One of the most common talking points espoused by "Locals" during SXSW is "come, have fun, give us your money, and DON'T MOVE HERE. GO AWAY! FUUUUCCCCKKKKK YOUUUUUUUU!!" It's manifested in t-shirts, and bumper stickers, and tons of bathroom graffiti, and it's sickening.
Austin is pointed to as the Texas bastion of free spirits and radical thinkers up to and including the silly, reductive mantra of "Keep Austin Weird". I've lived here for twelve years, my father was born here, my grandparents lived and died here. I've been visiting Austin over Spring Break since it was a sleepy college town and SXSW was this rickety piece of crap spread across a few clubs and a five page fold out in the Chronicle. Somewhere along the way perspective has been totally lost.
No one is a local. The people I know who purchased the aforementioned tee's have lived in Austin less time than I have. Willie Nelson isn't from here, Stevie Ray Vaughn isn't from here, the guys from Spoon aren't from here, Robert Rodriguez isn't from here, Paul Qui isn't from here, and--generally speaking--locals of the "I've lived here my whole life" variety are rejects who couldn't escape the vortex of familiar environs. And the only people my age I know who were actually born and raised in Austin hate the don't move here bent more than I do. No one moved here before some arbitrary cut off, and everyone has one friend they can't wait to move here, but I guess they're just "Austin" enough to qualify.
We have a nice town, a wonderful town, but we need outside influences to grow the city. This notion New York City people, and the dreaded LA person set foot on ATX soil and immediately concoct a plan to erect a condo over your favorite venue/bar you never actually go to, get over it. Big city people don't need Austin as much as Austin needs big city people. You think the sweet Doritos money for SXSW comes in because Austinites are just that charming? Guess again.
Austin is special to us, but guarding the thing you love with overly protective vitriol is not the answer. Want to make sure Austin maintains its standing as a respectable and livable mid-size city? As my friend, Austin's native son, Rob would tell you, vote. Understand the policies and lawmakers and bond issues really shaping the future of Austin. Worry less about some dick from Santa Monica looking to relocate.
I'm from Texas, and my state is a friendly place. My town is open arms. No one person will ruin this town, and the minute this city is vacuum sealed from outside influence, growth is over, and the only thing replacing growth is decay.
Movies should shock and horrify. Movies should be challenging and subvert easy answers. Movies should star Dermot Mulroney. The Rambler, the newest film from director Calvin Reeder, has all of these things, but in daring to dream so big, failure is a kind of certainty.
This film is not an abject failure. Like a nightmare, the events depicted in the film get worse and worse with every frame. No respite or redemption, making the cinematic equivalent of a tar pit is a kind of marvel. Choked with violence and gore and abhorrent characters, the film forces you to feel something whether you like the feeling or not. Jarring, and at times despicable, more than one person walked out.
Reeder's failure was not in making a film that is uncomfortable to watch, but his failure was in never finding the butter zone for all of these elements to balance. Gratuitous, disquieting films are a proud tradition in the annals of modern cinema, but whether it's Santa Sangre or The Hitcher or Enter the Void, there is a moment--even if it's a small and quiet one--where you can cling to some chunk of flotsam in this churning whirlpool. It goes a long way toward making it all "work."
The Rambler goes over the top in some of the least satisfying moments, and then goes half speed in moments where the film appears ready to rip some eyelids off. Ultimately, the film gave me nothing to roll around in my brain except a scene where a disfigured girl on a leash vomits on Dermot Mulroney's face for damn near 45 seconds. In cinema time, that's like fifteen minutes.
The film's absolute highlight was actress Lindsay Pulsipher whose performance turns from ethereal beauty to blood loss hallucination with an effortlessness this film does not readily facilitate. Otherwise, the argument for this film, the ideal legacy, is to be forgotten. Reeder will make other films, and seems capable of making something exceptional. Then, many years later, as a new generation of cinephiles unearth the independent films of yore, The Rambler will fall into the hands of some aspiring director and be the perfect primer for new, daring young minds.
Upstream Color
People get sick. Life wounds deep. When the sickness hits, it controls everything. Over time, the illness expands, hooked deep inside. When it's finally grown to an all consuming length, an expert is required for the arduous, painful extraction. It can destroy mentally, ruin financially, end marriages; this is the pain of sickness, the cost of healing. When it is finally out, the sickness may be gone, under control, but the little hollow tunnels left in its place are equally difficult to fill. As life happens, other people riddled with their own traumas emerge from the ether. Wounds are compared and woven together. The holes are bored deep, but this doesn't mean new life is forbidden. If I tried to describe the film any other way, I'd be talking about mind control, found sound ambient music albums, and every word of Walden hand copied onto a paper chain.
Bewildering, gorgeous, thoughtful, there will not be another film this year like Upstream Color.
ViceLand
Emerging from the fog of Upstream Color, I go to meet Julie at the Parish. There aren't many people I love more than Jules. Put together, tattooed, so stylish, smarter than most but in a grounded and reasonable way, she's the prettiest girl you know. I'm glad I've known her so long we are effectively genderless, otherwise I would have broken my heart on her rejections 1000 times over. I am her fake boyfriend from time to time, and even then, I think she could do better. Love that chick.
Shakey Graves is playing, a one man band, a guy with a Stetson and a kick drum. His songs are really well composed. Lyrics stop sounding like anything after a while, but his song structure is really complex and still palatable enough for pop. Driving rhythms and anthemic chord changes, I walk away from his show really impressed. Julie and I go outside and stand in a doorway. A deaf guy tries to sell us buttons and he gives me a death stare when I refuse. We chat for a while. In the ambient street light with the white noise of foot traffic filtering around us, it feels like we're in a terrible indie drama. I start to get uncomfortable afraid I'm not holding up my side of the conversation. She tells me she is going to the convention center, I tell her I'm going to a place across the street, but we walk off in separate directions. I don't know why I make it so hard to be my friend sometimes.
ViceLand is already a shit show. Lines everywhere. I'm mostly here just to meet up with friends. I stand in one line, and happen upon Mark and Ranjana. Mark has a full sized Apple keyboard in his pants pocket. It's for our friend Eric. I stand with them for a minute and then it comes out this is the press only line. I go around to the front of the building, and the line has vanished. I quickly go inside to a pleasure dome of complimentary bevvies only to find ViceLand's dark secret. There are Inception style lines within lines in the building. There is a DMV style line to get to the bar, and then there is a post WWI Russian bread line to get outside. The line to get outside splits in two and I chose the line on the right. It does not move. You can see inside the room, but there is no tin of sardines on the other side. Curtains cordon off the area we are all trying to get into. People come up in droves to peak behind and don't like what they see. The room should be packed to the gills, right? People keep lobbying and bullying and sidling to breach the door man, but it doesn't happen. Some other people find a chink in the porous barrier, twenty or so charge through until the fire marshal, or one of his men, plug the hole. At one point, after waiting through most of the set you can hear thudding through the walls, the line jolts forward. We're pushing through the curtain and the door man looks rattled.
"Everyone GET. BACK. ALL OF YOU, GET THE FUCK BACK!!"
His voice cracked, he was scared for a second. It was the bum rush. I guess some assholes at the front felt they had waited long enough. In line I strike up a conversation with an Aussie girl who's hair is pink until it fades out into dishwater grey underneath. We finally make it through, get to the patio where the music is, and there is almost no crowd. I'm not sure how tight the reins are this year, but this is an unusually small crowd for such a major SXSW venue.
Oh, music? Is that why we go to these things? I guess the Japandroids played. Everyone talked about Celebration Rock like it was the second coming of rock and roll. I debate more and more every day whether or not I like rock and roll anymore. It's a silly internal argument, I think I've just reached a saturation point with this movement. Indie was the crucial response to the tail end of bloated MTV rap rock, Indie became the ritual, now I'm waiting for a new generation to come along and reject this sound. And even within the many facets of indie, it's all one box set. The day we die a little because Time Life sells a "Decade of Indie Boxed Set Collection!!" packaged in Sailor Jerry tattoos and converse and skinny jeans, maybe only then will we be set free. The Divine Fits come on after and sound just terrible. Ugh. What am I doing here? They played a cover of a Tom Petty song. "Don't do me like that," maybe? Any which way, it was sluiced straight out of my memory.
I found my new Aussie friend and she was talking to other Aussies. They didn't previously know each other, but I guess if I was on the other side of the globe I'd be talking with any Texans I found. She's from Sydney, her friends from Melbourne. Apparently Melbourne is the spot. One of her friends from Melbourne was really cute. Aussies say "o's" like they have "r's" in them. As we walk out, my pink haired friend can't find a ride so I offer her one. Her friends jokingly memorize my badge in case I'm a creep, but I doubt they could remember. We go to my car and load her bike. She tells me she's shocked people were tipping the bartenders on complimentary drinks. It would never happen in Australia. She also tries to enter my car on the driver's side. Charmed.
I drive her to south Austin. As the trip progressed, and we turned off of the highway onto darkened neighborhood back roads, I could feel the tension rise in her. I'm in the middle of nowhere with this guy I don't know. I get the same feeling when I'm by myself all of the time. I get her home, wrestle her bike from the back seat and wish her well.
I try and watch her make it into the house where she is staying, but it's dark. I drive away feeling pretty good about being me. I really like to pat myself on the back when I do an unremarkable kindness. When I got home, I found her tote bag with bike lock and keys in the floorboard.
Odd Man Out
I won the lottery to attend the Café Tacuba, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Nick Cave show, and I gobbed in its pale, concave face. Mohawk had a showcase with The Stooges and Ghostface Killah on the same bill. Instead of embracing the kindness the SX Gods had afforded me, I wanted more. Every time I bemoan the sorry state of rock'n'roll I always wonder aloud why there are no more Stooges, and I don't think anyone who isn't me or Pretty Toney himself owns multiple Ghostface Killah t-shirts. It was like Mohawk's booker reads my diary.
I got there two hours early. The line hardly moved, but I was okay with that, all part of the plan. The Japandroids reeled off another set from inside Mohawk. I missed it, but no big deal, I was only 70 or so people back and Iggy didn't go on for another hour plus. The line starts to give a little and I can make out the beards of the door men. In an unintended coincidence, the level of authority goes up with beard thickness. Mohawk's door runner is almost all beard, and has really short cropped hair on his head to further accentuate the density of his face nest. As we near the door, an Englishman walks up with a bag full of camera gear and tries to cajole his way inside because he is media. He starts talking to the group in front of me. They're Mexicans, but not in the bigot-y way, I can tell from their Mexican voter registration cards they are actual Mexicans. A little commotion surfaces as one of the Mexicans stepped out of the line to respectfully smoke a cigarette away from the throng. When he walks back up, one of the door men tries to stop him certain he's cutting. The Englishman uses the kerfuffle to insert himself in line. The Mexican couple in front of me lets him hide. The door man even comes up and asks if anyone has cut, but I hold my tongue because so many elementary school teachers echo in my brain telling me not to tattle.
The set is getting close. The door guy finally opens the tap and we shuffle in, the Mexicans, the Brit, they all make it in. As I cross the concrete boundary into Mohawk, the arm drops right in front of me. I was the last man out. I was shocked at first, and just followed the arm up to the face, but he had already looked away. No eye contact is probably best. Okay, it's still about twenty minutes until Iggy goes on, surely a few will trickle out and I'll be all set. As soon as I had talked myself down, King Beard marched up with fingers pressed against his ear piece.
"Hey guys, no one else in, I heard, like, the owner OWNER of South By is coming with ten people and we have to make sure they get in."
Murderous rage. Who is this British guy? What makes his time more valuable than mine? What did those people owe him? Oh, you're from "the media." What, you're gonna take one more shot of a musician standing on stage? What a benefit to the world. I'll gladly pull out my AP News app and help you find a number of places where the stories actually matter. Frothing, teeth ground to bloody bits, Iggy takes the stage and things quickly devolve..
People rush to the door. Some try to walk straight in like they belong here and are quickly rebuffed. One guy in a sleeveless denim jacket accented with a faux leopard collar and studs tells the doorman he should be let in because he is,"(dismissive glance down the line) a fan." The rest of us were clearly faking it. Iggy opened with "Raw Power," but it's gonna be alright. He won't play anything really worth hearing for like thirty minutes. The next wave of people come to the door, and it's the one with hugs, the ones that hurt the most. They hug the door guy, they hug the dude working the podium inside, they hug someone who comes from the inside to retrieve them. Each familiar embrace pushed me closer to the red line than the one before. A few people trickle out and I grab King Beard's attention.
"We don't do one in one out. I'll do an assessment in a few minutes. You two will be the next to get in, I promise."
He pointed to me and the really nice German guy by my side. More waves of people crashed into the front door. The VIP list people hit and were ordered to the side door. Some quickly came back and insisted they be let in because even the VIP was too long in proportion to how special they were. Some kid was brusquely ushered out by two security guys. More people trickle out, no one is let in. My stomach is toxic with bile, I'm about to blow. Iggy and the boys were finishing a track from The Weirdness. It could be too late.
"1970," happens. The dream is dead. This is the song, the only song I wanted to hear. I hate the door guys, but I can't hate them because they have the worst job of all. If I see that British guy I'm going to break his fucking face. I feel demoralized and demeaned, less human than all of the humans whisked through the doors on favors. I'm trapped in a SXSW microcosm. All the entitlements and poor organization and line standing pooled in front of the Mohawk. I even look at the platinum badge around my neck given to me by a connected friend and think, "what did you do to deserve this privilege?"
Why? WHY? WHHHHYYYYYY...oh, I can go in? Excellent.
I catch three Stooges tracks from all the way back. The Specials are a really welcome surprise. I always forget there is a huge ska loving nerd inside me. Sky Ferreria and Middle Class Rut are something that happened. I had to look up the names to remember. These kids... Ghostface Killah aka Pretty Toney aka Iron Man aka Tony Starks aka Ghostdini did his shit. It wasn't better than the first time I saw him, but it was better than the third.
When I got home I shame ate Taco Bell. The itemized list isn't important, but the total was $11.26 for one person.
Feed the Meter
I got downtown early to watch Lunarcy and found awesome metered parking. For one movie? A meter is perfect, and I horde pocket change in my car so I paid with found income. After the show, operation move the car to the East Side is the first order of business. I send a few texts to get a feel for my options. Hype Hotel. Everyone I know is at Hype Hotel. Well...I can feed this thing for three more hours, come back, move the car, and go to Fader. I descend on Hype Hotel. They had more free Taco Bell. I had a bean and cheese soft taco. It was free, so maybe it means I somehow spent less money last night? I see lots of familiar faces, good friends, and it occurs to m how much of SXSW I've done on my own. I get to talk to Lisa. She remembers music from before the Internet, and it's one of her most admirable qualities. You remember Suede? Of course you remember Suede. She had a baby recently and is still going hard. I don't comprehend the sheer force of will, but her and her husband are like Noon to 2 AM everyday. Eric decides he's is going to break away from the group and we head over to the Main or what will forever be known to me as Emo's.
A very bro-y rock band is playing. You can spot a certain kind of rock group when the guitar player is a Gibson Les Paul guy, and more than three quarters of the band wears three quarter sleeve baseball tees. They aren't bad, but it's hard to make an impression at this grand buffet. We see Bradley inside. Two years in a row he's been snapped by some random photog and run up a list of SXSW's best dressed . He said my favorite thing of the weekend: "I compare all movies to Star Wars." And this isn't some ironic R4-D6-eating-a-slice-of-peperoni-pizza-tattoo kind of thing, he's the intense intellectual type. I'm sure he has a wonderful conversation saved in there about the merits of Star Wars' overt simplicity. He mentions a psych showcase later in the day at Hotel Vegas.
Eric and I navigate our way through the straits of people streaming the opposite direction into Emo's Jr. A band named Paws takes the stage and it's nice three man punk. A bass string broke, a rare occurrence, and the drummer lost a stick for most of one song, but they motor through their two and one half minute pop punk confections. Less So Cal and more England. No ballsy solos and less attention to three man harmonies, but it's still songs about girls and hurt feelings.
We duck out of Emo's and see if we can get into Red Eyed Fly. The line is suspect. We have a party at 5 pm at 6th and Nueces, so...I should just feed the meter again, right? I race back to my car and my my found quarter stash isn't quite as deep. Well, I'll feed it one more time, then I have a movie at 7, then I'll be set. I got to a bank and buy a roll of quarters, feed the beast, and head back to Emo's.
I catch the last two songs from Metz. Yes. Rowdy hard rock meets Canada nice. Three dudes barreling through a controlled chaos of thunder drums and feedback. Never phony screams, but caterwauling like a third level possession from the rock and roll devils. I wish I'd seen the whole set, but sometimes at SXSW an amuse bouche is ideal. Just enough to make me commit to a full, properly sound checked set when Metz returns. I make my way inside and find Eric. We're here for Beach Fossil(s)? It turns out Widowspeak is next.
They have three guitar players, and one of those water voiced lead singers a'la Beach House. It's sort of drone pop but with subtle folk affectations. Some of the chord shapes are very country, but there is an overriding current of thick, fuzzy tone. This music might be better for making time with your best gal and/or fella, but in the frenzied ramble, it's hard to connect. Oh, and you guys don't need three guitar players. Lazy music decision. Bad business decision. You're not the New Main Street Singers.
We split out and go to the now infamous Entertainment Weekly. They publish a lousy rag, but man, when it comes to free bevvies and apps, they do it with the Dionysian charm of the guy who first thought out loud, "it's a fully stocked bar, but you don't pay. It's an 'OPEN' bar." The line is gridlocked and then gives way in a nice orderly fashion. I don't plan on staying, though. Spring Breakers is the last movie I want to screen. I figure as long as I get there an hour early I should be fine. The film tested huge at the premiere, but once the music conference gets in full swing, it's a lot easier to get in to movies.
I light out and work my across the width of downtown. The seams from my jeans gnash their teeth into my inner thighs. I need to come to terms with some things and buy bigger pants. I grind through pedestrians and pedicabs and crosswalks and as soon as I get to Alamo, the line already curls around the building and into the street. An hour early, damn. I'm married to this meter.
When I'm plopping in my quarters a coldness falls in my gut. It's Thursday, meters have to be paid until midnight. I made a stupid, amateur mistake. Where I thought this was my last quarter dump, I'm signed on for at least one more. Not only in cost of time, but in cost of money, this was more expensive than if I had just used a parking garage. I should have listened when Rob told me to go vote.
I roll back to the EW party, and how 45 minutes of open bar can really loosen the bolts on my nearest and dearest. Arms draped on shoulders and ruddy cheeks and it's a good Thursday by 8 PM. Christine, my older brother Lon (to my friends: "He's done a really good of hiding you guys away from me." You have no idea. Family, AmmIright?!), and I make the move to some shows. I have a plan, grab the car, go to Hotel Vegas, and we've lifted the cumbersome yoke of the meter. Christine mentions one of her two must see bands is playing downtown at 11. Shitballs.
We go to meet the Tristan at my car. Twelve quarters go in the furnace. We go to Taproom to see bands someone else recommended. When we get in Kamp! is playing. Everything can be done right, and these guys do Synthy rhythm driven dance pop extremely well. It's like if Memory Tapes only cared about hard dance digressions. And for dudes walled behind a fortress of keyboards and wires, their presence could be felt in the pit. Tristan has no credentials so I go outside to wait with him in line. When he gets to the front, they ask me why I'm waiting with my badge. I reply that I think it's only fair someone without a badge gets to go in. Tristan peels a fiver off his wad and goes in. Someone says it's really cool of me to let someone else in. I immediately use my credentials to go inside.
Wildcat! Wildcat! is next. A quick rundown of things Old Man S&D doesn't like about you kids and your band names these days: Punctuation, other non-alphanumeric symbols (Beak>), repeating words, combined words, and replacing a U with a V. Harumph, get off my lawn, etc. Wildcat! Wildcat! doesn't hit my sweet spot. After the Kamp! set, they sound really anemic and their desire for song dynamic downplays what is fun about their sound. It did kick off a nice round of Royal Tannenbaum's "Wildcattin'" references which is the best kind of gift a band can give.
We head over to Meudse Lounge to see NO, Christine's must see band. Yikes. Love the girl, don't like this band. What measuring stick are we using anymore? Rock is much more layered and complex these days, and usually rock outfits are coordinating four or five musicians, musicians grown up in the lessons from professionals era. It's real challenge, but it comes out like musical gruel. A flat tone, no real arc to the songs, a lead singer--like all he does is sing--it's just dull. They can all play, they write songs elevated above three chord drudgery, but truly, of bands dictating my feelings with their name, No.
After No, we round up my car and relocate to the East Side for the tail end of the Psych showcase at Hotel Vegas. There are no parking tickets. From 11am to almost midnight, I rode the beast. You don't beat the meter, but you can keep the meter from beating you.
The Soft Moon is the first band we catch at Hotel Vegas and they are awesome. It's like all of my favorite industrial bands took off the leather trench coats, put away the KMFDM poster, and decided some San Francisco psychedelic was the deeper, weirder vortex. The stage was completely dark save a couple of slats of white light drifting across the band. The bass player is Tristan and I's new hero. Rigid, thumbing his bass, dressed in a black button down and black pants, his gaze is fixed on some unknown point. We start referring to the Soft Moon as the house band from Sprockets.
Up next is TOY, a much gentler kind of psychedelic from London. Songwriting and some pop sensibility is favored over shaving off thick bricks of sound, but it serves them well. The front man looks like a Robert Smith lite, a comparison he has to dread because it is so obvious, but the woman on keys stole my heart. In her keyboard command center, she lobbies with the sound man almost the entire show. She'd look up every few minutes, find the sound guy's eyes, and raise her hand showing a little space between her crooked pointer finger and thumb. Just a smidgen more. The crowd starts to fill in and they roil us in sonic billows. During the last song, the climax ascending to a peak, the lead singer's amp goes out and he storms off stage. I sort of love him for it. The next day when I go home and listen to their music, I'm disappointed. All of the things they capture with their live show are sacrificed for the Robert Smith Jr. show in the studio. Shame that.
Afterwards Christine and I had a Whataburger feast. I've never seen Christine eat so much in one sitting, especially breaded and fried meats. There is no shade thrown here, it made me admire her that much more.
Limping into the Gate
It's Saturday. I took Friday off, weird timing, some bad news, it just wasn't meant to happen. When you've being running, it's hard to walk and get back to full speed. I head to the Fader fort, but it's a mess and no one else I'm with can get in. I head over to our bar to meet Tristan. Our bartender is looking especially radiant, even with the tonnage of SXSW hanging off her. Full usuals. Tristan is trapped in a conversational vortex with an older guy who just wants to talk about music. I jar him loose an immediately feel for the guy just left to sit atop a bar stool and look over the sea of counted heads.
Tristan and I talk about music's foundational beginnings. Percussion and voice were obviously first, but we both agree the first homo sapiens to intentionally harmonize must've sent the cave into a by firelight wall pounding, shrieking frenzy. We are not anthropologists. Ever notice how every culture has a drone tone? Maybe pervasive white noise. Somehow we toggle over to worm tracks of despair riddling us all. I never write anything new. It's all a talking point from somewhere else. There is one thread keeping us going, Death Grips, 11:45 PM, 1100 Warehouse. We'll make it.
We saunter over to Jackalope to meet Christine and Eric for burgers, but it's a nightmare so we settle for the lesser Chupacabra . I eat a way too big pulled pork burrito and the itis wraps me in its meaty, cheesy cocoon. My stomach is a city sanctioned dumpster at this point and the food does not agree with me.
Out in the fray, Saturday night is quiet. There are two heavy weight showcases, Prince and Justin Timberlake respectively, which seem to garner all the attention. Keep 'em, I want Death Grips. We go to Headhunters and there is a two man outfit called Army of Infants, and they really look like children. Their cigarettes caught me by surprise, when they had a beer in hand all I could think was, "this is how they make 21 year olds now?" Inside was a band with two Gibson Les Paul guitars. The lead singer had his mic taped to the stand and kept doing the kick out, yank back microphone dance. He also kept pulling these little, I don't know, brass knuckle scissor things out of a holster on his hip, twirling them around, and holstering them back. Christine left, her SXSW was in the books.
I wanted to get to Death Grips extra early, so we trudged to 1100 Warehouse. Eric didn't want to wait in line and Tristan wasn't going be able to purchase a ticket at the door. Eric went one direction, Tristan went the other. So, that's it?
Death Grips
I sat inside 1100 Warehouse and went back and forth for almost an hour on whether or not I should just roll up the circus tent. I mean...he'll be back. And his set is only 30 minutes. And this venue blows. But...Death Grips is currently the only artist I have on my could die at literally any moment list. I've got to soldier through. A couple of guys next to me recap their SXSW and try and figure out which one is which Workaholics character. One dude is assigned Ders. I'm always the Ders, too. We approach 11:00 and I head inside. I want to be up close and personal. I want Death Grips front man MC Ride to howl into mouth. 11 turns into 11:55 and techs are still fumbling around stage. There is a DJ set going on in the corner and people love it. The crowd is hype. A few rappers, including the Flatbush Zombies--kinda cool--do some impromptu flows. It's right at midnight when two Apple monitors are set up on stage and when they blink to life, the image on screen is Death Grips' signature empty hoodie. Maybe he doesn't exist until midnight? But it's real now. No more soreness, no more bubble guts, just shared wide eyed glances like watching a storm roll in off the coast.
After the lights went down, the details matter a lot less. MC Ride and drummer/mastermind Zach Hill take the stage in full black hooded jackets, and blacked out ski goggles. They Skype in a drummer? Maybe it's part of the visuals? There's no time to decide, the beat drops like a detonator cap.
What a crush, bodies stacked on heaving bodies, sweat slick and whooping, a few inches give and they fill with shoving limbs and shoulders on a collision course. Someone goes airborne and I get a sneaker across the face. My hat, my beloved corduroy Yankee's cap my grandfather gave me is gone. It's my tribute to the black mass. I peel out of the throng to attack from the back, I war whoop and a guy plants his cranium right into my front tooth. Back in the crush. Kerosene flows through my veins. My lungs barely fit in my chest. My heart, Death Grips doesn't care about your heart.
An unrepentant torrent of sound, and aggression, but there is no rain in this downpour. It's acid and brimstone and pollution and fragments of moonless dark. It is the icy clutch the name implies. It feels bad. MC Ride's tattoos glisten in the low red lights. Skulls and crescent moons and pentagrams confess away stretched on the rack torture device that is his knotty frame. Tracks don't being and end, it's just a smog of broken bone beats, and barked lyrics enveloping the crowd.
It's not kind, it's not polite, it's not ready made for a television commercial. This music is an incinerator of the light in the world. Punk has been defanged and sold back to us as haircuts. Metal is almost a gimmick and when the "Art" movement of any genre is acknowledged as the best of the sound, it might as well be jazz. But this, this moment in this disgusting warehouse with surrendered bodies adrift on Death Grips, it reminds what I've been missing, the fear. Rock and roll as a distillation of those hideous things we hide from, especially the most hideous things of all, the things we shrink from inside of ourselves. I hope there is a kid somewhere with this album hidden between his mattress like it's pornography because his "cool" dad who listens to the Black Keys thinks it's garbage, and, "not in his house, not...that." I'm gonna be sick. I've needed this for months.
It's over. No banter, no, "We're Death Grips. Fuck You." It's over. the set was 35 minutes or three days, it's impossible to tell. When the lights come up, people are scrambling around like towns folk after an old West shootout. Single shoes, backpacks, t-shirts, sunglasses litter the floor. I want to find my grandpa hat. A guy has it clutched in his hand. He happily gives it back. It's filthy. I look at myself. I'm wet from head to toe. My Pablo Escobar on the run beard is overgrown. My hands are black. Not all rock and roll should be this way. It can't be, but this slow poison Death Grips pours in the saccharine ground waters of rock's current state is the thin, faint, hopeful reminder music will always find new, dangerous voices. It can be distilled, and marginalized, but the wellspring can never be capped.
I walk out. It's brisk. I feel sandblasted on the inside. Total rock and roll redemption. I walk down East 5th and erupt with sporadic, "Wooooooo's!." I go to our bar, I have to talk to someone about this. My stomach couldn't hold another drink, but I want to say words out loud. The bar is empty. Tristan is no where to be found. My phone is dead, It's over. I walk out into the street, and the gauze of SXSW's dying color and sound frays above the flickering city lights.
