Riot Act @ SXSW on Wednesday - Nathan's take

Oh man, out the door at six am and Joan and I are off for Austin... my first, her 14th? We've managed to coerce the notable Jessica Hopper into believing that we'll be suitable roommates in her room at the hotel and the bags are packed. The flight into Dallas was unremarkable with the exception of a puking, naked four year old girl in the seat next to me. SXSW PARTY!

Arriving in Dallas and awaiting our flight, you sensed the excitement in the air. Fact: I had the audio book version of "Our Noise" the Merge Records story on my iPhone for the trip and who do we have lunch with, the drummer from Superchunk. Fact two: I'm rereading "Our Band Could Be Your Life" and as we line up at the gate, the author is in line behind us. I was waiting for Neil Young to come on board wearing his I Heart Nathan Walker shirt to make the circle complete.

We arrived at our hotel safely to have our taxi door ripped open by what we thought to be the bellhop. It was not. Instead it was an incredibly intoxicated, suburban male wearing a "kiss me I'm Irish" pin who blurted out "Wellll excushe mmeee!" as we looked at him in horror. As Joan paid our friendly driver, I unloaded our luggage to the sweet sounds of a ska version of "Take On Me" while I watched the partyman buckle at the knees repeatedly and hold back puke with each belch. SXSW!! We are here!

We had a whopping thirty minutes to freshen up and rush to see Visqueen at Stubb's as part of the NPR showcase! Wow, what a trip seeing Rachel and team blast out powerful song after song. They started the show with "So Long" and to see them on that giant stage after all the work everyone's put in and to hear those lyrics... well, I can't say my eyes were dry.

After the show, Joan and I parted ways as I had an in at the artists' free backstage bar with my friends in Finn Riggins and, one of my favorite writers, Emily Youssef. Apparently, when you're around free booze, time flies and it was time to rally my energy to see K Records, Jeremy Jay. It was a stellar end of the night as we bore witness to a whole room of folks at the Beauty Bar couples dancing! Seriously, it had all of the innocence of a high school dance and, yet again, I was standing at the back having had too much too drink!