Mess With Texas

Narangkar and I went to Austin for a bit of the old South by SouthWest a few weeks back. It was the final trip as part of my participation in Scion's Easy Ten film series (you can check out the entire 15-minute film I made with David Choe by clicking this link to "23 Short Film" on Scion's Broadband website). All we had were plane tickets, reservations at a shitbox motel a few miles from downtown, a couple of phone numbers, and our laptop. Well, we also had clothes and stuff and I brought my skateboard. I've never been to Texas, let alone SxSW, so I didn't know what to expect. Thanks to some hot tips from the Texan contingent of This Mob and a phone number for Okay Mountain-Man Michael Sieben, we were fully prepared for a drunken good time.

We strolled over to the Mabel Davis skatepark about a mile or so from where we were staying. It's has got a huge, huge crazy bowl. Yikes.


The park also had a really great street course. Backside 50-50.


These fried pickles were not cheap, but I've been wanted to try me some fried pickles for a while so it was on. Tasty.


Sounder plays at the Camel Lounge, where you are required to accept two packs of free Camel cigarettes if you want some free Pabst tall cans. The whole place was all decked-out in Camel posters. Sounder did their best to not look like tobacco-sponsored sell-outs.


While wandering around downtown Austin our first evening there, we randomly ran into JP, who had spent his first week in Oakland (just after his 21st birthday) at Santa Rita jail on some trumped-up vandalism bullshit. JP rules and hopefully he'll come back to Oakland soon.


One of the only shows we actually payed money to see was, hands down, the worst band I have ever seen in my life. The Slits from the UK. "I'll dance reggae, you dance punk. No- wait- you dance punk and I'll dance reggae." I repeat, with all sincerity, Worst Band Ever!


Here is the 10am line to get into the free Motorhead show.


Motorhead was actually kind of boring. Napalm Death (pictured here), going on year number 27, was the highlight of the afternoon.


I'm sure everybody who has ever been to Okay Mountain gallery has marveled at this nearby amazing, muscle-bound, double bicepted, grill master mural. Awesome.


Sunset on whatever the name of the river that Austin is on is called. It was a lovely evening.


The cupcake airstream. Now that's good eatin'.


We began to doubt that we would get to see any really good shows while at SxSW and were kinda caught off guard when Jay Reatard blew-up the outdoor stage at some Scion / Vice gig. It was over 90 degrees on this mid-March day, there was no shade, but the High Life tallboys were on the house so it was all good. Jay Reatard rules live and on record. Go buy their stuff.


Okay Mountain is swell. We dropped fifty bucks on zines, T-shirts, and a beer cozy in their gift shop. Sitting on their grassy yard listen to random art-music duos and sipping keg beer was not a bad way to spend a few hours. Highly recommended.


Big Nate Sieben.


Backyard rampage.


Narangkar drops in.


Mike, Michael, and Alison. They took us to Barton Springs for some fresh-water swimming and then out for some Tex-Mex. It was a good day.


Oakland in Texas! DJ Eleven and DJ Willie Maze! I bet they are texting each other.


Narangkar dropping moves on the dance floor like you've never seen .


Hooray for everything.

Big thanks to Michael, Allison, and Big Nate Sieben for all their help and hospitality. Thanks also to Todd, Steven, Aho, and the Sounder/Volcom crew, JP, all the Austin heads, and everybody else. See you next time.