SXSW: The week that bands, musos and fankids are drawn to Austin like moths to a flame. Burning out, running out of money or appearing uncool are all to be avoided. We asked Canadian garage ladies and SXSW aficionados The Pack A.D., otherwise known as Maya and Becky, for their tips on surviving a week in rock and roll mecca…

Photos by Justine Warrington

THE PACK A.D.’S CHEAP ASS GUIDE TO DRINKING AND EATING YOUR WAY THROUGH SXSW ON SOMEONE ELSE’S DIME

aka Flowers in Rain: A Young Girl’s Journey

Alright, so you’re a band. For the sake of this page – you’re us. You’re hot, young and fucking broke. Nobody knows you. They should know you. But they sure as hell don’t. Bastards, all of them. This is something very true in music -it’s chock full of despicable people and, like, two good ones. This is not being bitter. This is just being honest.

So, we’re playing SXSW again. I cannot possibly give you a guide on what will happen this year (what do I look like, a fucking genie?), but I can give you a guide based on last year.

You - which is to mean us - arrive in an extremely hectic traffic situation in which you turn in to oncoming traffic to find your hotel and… no one honks at you. Go figure.

Step one: Check into your hotel, which will end up being covered by a tour grant courtesy of our fine country, Canada.

Step two: Split a meal at Denny’s to save money and be served by a very charming transvestite.

Then, in no particular order:

Eat Texas shaped waffles and purloin non-perishable food items for later consumption. Drink all the hotel’s crappy complimentary coffee.

Register at the Convention Center. Get free bag of crap and then sort through ‘discard’ tables to get more free crap that other people deemed too crappy even though it’s free (sort’ve like when people download the free iTunes ‘single of the week’ and then have the balls to complain about it).

Play show. Drink everything you can get. Ignore the free BBQ. Instead, go to your label’s hotel room and order room service and charge it to their room. Regale all with obnoxious stories that only you and your bandmate think are funny, and then leave.

Stumble up and down 6^th Street, randomly popping into venues to watch five minute sets by bands you’ve never heard of, while looking for more complimentary drinks. Take flyers from everyone – especially hardcore Korean bands that are cute.

If you need to puke, use the empty cooler in the van instead of a toilet. Get your bandmate to wash it out.

It’s all about saving the planet, one pile of vomit at a time.

 Signed,

The Pack A.D.

Check out the new issue of ROTR zine, online and on paper from March 14th, for a full interview with The Pack A.D plus their illustrated guide to tour snacks… rockin’.

Opening the night were female duo PLUG, keeping it simple with drums, bass and vocals.  Really it’s slightly too simple, although the drummer/singer has a beautiful, haunting voice and some amusing lyrics involving ‘coma/comb over’ wordplay. LITTLE DEATH are part Cure on a happy day, part Pixes on an average day, but mostly Manic Street Preachers in the older days, mainly due to the Bradfield-style vocals.  They would have won the prize for most attractive band of the night – and I’m sure there were a fair few guys converted by the bassist’s stage outfit. 

Live, TITUS ANDRONICUS turn the already raucous yet catchy (and sometimes slightly shambolic-sounding) tracks from their album The Airing of Grievances in to, well, even more raucous and catchy, yet far from shambolic, ones.  At times it seems like Tim Armstrong has grown an impressive beard and stolen Andrew WK’s keyboard, and at others like The Jesus and Mary Chain have recruited a harmonica player and started writing songs about the American Civil War. In all fairness that sounds pretty dubious, but it couldn’t be further from it.

The set starts loud and fast, still managing to pick up pace as it goes on, and after a splash of 50’s surf and an energetic cover of The Modern Lovers’ ‘Roadrunner’, even the crowd stuck to back wall are moving. By the time they get around to playing the self-named ‘Titus Andronicus’, which has more than a ring of Nirvana circa ‘Molly’s Lips’ to it, people at the front have got the right idea and have start a riotous, if slightly sparse mosh-pit, that frontman Patrick Stickles is welcomed into during the closing minutes.  You can’t help but dance to this stuff, and more than that, you want to get covered in someone else’s beer, grab the person next to you, jump up and down and sing along like you’re listening to the Pogues.  Just as it should be.

Last friday saw three ROTR delegates dashing out on our lunchbreak to catch a real treat – the Black Lips playing acoustic on a bandstand in Shoreditch. We interviewed Jared later that day – so look out for the new zine, it’ll be up here by mid March. Photos by Sarah Myring.

Go to www.bandstandbusking.com to see the videos of the gig.

Hey hey rioters!

We thought it would be good to update you all on the next rather wonderful issue of Riot on the Rocks. We’ve got loads of cool stuff going in it, new writers on board and some great new bands you might not have heard of.

 This weekend we are bravely going where few journalists dare – and interviewing the ridiculously raucous Black Lips (above) before their headline NME show in Islington, London. Here’s hoping they’ve got posession of their passports after being chased out of India the other week. We’ve heard the new album (out 16th March), and it falls somewhere between Let It Bloom and Good, Bad, Not Evil – shambolic and pointedly unpolished one minute, and upbeat pop the next. They’ll be showcasing it at SXSW so fingers crossed for some crazy shows in Austin this year.

Also on the way in issue 4 one of our new writers, Rohan, is interviewing two-girl Canadian blues rockers The Pack A.D, I catch up with the long-locked legend that is Sebastian Bach, plus The Cut in the Hill Gang- the new project from the Soledad Brothers’ Johnny. Add to that a spot of obscure Japanese psychedelia from Boningen, the ever entertaining Jay Reatard, King Kahn and a whole lot more besides.

 The hard copy zine is due out Friday 13th March – get in touch now to pre-order a copy!

Over

SBR x