I love
Austin, TX. This may come as a surprise to people who know me as an ACLU card carrying Liberal. Austin, is indeed in Texas, but it is not Texas. Austin is a little heaven of beautiful Blue weirdness in a giant Red state. Seriously, its city Tag Line is "
Keep Austin Weird". How can you not love a city that prides itself on being weird?
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| Famous Austin street art |
I also love Austin because I happen to have some great family there. My Aunt Pam and Uncle Jack migrated there, and my cousins Nicole and Leandra followed. This means when I visit Austin I get to visit some great people, which always makes a trip better.
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| Family |
I've been to Austin a few times myself. To visit family. To attend my now passed on Poppy's 90th birthday. And last year, to attend
SXSW with Lindsay. SXSW (locally called simply South By) is a film, interactive, and music conference that began in 1987. It's since grown into a massive 10 day long takeover of Austin with music from every genre you can imagine, films that you'll probably never see but are lucky if you do, and all the newest techie stuff that is out. It is the largest festival of it's kind with around 2,200 official bands playing at over 100 venues.
We went for the music, of course. And when we landed in Houston (because the flights were cheaper) we hit the ground running.
We landed, made the 4 hour drive to Houston, and went directly to see
The Unlikely Candidates who we have been lucky to meet in the past. We made it just in time to see Kyle do what I consider one of the best covers of House Of The Rising Sun. You'll be hard pressed to see anyone sing that song with more sweaty passion than he does.
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| Kyle Morris from The Unlikely Candidates |
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| The Unlikely Candidates and The Vegabonds |
The next few days were a complete fury of sight seeing, shopping, dancing, music, family, and fun. Breakfast with chickens, street art, bats, break dancing, and more music. Music from artists that are known, like the
Sleigh Bells, to artists you have never heard of such as
Gabby Young who performs what some call Circus Punk. There are local musicians, musicians from the other side of the world, and then there was Lady Gaga. Snoop Dog and Willie Nelson have been known to walk down 6th Street smoking...
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| Sleigh Bells |
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| So So Glos |
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| Calliope Musicals |
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| The Soil and The Sun |
If you were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Debbie Harry at her impromptu performance with the Dum Dum girls at the Spotify House, I'm jealous.
And that is one of the best things about SX. The surprises. Like the surprise we got when we went to see the tribute to Jimmy Hendrix, a free performance in Butler Park. First, Slash showed up. Yes, THE Slash. And then, to the jumping squealing surprise of Lindsay, Chino Moreno from the Deftones joined him on stage for a cover of
Foxy Lady.
Lindsay and I woke up on our second day of SX to frantic texts and calls asking if we were ok. Apparently there had been a terrible
accident downtown Austin, and several people had been injured. It happened in front of The Mohawk, a music venue, where Lindsay and I had been the night before to try to get in to see Phantogram. Fortunately the line was so long we decided to leave and meet up with our friend Forehand from
The Vegabonds for drinks. A few hours later, a drunk driver who was trying to avoid the police, plowed into the crowd in front of The Mohawk killing 4 people. Lindsay and I attended a vigil for those people the next day. It was surreal to know the same place we had been standing attempting to crane our necks to hear a band play was the site of a terrible tragedy a few short hours after.
Lindsay and I like to enjoy life. We are thankful people. I don't think we take much of what we have for granted. But waking up to realize that if we had stayed at that venue, we may have been injured or killed... well that is a very strong reminder that every day that we have, every moment, is a blessing not afforded to everyone.
Be thankful. Be thankful for love. Be thankful for puppies. Be thankful for art. Be thankful for music. Be thankful for beer. Be thankful for friends. Be thankful for family. Be thankful for every day.
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| Foster The People show at Butler Park |
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| Family |
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| Texas Beer and BBQ |
