So yesterday was the last Official Day of SXSW and like in past years theirs usually a few events still leftover or some other non-official things to do on Sunday.
Not that those events aren’t cool, it’s just that usually I’m here for like 10 days and by Sunday I’m spent. Everyone else has to get back to their day jobs on Monday so literally everyone leaves on Sunday. I was totally spent as well but nothing was going to stop me from finally seeing Cherie Currie perform.
Plus, I had a boat Ride to take –
Day 5 – Sunday March 16th –
One of the things I look forward to when I come to Austin for SXSW or anytime in the Spring/Summer is the many boat rides that you can take around Barton Springs etc. Every year that I’ve come to SXSW theirs always some crazy party on a boat that I wind up on and two days ago I was supposed to be on one but I had a gig and a million other things to do. Today I would make up for it (sorta).
I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose this week and if there is any way that the ramshackle-ness of SXSW — with its frustrations, lines and corporate overtones — can coexist with the countercultural spirit that began this event, and that continues to make this experience great. The unofficial events this week were phenomenal, particularly on the East Side and South Austin. There’s a sense that these DIY-style events are put on because of passion, not so much exposure, and that true heart goes into the curation. It makes a difference.
7th Annual Chicarones Boat Party – Highland Lakes Marina
w/ The Coup
& more
The old trusty boat bobbed in the water, inviting us crazies on board to give this hell week one more hurrah, and we did it in fashion.
Haunted Spaceship, Sleep of Oldominion, Ariano, XP, Murs, The Chicharones, and The Coup, all rocked it in true boat party fashion. The evening was hitting hard and the wind was whipping, the rap battled the elements of nature and hip hop won, despite the fact it was freezing as shit.
The Chicarones
If your unfamliar with The Chicharones & indie Hip-Hop period, they formed in 2001 after a chance meeting between Seattle-based Sleep and Vancouver-based Josh Martinez here at the festival actually. Sleep was at the time a member of the hip hop collective Oldominion, of which he is still an active collaborator. Josh Martinez entered the duo from a career as a solo artist. They did their thing and it was great as it is every year I see them.
The Coup
Afterward, funk collective the Coup took over. Politicized lyrics & the music itself is more a study of rhythm in all its forms. Melding elements of soul, punk rock, and the tenacity of early-’90s-era hip-hop.
Frontman Boots Riley prowled the stage, provoking the audience into moving along with the beats. The Chicarones are a tough act to follow, but The Coup really delivered.
As I mentioned you can see how bundled up we all are – it was cold!
Texas Chainsaw Meltdown @ Hotel Vegas
w/ Cherie Currie
Black Oak Arkansas
Animals
Apache
& more
As I mentioned above, yesterday was the last “offical” day and everyone goes home today and I normally would too, but when I see this poster a few weeks before coming down here, and saw Cherie Currie was not only gonna do one of her Chainsaw Sculpture art demos that she was going to also be performing a Runaways set, it instantly became (for me) the most anticipated event of the whole damn thing. (…and is that Jim Dandy & Black Oak Arkansas I see too?).
Though this event had a happy ending and put a smile on my face that’s still there (and not likely to leave anytime soon) this will require a bit of explaining of how we got to that wonderful moment and there’s no way I’m gonna come off as anything but a total grouch but hey – honesty is my only excuse.
After the boat ride I got over there just in time as Cherie was starting her chainsaw demo –
Chain saw art is a form traceable as far back as the 1950’s. It demands concentration, precision, and skill. There are different types of wood to use, and different types of machines. Cherie clearly loves doing this and she told me after this that, “There’s not much of a difference between working a microphone and working the saw. The latter is more dangerous. But both times are moments in my life when I’m in control and it brings me a lot of happiness.”
Her work includes bears, mermaids, dolphins, and furniture. She added this when she was done – “How can you not be happy when you’re creating something from your soul?” – Awesome.
After her demo and we spoke for a bit, I left for a bit to get something to eat as I had a little time before the music portion that I wanted to see was to begin.
I couldn’t have eaten there but I was getting a little tired of the food truck culture in Austin and also overpaying for it. So I went in search of something a little more real.
I found this little family owned taco shop across the street. It was pretty gross but at least it was authentic.
By the time I get back to Hotel Vegas for the music the temperature had dropped dramatically and it was now barely 40 degrees and this was an outdoor event.
I was legitimately excited to see Jim Dandy & Black Oak Arkansas. One of those acts that I felt like I just needed to see before they hang it up and feel like he probably gets crazier with each passing year. I was ready for the crazy (though I was fucking freezing).
Think about all who’s even been in this band & not to mention Jim Dandy is credited with inspiring Van Halen (my all-time fave band) frontman David Lee Roth’s image and onstage persona. The fact that in 2014 they were still doing it & doing it in the backyard of some shithole on the East Side of Austin seemed perfect.
They even have a new record out with an even more perfect title – Back Thar N’ Over Yonder – that’s on a MAJOR fucking label and serves as the first piece of original output from them in 15 years and the first for MCA/Atco in 38 years. Dandy said (in one of the few things I could actually understand what he was saying) that it was a record for any band to have that much time between recording for the same label.
The other thing I could make out that Dandy said was that he was about to turn 66 ‘…but two weeks ago I was 17″ – as he strutted out in a biker gear and long white coif that could only come from a certain place in Arkansas.Ok so while I was genuinely happy to see Jim Dandy in person and to learn of this new beginning for him and the band – I must admit that cold or no cold, the novelty of seeing this performance wore off after less than 10 mins and the punishing cold only reinforced that.
Call it fatigue from the week or just burnout from all the non-stop music I’ve seen this week but their set was literally unbearable.
The band played fine and Dandy gave it all he had but it’s over – Thank goodness he’s got the power of the name behind him so he can still make a little money but it’s my opinion that he really has no business performing. His vocals were excruciating and his stage prowess was to simply walk three steps and
turn around – repeat. He walked in that way that you know he’s probably in pain that it kind of makes you in pain when you see it.
I went back inside to get warm – Cherie was playing outside too after him so I knew I was gonna have to brave it for her and it would be even colder by then too.
It was 7:30pm and I had an hour to kill (or so I thought) before she was going on and here is where shit gets real dark.
While I’m waiting inside the place starts to fill up with a certain type of group of people that is very specific to Austin and the thing that I hate the most about this city.
When I’m not in Austin I think about how much fun I always have when I’m here and how the sun just seems to shine a bit brighter here. When I get here I marvel for the first couple of days at the entrepeneural spirit and how it produces things I only see here.
However, after dodging pedicab drivers & other parasites all week I start to see how that same thing produces a very real state of arrested development for most of the young people here and espeicially when you see middle aged people with the same short/long term goals as people in their early 20s.
Once you gain that perspective it’s hard not to see it everywhere you go in this town.
This venue felt like mecca for that specific type of unwashed, bearded Austin hipster who purposely looks homeless and from the goddamned 70s.
I was here a couple of days ago for Buffalo Daughter and the cooler-than-you door girl was reading me the riot act of rules while all of her friends who look like they work at American Apparel are in clear violation of them. I asked her what gives and she said that I could do that same “if I knew the password”.
I asked her if their was a password to get the fuck out of here even quicker.
I go into the shithole of a bathroom – their are two urinals and one toilet with a waist high partition – the sink separates them so if your done at the toilet while the sink is occupied you have to wait to exit.
Their were two guys at the urinal, I was cornered in the toilet because what was preventing safe passage at the sink were two shitheads doing coke (probably meth) off the back of each other’s hand. They had to have seen me – they saw me actually waiting patiently for them to snort this crap so they could get the fuck out of my way – but then they decided to do more and paid me no attention. I firmly and with an annoyed affectation said “Ummm…OK guys…” – they still paid me no mind.
So I just shoved Shithead #1 out of my way thus knocking his backhand full of white powder to the floor and then I stepped on it for good measure in the same beat.
I was sure this was going to lead to a fight and they certainly were complaining but no one followed me out.
It’s now 8:30pm and to my dismay I see that the posted schedule has Cherie’s name moved to 9 and then later 9:30 –
The inside was so full of these assholes patronizing some local band that appears to be the leader of this group of assholes and others just trying to stay warm like me that their was literally nowhere to go.
Finally at 9:30 I look outside and see a band taking the stage, only to find out that Apache (the local band that was serving as Cherie’s backing band for this gig, and this gig only) was going to do a set of their own music first thus pushing her set back even further.
Everyone here looks the same and the whole thing felt like one big pose.
Mercifully, their set was brief and finally after being here for over three hours and over two hours after she was supposed to start, to no fault of her own Cherie took the stage.
Nothing drives me crazier than when you go to a show now you can’t watch the band without looking at a sea of fucking cell phones in the way. Imagine what that must be like for a performer these days – playing to a wall of cell phones.
Sure I want a pic too, but I’ll take one at the end and make sure I’m in no ones way. Nowadays people sit there and film it on there phones instead of being in the moment. Why? You will NEVER go back and watch that and if you wanted to watch through a screen, why didn’t you just stay home?
Anyway, right as she was starting, sure enough this girl acts like no one is behind her and holds her phone up right in my face and keeps it there for half of the first song. I would normally never be this much of an asshole to anyone but I had enough & instead of asking her to put her phone down, I literally swatted it to the ground from her hands & screamed right in her face that I couldn’t see with her bullshit in my face. She was looking at me like I had some nerve.
After that it was (almost) smooth sailing – a few more Runaways tunes followed by a new song from her upcoming solo record that is finally gonna be released next month, & a cover of Sweeney Todd’s Roxy Roller.
The charm of the show was how loose and informal it was but it also produced limitations. We learned during the show that Apache hadn’t rehearsed with her & just simply learned as many of the songs they could. So with no setlist each song was prefaced with her asking the band if they knew whatever song she was suggesting. It was kind of like karaoke just with the person who happens to sing those songs. Given the circumstances the band really pulled it off and she kicked total ass.
Andy Animal, who put the event together, a nice dude who is one of those guys that everyone in town knows was standing onstage during the show and given the late hour I guess he had enough to drink where he thought it was okay to think nothing of taking one of the stage mics when she played two unfamliar tunes back-to-back and interrupt her before she started a third to playfully complain about the setlist and goes “Awww, Cherie come on, I wanna hear…” etc.
He is clearly endeared to this crowd so not only was it tolerated it popped a few times in his favor – Cherie is such a nice person and clearly doing her best to get her confidence back just rolled with it.
Then enevitably came Cherry Bomb and the place just exploded and I detonated right along with them – suddenly it was a house party and there’s a video on YouTube somewhere of me jumping onstage and finishing the song on backup with her. One of the best moments I can ever remember, just like that.
When she came here four years ago just to promote her book and do a chainsaw demo, I went to that but then left after the demo and heard later that she joined the San Antonio group, Girl in a Coma onstage and did Cherry Bomb in what was one of her first performances in 30 years and have been kicking myself ever since. Tonight that wrong was righted –
She finished up with Bowie’s Rebel Rebel – she is famously his biggest fan and who inspired her to start a career performing – the perfect end to an all-too brief set.
American Nights
California Paradise
You Wreck Me (Solo)
Roxy Roller (Sweeney Todd cover)
C’mon
Cherry Bomb
Rebel Rebel (David Bowie cover)
I met Cherie for the first time at the NAMM convention in Anaheim back in 2011 as a mutual friend of ours introduced us and we have been friendly ever since. She is so kind to her fans and just such a genuinely nice person in general, you could see a line starting to form to meet her and I watched her talk to every single person that wanted to meet her and sign their stuff etc. After the line dispersed we hung out some more and talked for awhile with some other mutual friends we have in common here in town.
She was telling me how excited she was to finally get this record out. She has had so much trouble on the business end with a bad manager who kept delaying its release and a myriad of other problems. Her optimism is so infectious and I’m thrilled for her and glad its finally coming out and I can’t wait to hear it.
Ok, believe it or not their is going to be ONE MORE chapter to this sorrid tale of SXSW 2014 – a final recap and some crazy shit that didn’t fit anywhere else.
Stay tuned!
Photos –
Roy Turner
