By Jamie Peck
A funny thing happens when you get too ambitious at South by: time runs away from you. First you’re getting up at the crack of noon ready to take it all in, and the next thing you know it’s 2am and your feet are sore, but you have very little you can actually write about. No, wait, that’s not true…I must have done a lot of stuff in the last twelve hours to get my feet this sore. I guess I should start at the beginning…
12pm
Woke up in bed (platonically) next to Erin Broadley, my editor at Suicidegirls. Asked “is it really noon?” Fell back asleep.
1pm
Put laptop on charger while showering, vowed to write Impose update before SG interview at
1:30
Spent too long putting on makeup (I don’t really know how to put on makeup).
2pm
Scarfed down a mediocre Mexican wrap at coffeehouse around the corner, ran over to Spiro’s to interview underage metal sensation Black Tide.
2:45pm
Made Black Tide uncomfortable with questions about the ladies. Tried not to laugh when they avowed their love of showcase sponsor Hot Topic. Felt bad, hooked them all up with gift memberships (all but the 17-year old).
3pm
Stopped into Motorhead show. Motorhead rocks.
3:15pm
In the midst of rocking out, saw two text messages and a missed call from Jeremy. Remembered I still needed to write an update. Guiltily slunk over to Koriente to drink free iced green tea (they were giving out coupons!), eat a hummus roll (highly recommended) and blog.
4:15pm
Headed over to the Fader house for Lou Reed tribute. All bands were competent, some were good (Dr. Dog), some were great (Thurston Moore!), but only one was Lou Reed. Wondered why he had Moby in his band. Are they friends? Asked Lou Reed if I could take his picture. He nodded, then turned away from me. Took crappy side shot with Polaroid.
7pm
Met up with Impose crew at Jelly/myopenbar.com garage for Team Robespierre. They finally had all their members and working equipment and hence sounded awesome, at least compared to the other times I’d seen them recently. Danced to their jumpy electro-punk, got happy. Took a rad Polaroid of them.
10pm
Walked around starving for half an hour before stumbling into PF Chang’s. Scarfed down tofu and veggie dish that is still giving me unpleasant onion burps. I really didn’t need to eat all those onions.
11:15pm
Set out for Def Jux Showcase.
11:30pm
Still walking to Def Jux showcase…didn’t realize how damn far it was.
11:45pm
Met up with Erin at the Scoot Inn, a fun outdoor space with lots of places to chill. El-P was onstage making the crowd go crazy. While Erin was interviewing Del the Funky Homosapien, Bushwick Bill butted in to preach aggressively/condescendingly about why Del was important in music history. She looked like she wanted to punch him, but decided it would probably not be a good idea to go after a one-eyed midget on camera.
12am
Held the camera while Erin interviewed El-P. Several fun facts about him: his favorite gun to shoot is a water gun, and while in Austin he plans to do three things: shoot water guns, eat pig, and play music.
1am
Extremely drowsy. Watched Dizzee Rascal do his thing and make everyone wave their hands in the air, etc. This was the first show where I’d seen much audience participation. I don’t know very much about grime or his hybrid dub-step, but I liked Dizzee’s voice and phrasing. I think I’d like it more if I had a lyric sheet so I could read along and appreciate the cleverness of what he’s saying (I’m assuming it is, in fact clever). Erin thinks [his third album]’s going to be huge in the US. Judging from the crowd’s reaction, she’s right.
2am
Delirious from fatigue, put on Black Tide and play air guitar to their super sweet fantasy metal. Against my better judgment, I allow Erin to film this.
I guess I did a decent amount of things today after all. But I’m going to try to do even more things tomorrow. Time will not run away from me again, and if it tries, I’ll lay the smack down. I will make time my bitch.
