at SxSW last year

I’m leaving for SxSW. All of my coverage through at least Sunday will be SxSW related. There won’t be any of my weekly features during that time, including this week’s ticket on sales and song obsessions.

I’ll be writing daily recaps here, but I’ll be using twitter once again to update throughout the day on great shows, bands to check out, etc. Follow me at twitter if you want to get those updates.

If you’d like to contact me, I will have access to emails/ comments, but my response may be a little slow, so please be patient.

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I went to SxSW for the first time last year. I didn’t know what or where to eat. While talking to David Bazan and getting his suggestion for nachos, this idea came about. I asked a number of bands for their recommendations on where to eat in Austin and during SxSW and here are their recommendations.

Be sure to ‘View Larger Map’ above if you’re more visually minded. What’s your favorite place to eat in Austin? What are the indie rockers forgetting?

the Apples in Stereo (John Ferguson)

• Whole Foods: “honestly, we ate at the whole foods mega store almost every meal. robert [schneider] and i are both vegetarians and its so conveniently located near that awesome record store. the grocery store has a raw food bar, a sushi bar, a sandwhich shop, italian, indian, chinese, pretty much all you could ever want in vegetarian options. a little pricey, but worth it for your health.”
  525 N. Lamar.

David Bazan

• Jovita’s: recommends the nachos
  1617 S. 1st St.
• Polvos
  2004 S. 1st St.

Birdmonster (Peter Arcuni)

• Sausage truck: “there’s always a really good sausage truck on Red River around 7th Street. they have big-ass polish, spicier blends, and classic franks with a fine assortment of condiments. it’s the best option when you’re hungry and poor and don’t want to wait an hour to get into a crowded restaurant.”
  Red River, near 7th
• Stubb’s: “for BBQ, there’s a cool place called Ironworks, but Stubb’s is honestly the best BBQ we had down there. super classic. some of the best ribs i’ve ever had. if you’re a band though, i wouldn’t recommend eating there before you play, as it’s instant meat coma. ”
  801 Red River.
• Las Manitas: “there was this great mexican place called las manitas that everyone went to for breakfast…i think it shut down because of zoning or something.” [ed.: seems like it did close]

Birds & Batteries (Mike Sempert)

• Ruby’s BBQ: “i would definitely recommend ruby’s (rubies?) bbq. its amazing. the marbled brisket sandwich with cole slaw is out of sight. ”
  2451 S. Capital of Texas Hwy + 2 other locations in Austin
• Spider House: “the food is just alright, but it has a beautiful outdoor patio and good coffee drinks.”
  2908 Fruth St.

Centro-matic (Will Johnson*):
“Mexican breakfast, lunch, dinner etc.”:

• La Flor Taco Stand
  Corner of S 1st and Heartwood
• Evita’s Botanitas
  6400 S. 1st St # B
• Maria’s Taco Xpress
  2529 S. Lamar Blvd.
• Curra’s
  614 E Oltorf St.
• Polvos
  2004 S. 1st St.
• Joe’s Bakery and Mexican Food
  2305 E. 7th St.
• El Chile
  1809 Manor Dr.
• La Mexicana Bakery
  1924 S. 1st.

“homestyle/ soul food:”

• Dot’s Place
  15803 Windemere Dr., #102, Pfugerville
• Nubian Queen Lola’s: “soul food, cajun”
  1815 Rosewood Ave.
• Hoover’s
  2002 Manor Dr.
• Gene’s New Orlean’s Deli
  1209 E. 11th St.

“BBQ (lockhart count? 30 minutes or so.)”:

• Salt Lick
  18001 FM 1826. Driftwood.
• Sam’s
  2000 E. 12th St.
• Artz Rib House
  2330 S. Lamar.
• Smitty’s
  208 South Commerce, Lockhart.
• Kreuz
  619 N. Colorado, Lockhart.

“breakfast, hangover”:

• Kerby Lane Cafe
  2700 S. Lamar + 3 other locations (like the Kerby Lane one, for instance).
• Magnolia Cafe
  1920 S. Congress.
• Tamale House
  5003 Airport Blvd.
• the Omelettry
  4811 Burnett Rd.
• Jo’s Coffee
  1300 S. Congress.
• Counter Cafe
  626 N. Lamar.

Fanfarlo

• Mexican food: “We love Mexican food, and obviously there’s plenty of that to be found in Austin. Can’t remember any particular places but we went to a bunch
  last year, they should be fairly easy to find. “
• Koriente: “We also went to a
  Korean restaurant called Koriente which had good, cheap, vegetarian
  food.”
  621 E 7th St.

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This is one of the better packaging jobs of a promo CD that I’ve seen. Unfortunately, the contents weren’t too great.

Andrew Bird, not last week, by ipickmynose

I’m not sure what to say about Andrew Bird (myspace) at the Fillmore on Friday. It was excellent, for sure. Bird is an amazingly talented musician and a good singer. His band played well. Their song choice was pretty heavy on the new tunes, which is understandable–that’s what they’re promoting, but could we have heard “Scythian Empires”, “Simple X”, “Fiery Crash”, “Sovay” or “A Nervous Tick Motion”. (Thankfully they did play “Plasticities” and “Fake Palindromes”.)

But the thing I’ve been thinking more about, perhaps, is the role of expectations in concerts. I really don’t think musical experience can be separated from context. Last time I saw Andrew Bird I went in with fairly low expectations and I was blown away. I was absolutely floored.

Friday’s show was good, but it didn’t hit me like the other one. I feel like I’m probably more inclined than the average person to divorce myself from a situation and try to look at it objectively, but for all that, I’m sure my expectations play into how I perceive a concert. So was Andrew Bird as good on Friday as last May? Who knows?

No one, probably.

I’m just back from a much needed vacation. I’ll have more posts for you starting tomorrow.

The ipickmynose radio feature on the radio, on the right, is fixed. Remember, also, that you can pop it out and listen to the tunes I’ve posted while you go about your web business.

Along with that, the mp3-only RSS feed is also fixed. You can use that in your RSS reader, or in iTunes.

Thanks for your patience while I fixed that.

Hi everyone. I discovered that I’d gotten hacked. Someone put some non-visible spam links in my main page possibly as far back as October. It’s made my RSS feed invalid (though Google RSS still read it fine), got me on google’s blacklist and caused my posts to not be aggregated at hype machine or elbo.ws.

Anyway, I think I’m back up and more secure now. The mp3 RSS feed and the ipmn radio player on the right are both broken, but I think they should be back in a week when some changes propagate through the server.

Please let me know if you find anything broken besides those things. Thanks for your patience.

Merry Christmas[1]!

I’ll be traveling and spending time with family and friends, so I’ll see you next week sometime.

[1] or other religious or seasonal holiday, or day off of work or school

After traveling to the three most populous states in a three day span last week, I came down with something. Between that and my ears being pressurized/ depressurized on few plane flights, the hearing in my left ear is muddy and muffled at best. For someone who listens to as much music as I do, it’s pretty unsettling. It also gives me a sense of disconnection or distance from the world–I understand why they say people with hearing loss can be withdrawn and report higher rates of depression.

It also reminds me of this time last year when something similar happened. Again, thankfully that was temporary, though it lasted a couple months whereas I’m hoping the current problem will run its course more quickly. I don’t know what it is with this time of year and ear problems.

When I’m traveling I often don’t have enough as much time to listen to music anyway and with this hearing problem added in, I’ve been in music withdraw. I wondered in that post last year whether music can actually be an addiction in terms of brain chemistry. I’m still not sure. I’m not lying here shaking or anything, but it would be nice to listen to music normally again[1]. And I’m not complaining. Mostly it feels strange not to be listening to music constantly or hearing it the same way when I do listen to it.

Lastly, it reminds me to bring up protecting your hearing. Rock concerts are loud and repeated exposure to those sorts of volumes will damage your hearing permanently. It can affect some frequencies more than others, which would also distort the music. Wear ear plugs if you go to shows. You don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars on custom ear plugs to have a decent listening experience; I’ve made some recommendations before. Also, lots of people listen to music on their ipods too loudly (and don’t seem to care). Be careful out there. Don’t Lose the Music has some good resources related to this.

[1] It’d also be nice to talk at a normal volume. It’s harder to hear myself so I’ve been finding that I talk too softly.

I hope you have a great day with your family or friends or however you choose to celebrate.

I’m going to be traveling to be with my family and friends, so we’ll have a few days off here. See you back here on Monday.