Riot Act @ SXSW on Thursday - Nathan's take

Thursday came up with tons of sun and tons of emails, wait I have to work on this work trip?

Yes, yes I do. After answering about a bazillion emails, Joan and I headed out to Jaime's Spanish Village for a lunch with all of you internet friends! Margarita and taco in hand, I proceeded to come across so many new faces that I can barely remember all their names. Sorry, I'm bad at that! It was a rad time and we wrapped up just in time to head over to Waterloo Records to catch Visqueen and Shellshag doing an interview and acoustic set in the Clear Wireless mobile studio.

Well, well, well google maps. You are full of shit. Joan and I proceeded to have the most lovely walk over Ladybird Johnson Lake where we saw turtles and all sorts of bird and then proceeded to some sort of strip mall where Waterloo Records most definitely was not. The temperature was climbing and I was burning, thankfully Joan had sunblock. We quickly realized, if you want to look cool in Austin, you've gotta wear shades and you've gotta know where you're going.

We arrived just in time to see Shellshag load into the green bus and take off. We laughed our butts off as we watched them translate their songs into an acoustic set on the big screen tvs in the parking lot. Shell even managed to unbuckle and throw some stage antics into the set.

It's hot, we've walked way too much and we need showers. Back to the hotel! Walk, walk, walk... which way is the hotel? Lost again!! We arrive at the hotel and we can either run to the KRS Showcase in sweat and pain or we can catch a break and go to dinner looking and smelling human again. We opt for the latter...

Dinner with friends from K Records at the cuban restaurant was fun and tasty! Paying $5 for lone star beers was a little bananas though. It was midwest flavor and alcohol content coupled with Pac Northwest prices, what?

It's now 9:00 and I'm yet to see a single band today. Still, when Davey Brozowski from Black Whales (in town playing percussion with Broken Bells) asks me if I want to grab a drink out of the mayhem, I can't resist. $4 for a 32 oz shiner bock, yes please! After relaxing for an hour or two, Davey has to head off to a private Broken Bells performance that I'm decidedly not invited to.

Walking down the strip of mayhem I saw a few truly horrible things that have no place here and I was fortunately whisked off by a friend to see Cubic Zirconia play a set in some loft space. MIA delivery with a live drummer, crammed into a tiny space. It was great... followed up by some average breakers and then, sleep. For a music festival, I didn't catch much music on Thursday.

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!

NEXT TUESDAY: TWO AMAZING RELEASES, ONE AMAZING DAY.

NEXT TUESDAY IS AN EPIC ONE! Both Patrick Bower & The World Without Magic's "The Dark Lord (of Love)" (FunFact) and the remastered, bonus track-laden reissue of Jawbreaker's classic "Unfun" (Blackball Records) come out on Tuesday! Stay tuned for exciting updates....

SEA OF BEES, LIVE AT THE TANNED TIN.

SEA OF BEES - Live Tanned Tin 2010 from nomepierdoniunatv on Vimeo.

THE OREGONIAN ON OUR ASS-COLD OUTDOOR PARTY LAST WEEK:

"It's what you do. You soldier on. That's rock and roll." INDEED.

Riot Act Media in Tape Op

Not only did we get the chance to spend an afternoon with the amazing folks at Tape Op and all of the magazine's fans, but we had the opportunity to have Larry Crane (Tape Op's main man) hand us a copy of the newest issue with our advertisement in it! Such an amazing magazine... look for more news from us on Tape Op in the near future.

THANKS TO EVERYONE FOR MAKING SXSW 2010 A RIOT ACT SUCCESS!

Due to a string of delays, everyone here at Riot Act didn't get back until this morning's wee hours--but we're now stretching our stretches and getting ready to ROLL. This year's SXSW was a doozy, and a full report of the action will be up soon. For now, we'd love to point you towards listening to the first crazy shit we saw: our very own Visqueen at the NPR Music showcase at Stubb's on Wednesday playing with Spoon, Broken Bells, Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings and The Walkmen. Obviously, they killed it dead. LISTEN HERE!