sxsw 2006: for real, this time

okay let's give this a shot

SXSW 2006 - Thursday

- get to texas, see fiery furnaces in baggage claim, fucking lose it

- go to six shooter records party, get fucking trashed with the shout out gang, who strangely have a mickey of tequilla EACH:




- play alberta music association party with shout out out out out. meet taryn, who is helping work it. creepily realize that i've seen her on the internet. turns out i'm right, she's friends with the cobrasnake. i unironically take her picture:



the cobrasnake takes her picture later on.

- watch fiery furnaces at stubbs with eppy and matthew perpetua. intimidated by watching show with people who know what they're watching, one of which managed to analyse a full album, including the foreign language shit. the band was all guitar, drums and bass, no synth, but it was a pretty upbeat set:




- see no things and man man, there are an incredible amount of people at man man. finding one of the only ways into clubs is literally running by security. meet nick diamonds, he invites me to rap with islands tonight.

- have two chicken fajitas before rapping with subtitle and noah 23 at islands show, i am totally hammered, but do a good job:



- complain for the rest of the night about spicy fajitas. go into a drunken spice-based dementia. won't fucking shut up about spicy fajitas. say something like 'spice holocaust in my mouth'.

SXSW 2006 - Friday

- go to vice party during the day, watch tunng, get totally blown away by both their music and their hot bjork-esque melodica player:



- watch mystery jets outside (pretty good), followed by the guillemots, who totally fucking sucked, sound problems or no. then i realize that in the airport thursday, the girl who plays stand-up bass was in my face with a camera recording me. i confront her on this fact and she is rightfully embarassed. this band totally sucks.

- play indoor vice stage, discover sparks alcoholic beverage. it's this yellow energy drink/malt liquor hybrid and it is fairly gross! why was i drinking it? i put on a relatively dope show:



then i met serg from beer and rap:



AND JASON FORREST, AHHHHHHHHHHH:



- then i go hustle myself some free penguin gear for playing that show and then i went to this weird canadian mansion party, hang out with my homies the meligrove band and got interviewed by CBC:



- after that i saw the god brother ali throw down and then i had to do the sneak move to get into spankrock. being 20, my manager ran in and out of the club three times in a 15 minute span, grabs me, claims i'm performing and it works. come on, united states, you gotta know better. spank rock destroyed:



SXSW 2006 - Saturday

- had a focused interview with my mang dave morris for toro magazine, then i had a muchmusic interview, then i stuck around the vice party waiting for ghostface to come on. saw 10 minutes of the guy and then jumped into my venue and rapped. then we went for dinner. after that, i got destroyed at the vice party, where the stills played and simian mobile disco threw down some tunes:





and then i came home:

The Streets - Can't Con An Honest Jon
probably the album of the year for me so far. i always liked the streets, but this being a more personal album works better than the random geezer-isms of album's past. it sounds like mike is little pissed off with people trying to get over on him, so his response to that is equal to the most recent sawyer-based lost episode. this beat bangs like timbaland gone dancehall, mike skinner has improved in all facets. sometimes on the album ('memento mori''s last verse, especially), it appears he's developed a traditional rap flow. no one tells a story like this guy. awesome, awesome, awesome.

E-40 - Go Hard Or Go Home (ft. The Federation)
i love it, i fuckin' love it. 'what's beef?' 'beef is when e-40 owns a fatburger' this song has a really hot clap and an ill boombox sequence in the middle. i love the idea of people stomping through the roof of cars, as well as people who 'hang with monkeys like mike and emmanuel'. that last rapper is pretty dope, who is he?

Gnarls Barkley - Smiley Faces
this is probably gonna be one of the bigger records of the year. i like this shit, it's the only time i've really been into ceelo's singing. this shit is really sixties, danger mouse is becoming more robust and varied with his production, i'm glad he's putting money back into the craft, he's got some real cool effects, that guy. they might have a couple radio hits on their hands.