Hooves on the Turf

I woke up panicking about how lazy I’d been the last two days; how little effort I’d made to see the bands I’d made my goal to see; I had spent two days just chilling. God Damn. I dashed out of the hotel with urgency and purpose to catch Mountain Man, but, alas, the cab never arrived, and I missed their set. So we said, Oh Well.

Girl from Mountain Man:

As you can tell by the picture above, I did see them at some point: that night I ended up at the Woodsist showcase, and there they were. But there isn’t a happy ending here. They were just there to sing backup vocals for their friends’ set, and I don’t recall hearing their voices at all. This was the night of sound f-up’s at Cheer Up Charlie’s. When I was back in my bed after the show, ending the day with thin crust pizza from Domino’s (surprisingly tasty), I read Todd P’s tweet:

bizarre sound guy meltdown at cheer up charlies. dude apparently just completely lost it, puked, now in a fetal position. not one drink

Incidentally, I also had pizza for breakfast that morning. We said, “Well if we can’t see Mountain Man, we might as well go eat pizza at Home Slice“. As we ate, we listened to Phantogram play:

And guess who was there to get the party going while bands switched on the  main stage?

A Giant Dog Austin’s premiere party band?

My main reason for coming here was to check out Generationals (from New Orleans):

As we were driving into Austin, the radio was on, and they played a catchy tune called “Whey They Fight”, and it was just a really fun tune by this band called Generationals. So I was determined to check them out.

They seemed really likable, but their live setup was in its infantile stage. All the cowbells, horns and tambourines you hear in the recording? Well, there was none of that. And none of the strongly-implied dance moves.

Missing Mountain Man evidently didn’t teach us anything. We decided to leisurely check out all the stores on that stretch of South Congress Avenue. This was one of our stops:

We got a fresh cherry lemonade:

We ran into this guy (sounded great!):

Who had this sticker:

Some time around this hour, we missed Mountain Man for the second time, partly owing to the American Apparel flea market, which was the biggest waste of time. Then we were exhausted and took a lingering break for empanadas. But  we were told, “You must come down to French Legation Museum, it’s awesome!”And so we did.

Thurston Moore was playing:

This was probably my favorite venue. It was so relaxing that next year I’m determined to come here first thing in the morning every morning. Yellow Fever, Talk Normal and Sharon Van Etten had all played here earlier (separate shows), which I’d missed.

Thurston Moore was followed by a surprise assault from this awesome mariachi band:

They sort of appeared out of nowhere, and everyone’s faces went from “what the—” to “—oh my god this is so cool” within a second. I was ecstatic at the first sound of the trumpet.

Thurston was still hanging around:

We were running incredibly late for the Loom BBQ party where all our friends were going to be. We made it in time for Rural Alberta Advantage, which was the last band to play.

We missed our friends These United States’ set but we heard it was a-rocking. And there was still plenty of these:

John Fanning of The Loom atop a tree house:

Then we headed to Cheer Up Charlie’s for the Woodsist showcase.
Despite sound issues, The Beets (my neighbors in Brooklyn)! We take the same train and it’s not even the L or the G.

Woods and friends:

Someone Alex Bleeker (of Real Estate) playing his own stuff with members of Mountain Man and Real Estate:

Mountain Man:

Somehow Woods managed to work past the ongoing sound troubles:

Musically speaking, a terribly unproductive day.

Download Honeybee by Mountain Man
Download When They Fight by Generationals
Download To Clean by Woods
Download When I’m Small by Phantogram
Download Happy But On My Way by The Beets