P.S., If This Is Austin, I Still Love You...
I heard that in a country song and thought it fit my recent trip to Austin like a big old Texas capitol "T". In recent years, I have had a yearning to see the so-called "Live Music Capitol of the World" so I figured the event known as SPOONX3 at Stubb's BBQ was as good a reason to go as any.
I drove up to Louisville, Kentucky after work on Monday for a night at my brother's apartment prior to a morning flight on Southwest to Austin. After having not flown in nearly four and a half years, I have no problem admitting that I was pretty nervous. After takeoff, I just put on a little John Coltrane on the iPod to calm my nerves. Looking out the plane's window made me shudder a little, but after a few minutes, I had resolved that things were now out of my control and I just had to trust that everything was going to be fine... and forty-five minutes later we settled into Birmingham to drop off and pick up passengers. Next up was Houston with a two-hour layover. On my next flight (Houston to Austin), I settled in and struck up a conversation with a nice fellow from Denver who proceeded to tell me that our current plane felt like it was about to crumple upon its prior landing, not exactly what I wanted to hear, being a reluctant flier. Luckily, that leg of the flight was only twenty-five minutes and I bid goodbye to my single-serving friend and disembarked for a few days in Austin!
My rental car was supposed to be a Dodge Magnum, but ended up being a Suzuki Reno, quite possibly the smallest car I've ever driven. It wasn't quite a Smart Car, but it certainly wasn't much larger. Finding my Radisson on East Cesar Chavez Street was easy enough. Upon checking in, I was told that my original reservation for Wednesday was missing from their system. I explained that I had decided to come down a day early and had booked a separate reservation for Tuesday only, thus I had to end up on the phone for nearly an hour with Expedia to get the problem fixed. Luckily it was resolved and I had accommodations for the week, whew.
The first order of business was to take a stroll around my neighborhood for the week. At 103 degrees, I wasn't sure what to expect of that type of heat, or how my body would react to prolonged exposure to it. I walked approximately a fifteen block radius and ended up passing by a restaurant, The Ironworks BBQ, that had been recommended in a guidebook, so I decided that then was as good a time as any to try some authentic Texas barbecue. I tried the sliced beef platter, which was good, but certainly not the best I'd ever eaten. The downside to the restaurant, however, was the lack of air-conditioning. The only relief was an overhead fan, which did little to cool the inside of the place on a 103 degree day. I used a lot of napkins soaking up my sweat, not only from the heat but also from the spices in the sauce. As it was getting a little hot, and a little late, I decided that jet lag had caught up with me, so I settled into my room for a nap, which pretty much concluded day one.
Day two started with me basically getting out to check out some record stores. I was originally looking for Cheapo's discs but happened upon Waterloo Records and ended up browsing for close to two hours. I must admit it is probably the best record store I've ever been in, and I feel like I was cheating on my girlfriend, The Disc Exchange. The used section there has the best selection I've ever seen and I ended up with a lot of new CDs (Ben Kweller's "How Ya Lookin' Southbound", Son Volt's "American Central Dust", King Wilkie's "Wilkie Family Singers", Okkervil River's "Pop Lie", Tift Merritt's "Bramble Rose" for three dollars, and Vetiver's debut album). I also saw a sign advertising an in-store for Deer Tick on Thursday, so my plans adjusted immediately, as I am a recent convert to that particular band. Next, I headed out to The Shady Grove, which had a nice atmosphere with Wilco and Johnny Cash playing over the loud speakers. I ended up back at the hotel to cool off for a bit. Later that night, I ended up on the South Congress bridge to see the famous bats take off, quite an astounding sight. Up next, it was over to The Broken Spoke to see some authentic Texas honky-tonk with the local legend, Mr. Dale Watson
(that photo in there has him two-stepping before his show). I hung out there for about an hour before calling it a night.
On Thursday morning, I wanted to head out to the hill country to find The Salt Lick, which supposedly has the world's best beef brisket. After a brisk thirty-minute drive south, I found where it was supposed to be... but never did find it, so I just drove around out there for a while, thinking maybe that I had merely overlooked it. Not so. After nearly an hour and a half, I gave up and headed back into town for another meal at The Ironworks, this time eating the smoked sausage meal, which was quite delicious. I walked up to the capitol building and on the way back, noticed the Austin Museum of Art and decided to have a look around.
They had a series of pieces revolving around how the brain forms a memory. Interesting pieces, especially the video of three friends who had differing memories of an experience involving the northern lights, and how they believed they may have been abducted by aliens... I think it is on display until September, so if you're down in that area, check out the entire exhibit. Afterwards, it was time for the Deer Tick in-store at Waterloo..JPG)
The lead singer came out dressed in an Alvin and The Chipmunks shirt and proceeded to cover Hank Williams, Bruce Springsteen, and ... Brad Paisley ("Ticks", of course). He played solo for most of the show, but was joined for harmonies by various members of the group at varying times. He played for over an hour and I really wanted to see them at Emo's later that night, but decided against it. In a way, I was glad to have skipped it, as later that night, I was dining at the TGI Friday's inside the hotel when the waitress commented on my University of Tennessee cap, saying that she had grown up in Gatlinburg. I asked her age and when she told me I asked her if she knew a friend of mine from that town, to which she excitedly told me that my friend was her best friend in high school... weird! That far from home and I met someone with a mutual friend. Of course I passed along our mutual friend's information and felt warm and fuzzy as a result, as they hadn't seen each other in over ten years.
Admittedly, by Friday morning I was missing home and just wanted to get SPOONX3 over, so I could get home. I decided to take the morning off and go up towards the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to see Bruno. The movie didn't start until 4:30, so I headed over to Stubb's for lunch. Luckily, as I was sitting there, I heard Spoon starting their sound check. I got to hear the band for nearly an hour before the evening's performance, all while eating great barbecue! They even covered Paul Simon's "Peace Like A River". Next up, I headed back toward the theater and stopped into Austin's Museum of the Weird for about thirty minutes and looked around some of the swag shops on 6th Street. I crossed the street to The Alamo Drafthouse and got my ticket for the movie. Funny movie, not as good as Borat, but it was strange to drink a Bailey's and Kahlua in a movie theater. It was a nice concept and fit perfectly into the town's tag line "We're a Drinking Town with a Live Music Problem". Up next was Spoon, Low, and Dale Watson at the legendary Stubb's BBQ. Dale Watson was, once again, fantastic, but I was giddy to see Low. The only time I've ever had tickets to a Low show was when Alan Sparhawk had a nervous breakdown and cancelled all of their east coast show back in 2005. Low was great, Spoon was merely alright, but at least they played my favorite "The Ghost of You Lingers".
By Saturday, I just felt like relaxing all day, and did just that until it was time for night three of SPOONX3. I don't know who the first band was, but they were decent, but Atlas Sound was so incredibly bad that I couldn't tolerate it past the third song. Having seen Bradfod Cox's main band, Deerhunter, last year, I was expecting better. Not even the promise of Spoon an hour later could get me to stay. It marked the first time I've ever walked out of a performance before the headliner even came on. Atlas Sound was completely pretentious and self-indulgent. Anyone, including non-musicians, could make "music" like that. It was horrible and I was pretty much disgusted with the band's mere existence... so I went back to the hotel, ready to catch my flight on Sunday morning. That was Austin, in a nutshell. The town was great, but I probably wouldn't want to spend more than about four days at most there. Having said that, it wouldn't be a bad place to live as you would always have something to do, but I guess homesickness wore on me and being away from home for a week has now officially gone on my personal "Murtaugh List".
I drove up to Louisville, Kentucky after work on Monday for a night at my brother's apartment prior to a morning flight on Southwest to Austin. After having not flown in nearly four and a half years, I have no problem admitting that I was pretty nervous. After takeoff, I just put on a little John Coltrane on the iPod to calm my nerves. Looking out the plane's window made me shudder a little, but after a few minutes, I had resolved that things were now out of my control and I just had to trust that everything was going to be fine... and forty-five minutes later we settled into Birmingham to drop off and pick up passengers. Next up was Houston with a two-hour layover. On my next flight (Houston to Austin), I settled in and struck up a conversation with a nice fellow from Denver who proceeded to tell me that our current plane felt like it was about to crumple upon its prior landing, not exactly what I wanted to hear, being a reluctant flier. Luckily, that leg of the flight was only twenty-five minutes and I bid goodbye to my single-serving friend and disembarked for a few days in Austin!
My rental car was supposed to be a Dodge Magnum, but ended up being a Suzuki Reno, quite possibly the smallest car I've ever driven. It wasn't quite a Smart Car, but it certainly wasn't much larger. Finding my Radisson on East Cesar Chavez Street was easy enough. Upon checking in, I was told that my original reservation for Wednesday was missing from their system. I explained that I had decided to come down a day early and had booked a separate reservation for Tuesday only, thus I had to end up on the phone for nearly an hour with Expedia to get the problem fixed. Luckily it was resolved and I had accommodations for the week, whew.
The first order of business was to take a stroll around my neighborhood for the week. At 103 degrees, I wasn't sure what to expect of that type of heat, or how my body would react to prolonged exposure to it. I walked approximately a fifteen block radius and ended up passing by a restaurant, The Ironworks BBQ, that had been recommended in a guidebook, so I decided that then was as good a time as any to try some authentic Texas barbecue. I tried the sliced beef platter, which was good, but certainly not the best I'd ever eaten. The downside to the restaurant, however, was the lack of air-conditioning. The only relief was an overhead fan, which did little to cool the inside of the place on a 103 degree day. I used a lot of napkins soaking up my sweat, not only from the heat but also from the spices in the sauce. As it was getting a little hot, and a little late, I decided that jet lag had caught up with me, so I settled into my room for a nap, which pretty much concluded day one.
Day two started with me basically getting out to check out some record stores. I was originally looking for Cheapo's discs but happened upon Waterloo Records and ended up browsing for close to two hours. I must admit it is probably the best record store I've ever been in, and I feel like I was cheating on my girlfriend, The Disc Exchange. The used section there has the best selection I've ever seen and I ended up with a lot of new CDs (Ben Kweller's "How Ya Lookin' Southbound", Son Volt's "American Central Dust", King Wilkie's "Wilkie Family Singers", Okkervil River's "Pop Lie", Tift Merritt's "Bramble Rose" for three dollars, and Vetiver's debut album). I also saw a sign advertising an in-store for Deer Tick on Thursday, so my plans adjusted immediately, as I am a recent convert to that particular band. Next, I headed out to The Shady Grove, which had a nice atmosphere with Wilco and Johnny Cash playing over the loud speakers. I ended up back at the hotel to cool off for a bit. Later that night, I ended up on the South Congress bridge to see the famous bats take off, quite an astounding sight. Up next, it was over to The Broken Spoke to see some authentic Texas honky-tonk with the local legend, Mr. Dale Watson
(that photo in there has him two-stepping before his show). I hung out there for about an hour before calling it a night.On Thursday morning, I wanted to head out to the hill country to find The Salt Lick, which supposedly has the world's best beef brisket. After a brisk thirty-minute drive south, I found where it was supposed to be... but never did find it, so I just drove around out there for a while, thinking maybe that I had merely overlooked it. Not so. After nearly an hour and a half, I gave up and headed back into town for another meal at The Ironworks, this time eating the smoked sausage meal, which was quite delicious. I walked up to the capitol building and on the way back, noticed the Austin Museum of Art and decided to have a look around.
They had a series of pieces revolving around how the brain forms a memory. Interesting pieces, especially the video of three friends who had differing memories of an experience involving the northern lights, and how they believed they may have been abducted by aliens... I think it is on display until September, so if you're down in that area, check out the entire exhibit. Afterwards, it was time for the Deer Tick in-store at Waterloo..JPG)
The lead singer came out dressed in an Alvin and The Chipmunks shirt and proceeded to cover Hank Williams, Bruce Springsteen, and ... Brad Paisley ("Ticks", of course). He played solo for most of the show, but was joined for harmonies by various members of the group at varying times. He played for over an hour and I really wanted to see them at Emo's later that night, but decided against it. In a way, I was glad to have skipped it, as later that night, I was dining at the TGI Friday's inside the hotel when the waitress commented on my University of Tennessee cap, saying that she had grown up in Gatlinburg. I asked her age and when she told me I asked her if she knew a friend of mine from that town, to which she excitedly told me that my friend was her best friend in high school... weird! That far from home and I met someone with a mutual friend. Of course I passed along our mutual friend's information and felt warm and fuzzy as a result, as they hadn't seen each other in over ten years.Admittedly, by Friday morning I was missing home and just wanted to get SPOONX3 over, so I could get home. I decided to take the morning off and go up towards the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to see Bruno. The movie didn't start until 4:30, so I headed over to Stubb's for lunch. Luckily, as I was sitting there, I heard Spoon starting their sound check. I got to hear the band for nearly an hour before the evening's performance, all while eating great barbecue! They even covered Paul Simon's "Peace Like A River". Next up, I headed back toward the theater and stopped into Austin's Museum of the Weird for about thirty minutes and looked around some of the swag shops on 6th Street. I crossed the street to The Alamo Drafthouse and got my ticket for the movie. Funny movie, not as good as Borat, but it was strange to drink a Bailey's and Kahlua in a movie theater. It was a nice concept and fit perfectly into the town's tag line "We're a Drinking Town with a Live Music Problem". Up next was Spoon, Low, and Dale Watson at the legendary Stubb's BBQ. Dale Watson was, once again, fantastic, but I was giddy to see Low. The only time I've ever had tickets to a Low show was when Alan Sparhawk had a nervous breakdown and cancelled all of their east coast show back in 2005. Low was great, Spoon was merely alright, but at least they played my favorite "The Ghost of You Lingers".
By Saturday, I just felt like relaxing all day, and did just that until it was time for night three of SPOONX3. I don't know who the first band was, but they were decent, but Atlas Sound was so incredibly bad that I couldn't tolerate it past the third song. Having seen Bradfod Cox's main band, Deerhunter, last year, I was expecting better. Not even the promise of Spoon an hour later could get me to stay. It marked the first time I've ever walked out of a performance before the headliner even came on. Atlas Sound was completely pretentious and self-indulgent. Anyone, including non-musicians, could make "music" like that. It was horrible and I was pretty much disgusted with the band's mere existence... so I went back to the hotel, ready to catch my flight on Sunday morning. That was Austin, in a nutshell. The town was great, but I probably wouldn't want to spend more than about four days at most there. Having said that, it wouldn't be a bad place to live as you would always have something to do, but I guess homesickness wore on me and being away from home for a week has now officially gone on my personal "Murtaugh List".
posted by C. Greene at 8:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home