry jordan! i will give her another chance, i promise!) and the room was hella crowded & i couldn't get into it.
cloud cult - breaking my "i'm only going to see bands i've never seen before rule" but who cares.
bishop allen - bouncy & fun!
david vandervelde - was losing his voice but i am so in love with his album.
the bird & the bee - possibly my fave show of the whole week! AWESOME.

after the bird & the bee, willo & i went back to the hotey on a music high (and a bit of beer, perhaps) and raided the hotel lobby snack bar where i indulged in a snickers ice cream bar. i haven't had one of those in like 10 years. we had to stand outside the room in the hallway to finish our snackens b/c ted & misty were already asleep, and we were probably disrupting people with our uncontrollable giggling and inside joke making and ice cream bar eating but oh wells. i love it when music makes me giddy!

"way to go, marty."

friday - day three

brunch @ las manitas (again!) with willo, misty, harry, and alice. yay. then it was off to the SPIN party where ted was broadcasting BAGeL Radio (or attempting to - stubb's didn't have a good interweb connection) and got us in! w00t! while we were there we drank margaritas, made rock buttons with our images on them, and also watched a bit of music:

the fratellis (with pete townshend joining them for two songs! they had to be in heaven.)
blanche - i thought i saw jack lawrence (the raconteurs, the greenhornes) outside of our hotel that morning and i guess i was right...
mew - so loud. so so so loud. good, but LOUD.

we ran into kevin from pocket rockers™ division day and then it was on to menomena at the pitchfork party. then i got a text from WIRED (good thing i signed up for that stupid thing) that tilly & the wall were going to be at the belmont! omgeeeee! we love tilly! so misty, willo, & i raced over there and caught the end of the sondre lerche set. misty got a station id from him! i told her to beware of his dreamy eyes. seriously, that man has dreamy eyes. le sigh.

tilly & the wall were fun and fantastic as always, and because we'd had a few margaritas and few beers we decided it was okay to shout requests to them and they ever so kindly obliged. we danced danced danced, and bounced bounced bounced, and sang sang sang. and afterwards misty got another station id from jamie & neely and omg they are so cute i just wanted to hug them to pieces. but i didn't.

then willo & i ran over to the levi's/fader fort thingy where amy winehouse was playing but we totally missed her b/c we had to stand in the stupid stupid line to get our wristbands and i guess she only played three songs and was done! lame. but we did meet up w/ harry & alice, drank some free budweiser (my only non-texas beer whilst in texas), made some new best friends, caught part of the datarock set, and then left to go to dinner at moonshine.

moonshine has the best shrimp corndogs in the universe. i don't really know of any other restaurant that serves shrimp corndogs but i'm willing to bet that moonshine's would kick their ass. just sayin'. after our delicious dinner and delightful wine, alice convinced us that dessert was in order. this is why i love that woman.

misty & crew showed up at moonshine and so did the birdmonsters (in their brand spankin' new denim. they're poor rockers so i forgive them for the denim-on-denim action. s'okay kids. loves ya.) - paaaaaartaaaaaay!

anyway, time for more rock:

peter bjorn & john - which was at the austin convention center's directTV stage and felt like we were at a taping of top of the pops or something. weird.

(tried to see clorox girls but missed them so instead drank beer on the back patio of emo's and did an impromptu interview with two 15 year old punk rockers who told me to "have fun in retirement". PUNKS! gotta love 'em.)

abra moore - love her, and she played "four leaf clover" which made me feel 16 again.
gruff rhys - lead singer of super furry animals; had a myriad of interesting "instruments" and was quite enjoyable; two pipettes were standing in front of us the whole set and then willo & i tracked them down afterward and got station id's for BAGeL Radio. man, we're getting good at this!
sloan - caught the tail end of their set. i heart them.
apples in stereo - the world is made of energy yo.

saturday - day four aka can we really keep rocking? the answer is YES.

willo & i started the day off at flatstock at the convention center. flatstock is this major poster exhibition that totally effing rocks - we got to see jason from the small stakes and i got to meet the aesthetic apparatus dudes who've done tons of stuff for josh & the subs! yay. i also met the guys that did the sub echo residency poster and they gave me one - for freeeeeee! awww yeah. the perks of rock.

after flatstock we headed over to manuel's for brunch w/ rick (who, incidently, is like my new most favoritist person in the world and the new NBF) and his sister, val, who was in austin to play w/ her band sunburned hand of the man. brunch was yummy - i must say i ate well while on vacation! then rick, willo, and i headed over to cedar street to catch mando diao and ended up seeing a bit of the pipettes (again). i swear we were not rockstalking them - they were just everywhere! gosh.

mando diao were just okay - so we decided to head over to the mess with texas party where we saw:

the pony's - who rocked my face off. omg.
sloan - yep. again.
the walkmen - i will always love them, but their set wasn't very inspired. oh well.

aubs organized a big last supper of sxsw dinner at louie's 106 repleat with the rest of the free wine - w00t! then, as per usual, it was time for rocking out:

delta spirit - omg so good. they look nothing like i thought they would though - they're like nice, button down shirt-wearing, relatively clean cut SoCal indie rockers, NOT the dirty louisiana hipsters that their music would have you believe they were; johnny from cold war kids jumped up on stage with them (they're touring together) for their last song and the other cold war kids were standing right behind us. omg, i love sxsw.
chris garneau - aka sufjan stevens mini-me; he played "not nice" and i almost cried. i'm such a sap.
palomar - only caught three songs and then booked my way over to...
the changes - yes, this would be the third time i've seen them in as many months. what?!? stop looking at me like that.

then ryan & i tried to go see tokyo police club but they weren't even letting badges in - so then we tried to go see +/- {plus/minus} but we couldn't get in there either! ahhhhh. so we headed over to catch some of the whigs, where i promptly started feeling uber-tired and lame and told ryan that yes, it was true, i was all rocked out and it was probably in my best interest to get at least four hours of sleep before my flight out in the morning. sorry, ryan. i know i let you down and that was not very show ho pro of me.

sunday - day five. omg i think i'm all rocked out. for serious.

woke up early to get to the airport for my 8:10 am flight (ali, remember to book an afternoon flight next year. okthxbye.) - along with a myriad of hipster band boys. hipster explosion at the aeropuerto, seriously. couldn't really sleep on either flight and they ran out of pillows/blankets on my houston - sf flight so that was sucky. made it home after a BART ride from hell and decided that i'd had enough and took a cab home from the BART station - which is only like 15 blocks. hah. got a much needed burrito (SF burritos are the best! oh, how i missed you) and took a much needed 3 hour nap. the end.

photos:

misty
willo
rick
ted
aubs
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celebrity* sightings in austin:

britt daniel (i swear he was at 1 out of every 5 shows i saw)
kelley deal
cisco adler (if you want to call him that; funnily enough, misty & i were talking about the fact that his band was playing sxsw (um, okay) and then like a half an hour later he sauntered his way up to willo & i at the bar at the postmarks show. it was fate. fate i tell you! heh.)
james iha
boots riley (photo op!)
shirley halperin (rock writer - so, yeah, celebrity to ME)
paul scheer & aziz ansari - i want to have their babies. their funny funny babies.

willo saw michael showalter and for that i am very very jealous. like for reals, i want to have his babies. omg so funny.

i also saw sarah/ultragrrrl like THREE TIMES and if i were not a moron i would've gone up to her and said hi because i've emailed with her before but i was like a freakin' weirdo dorkface and got all intimidated by her (even though i'm actually a little bit taller than she is - munchkins abound!) and i couldn't speak. duuuuuuuuuhhhhhhh. way to go, ali.

and this concludes my marathon post. i'm sure you're as tired from reading it as i was living it.

*not including all the bands i actually saw, those aren't really celebrities in my book. but then again, neither is cisco adler. hee.