Saturday

I was supposed to get up at 9:00 AM to make it to the Continental Club by 9:30 for jalapeno pancakes and bloody Marys at Mojo Nixon’s party. Every year, if you accomplish this miraculous feat, they give you a sticker or a button that says “9:30” so you can brag about your dedication. I woke up before my alarm went off and felt like death. So I decided I didn’t need the bragging rights, texted Vic to let him know I likely wouldn’t make it and rolled over to go back to sleep. But again, God tried to punish me, and I just tossed and turned for another hour and a half. I finally got up at 10 AM and wandered out to unusually harsh Austin weather. It was only slightly above 40 degrees and there was a major wind storm with gusts up to 45 MPH. It was fucking brutal.

It’s difficult to get a cab in Austin in good conditions and nearly impossible during SXSW. And it’s a long walk from my hotel on Sixth and I-35 down to the Continental, which is on South Congress. So I walked down to Congress, thinking it would easier to find a cab there, and still had to stand on the street for ten minutes before anyone stopped.

I made it in time to catch a few songs by Elizabeth Cook, an adorable country singer who did a tap dance in the middle of one of her songs. Cook is a charming and funny songwriter (listen to “Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman”), and I wished that I had gotten there on time to see her entire set.

After Elizabeth Cook, Steve Poltz took the stage and delivered a highly entertaining set of folk rock, punctuated by hilarious stories and comedic bits involving his iPhone. Poltz has an almost vaudevillian quality, singing, dancing and telling jokes in a somewhat old-timey fashion, but he has so much energy and such a youthful appearance that I couldn’t believe it when he announced he’d just had his fiftieth birthday.

Next up on Mojo’s bill were the Mighty Stef. I consciously didn’t go out of my way to see any bands that I saw last year (a decision I ultimately regretted after hearing Cherie Currie joined Girl in a Coma onstage), but I made an exception for the Mighty Stef. And once again, they put on a killer show.

I mostly hung around my hotel for the rest of the afternoon, resting my legs and avoiding the cold. I didn’t venture out again until about 5 PM to ship some stuff home at the Fed Ex store and grab some dinner. Again, the frigid walk down to Congress had me muttering “Jesus fucking Christ!” constantly under my breath.

I had planned on jumping from venue to venue Saturday night, but the cold kept me planted at the Second Motion showcase, where I met Vic. That turned out to be a fine situation, as I caught The Walls, Gemma Ray and Marty Wilson Piper.

Both The Walls and Gemma Ray seemed to be about making the most they could out of limited resources. The Walls are a duo from Dublin that play with a backing track. Normally, I would be a bit snobbish about musicians playing with pre-recorded tracks, but The Walls took a novel approach: they created a video of their “band” playing the songs and projected it on a large screen behind them. They even incorporated bits of between song banter. It was very well done and highly entertaining.

Gemma Ray was a solo act and used microphone loops and sampling pedals to layer her sound on-stage. Her music was great and reminded me of early PJ Harvey, down to the dramatic dynamic shifts, but her Suicide Girl stage persona was a bit much. She had a hacksaw hanging from her mic stand, and when she lunged to the front of the stage and planted a huge knife in the flooring, sneering at the crowd, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Marty Wilson Piper, not surprisingly, delivered a solid set of tender, intricate songs, despite looking remarkably like Ted Kaczynski these days.

I finally decided to brave the cold to catch Mad Juana, Sami Yaffa’s band, down Sixth Street. They had a great gypsy punk vibe not unlike Gogol Bordello.

For the final show of the night, I decided to check out what was supposed to be the Big Star show but, since he’d passed away on Wednesday, had been reshaped as a tribute to Alex Chilton with the remaining members of Big Star, Mike Mills, John Doe, Evan Dando, and M. Ward.

It was a fine show, heartfelt and alternately celebratory and melancholy. I won’t write much about it, since there are lots of recaps on the Web that do it more justice than I could. Despite really enjoying the music, I was fighting fatigue and after nearly falling asleep on my feet, decided to head back to the hotel about 20 minutes early. I couldn’t even bring myself to pack and went right to bed, falling asleep instantly.