I can't hear you

There is a permanent din of noise in my head - a cacophony of drums and singing, beers clanking, and my friends laughing. The ringing in my ears will, I hope, subside in another day or two.

SXSW 2006 is complete. I have a wrist full of fading clubs stamps. I've ridden my bike around downtown in the rain, with traffic, and back up the same streets many times. I've resorted to a coffee, shitty beer and greasy food diet. I've been sleeping until noon since Thursday.

And it's been the best SXSW ever. I've seen 34 bands in big clubs, little clubs, inside, outside, and in bars I've never heard of. There weren't many lines. I have a list of CDs to buy, of bands to track down and keep an eye on. I own albums for only 5 of the bands I saw. Several of the shows I was most looking forward to were disappointing. Though the magic of the great shows - of some band no one knows getting their 40 minutes to shine in one of the most prestigious music conferences in the world - more than made up for it.

And this year was the first year I've taken off for SXSW to fully experience the madness of day shows. The streets were packed with trendy, hip music business visitors. I was relaxing with friends drinking beer at 4 pm in some east side bar I've never been to. I was biking through crowds of people. It was a vacation at home. And I never want to do it any other way.

Overall, this was not the year of rock. With a couple of exceptions, the rock bands were disappointing. Bad acoustics washed out the vocals, and bounced around sound until it was a cluster of of uninteresting noise. Acoustics wasn't all to blame. The rock band instrument formula can only carry so many sounds, and after a while, they all sounded the same.

Now the electronic bands were a different story. Loud, danceable, and almost entirely from Canada, they made my SXSW.

Favorite Shows
Hot Chip
Holy Fuck
Shout Out Out Out Out
Shy Child
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Tunng


Biggest Disappointments
Thunderbirds Are Now! - I love their album, but the vocals got destroyed by bad acoustics.
Ladytron DJs - I thought their performance was actually "in between sets" background music.
Straightlight Run - MP3 led me to believe they could have a NIN, gothic sound. They were a generic Christian pop band, which would be fine if that's what we
were expecting. They deceived us!
Pink Mountaintops - Just boring. However, the free beers I got from being at the venue kept the day
Belle & Sebastian - Well I wasn't expecting much, but why the hell are they so damn popular?

The rest of the shows I saw that were neither the highlights or the low points: kiss me deadly, new pornographers, wooden wand, ad adstra per aspera, mogwai, the islands, raheem, zzz, plan b, you say party! we say die!, poni hoax, gem, elliot lip, We Are Wolves!, disco ensemble, pink mountaintops, minsk, scissors for lefty, the boy least likely to, veto, birdy nam nam, boyskout, the duke spirit, tullycraft

this condo has a dance floor

we moved the table outside, and the chairs downstairs. mary dimmed the lights. randy set up his laptop. yet, i was dubious. my condo, is not the dancing-party type of place.

not so! give people cocktails, nowhere to sit and some prince, and they'll dance all night long. with a limbo stick even!

The pictures to prove it!

The ATX--> NYC going away party for Mary was a blast. Even the 45 minutes of mopping every inch of laminate flooring this morning was worth it.

Next up, SXSW is this week! I have plans to take off work, hang out with friends, drink and further my loss of hearing. Mammouth shared calendar has been quite the undertaking, but worth it.

After that, GDC in San Jose, where I will stand in front of strangers and sound all smart about outsourcing. It is an understatement to say I am nervous. Good thing I have SXSW and visitors to distract me. Just after I finalize my slides and practice in front of a video camera, of course.

And then the beginning of April will appear. And I will blissfully be doing nothing, except reading a book and riding my bike.

Just like a Texan

The only thing better than my fabulous new cowboy boots is the fact that I am currently wearing them with a black cocktail dress - for the ATX/NYC themed farewell party that starts here in an hour.