Awesome Colors
I got punched in the face last night.
There I was stood staring in awe as Thurston Moore screamed the lyrics of a hundred hardcore anthems, printed neatly onto sheets of A4 paper. J Mascis stood behind him ripping through feedback, Jonah from Fucked Up shredding his bass. And there I was, mouth open, eyes to the clouds. And there he was, 180 pounds of stage diver, flying fist first into my face.
I’ll save taking a fresh photo for tomorrow when the bruise is really shining. Right now I just look like a newly born puppy….
So that was pretty much the end of my evening. The Ecstatic Peace showcase was beyond amazing though. Talk Normal sounded incredible, Viv Albertine was great, Lord Jeff, Black Helicopter… But the real stars for me were Awesome Color. Wow. I liked what I’d heard before but live, I think they were the first act to properly blow me away this SXSW.
I tried to tell them this after the show and all I could come up with was “Hi, that was awesome… uh… I mean great.” Nice job, Jen.
Other highlights of the day included Stricken City, meeting Gwar in the Convention Center, and a killer set from Washed Out and Small Black. Everyone went pretty insane for the ‘Despicable Dogs’ into ‘Feel It All Around’ moment.
Also worthy of a mention are Cloud Nothings. They’re from Cleveland, they have a record out on Speakertree and they play driven, fun, indie pop. It’s funny actually because they were a lot fiercer live than I’d expected, the pop element of some of the tracks I’ve heard online seemed to be replaced with a kind of slack determination. At times it bordered a more aggressive indie rock, but I think that was just from the drummer smashing away with his back to the crowd. Watch…
Anyway, I need to leave my hotel room in about 9 minutes so I’d best go. It looks like rain. The one day I need to wear sunglasses.
Cloud Nothings: “Hey Cool Kid (Memoryhouse Remix)”
Washed Out: “Feel It All Around”
Small Black: “Despicable Dogs”
Washed Out & Small Black
Cloud Nothings
Demolished Thoughts
Hey Jen,
Nice to meet you at the Ecstatic Peace showcase. Thanks so much for the kind words. We had a blast at that show. So many great bands played! It was an honor to be included. Sorry about the punch to the face! Hopefully everything has healed up all right.
Stay sweet.
Peace,
Michael.
Sometimes when you put good things together it just doesn’t work out. You’d think that SXSW would be absolutely amazing because there’s so many good bands and awesome people in the same place. Turns out it’s just an excuse for all the industry kooks of the world to have a pow wow. It’s kinda like when you drink orange juice after brushing your teeth. You think you’re doing a good thing, but it ends up tasting terrible! That pretty much sums up SXSW.
Yeah man I remember talking to you at the merch table and then after the Demolished Thoughts show you came back with a black eye! Michael from AC passed this on to me because we talked about it quite a bit in the van. We were all obsessed with Meow Meow on that trip so every time it came up we’d also ask “Yo what happened to that Welsh girl that raged the pit?!?”
It was nice to have met and I’m glad you’ve recovered. If you’re still in NY and want to hang out hit me up! – Davey
Hey Michael and Davey – I just read this. I’m so crap.
Let me know next time you’re in the UK! I hope to come back to NY in the autumn but not sure. I don’t think I should put my email address here but you can get me on twitter.com/jenlong (sorry, I know that’s lame but whatever)