Alright.
I'm back. I got back home on Tuesday.
Let's see. Umm, Wednesday the 17th.
I go to Austin with my mom. We get there, find our way to the city and find the convention center. We register and get theses badges. They have our names, picture, what part of this festival we will be taking part in (film, or music), where we're from, and our business. Well that business was an art wed site and my mom doesn't do that anymore, but that came in handy alittle later.
Then we find the hotel. We unpack. I believe we ate after that, I'm not sure. Then we went out to look and see who might be playing that night and if I could get into the 21 and over clubs.
We some of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. I liked that. Only problem was I didn't have my earplugs. Then we went to see if I could get into the 21 and over clubs. Well, the ones we went into that night I was able to. That made me feel better. That meant I could see my friend Chris Brokaw preform.
Thursday 18th.
We went to the convention center and tried to sit through one panle. My mom only wanted to see that one because she liked one of the guys who was to be on it. Unfortunatly, he didn't show up. The panle was boring, and we left. We went to the ball room where the exhibits were. There we found a couple of my mom's friends. We went around with them for a while. Then one of them left. We went with the other one to Mission of Burma's sound check.
At the sound check, there were some small problems. One being, Roger was late because his plane was delayed. They wouldn't start till he got there. That took so much time. Finally he got there. The practiced. Roger was having problems with his amp. Finally they seemed to have things under control.
We waited and waited and then finally, the doors opened. People came in. They gave the first 200 people a free Matador compilation cd. We got ours before the doors opened. We were right in the middle, right in front.
We waited and finally the first band came on stage. Oh, my God!! My mom and I can't believe they were first on the bill! They were great. They were called Seachange. I believe they were English. I heard the violin player call across the uhh, room and she seemed to have and English accent. The singer also had an English accent.
They have six people in that band, geez. But, they are still great to watch live. They have a singer, two guitar players, a bass player, a violin player, and a drummer. My mom and I liked the bass player. He was fun to watch. I thought it was funny because one of the guitar players looked like Beck. They had great songs. I listened to their songs on the cd we got and they are good in studio it seems, but much better live.
I don't really have much to say about the next two bands. Umm, after Seachange was Preston School of INdustry. Ehh. They could play their instuments and write songs, but it was a bit too country for me. After them was Pretty Girls make Graves. I liked them, but wasn't blown away. They really needed to turn up the vocals. It seemed the only time you could hear that girl sing was when the bass player wasn't playing. There was one song where part was just dums and vocals. You could hear her. The the bass player just drowned her out. Funny thing about that bass player. That band is from Seatle and that bass player looks like Krist Novoscelic. He's also very tall. I got to see him back stage after the show. I said "hi."
Finally, Mission of Burma was on. Great live band, but they had problems this night. Roger's amp wasn't working properly and one of his guitars wasn't in tune and he didn't seem to be able to get it in tune. Clint tried to help. Peter seemed to hate his mic and didn't seem to want to sing. He knocked it over at one point. After the set, they had Penelope, umm, the girl from the Avengers come on stage for two songs. Then they did one more song and it was finally over.
Friday 19th
We went to one panle that day. That was full of information, but I didn't take any notes. My mom did though.
We weren't planning on seeing anything that night but we found out The New Year was playing. Chris Brokaw is the drummer so we wanted to see him. We got into "sound check" (they didn't have one. they just loaded in their stuff) and saw Chris. Then later we saw one of my mom's friends and talked to her. We actually got to talk about Killing Joke for a minute. I had no idea she liked Killing Joke.
They kept talking. There was a plastic ash tray on the table. I began spinning it for entertainment. I spun it like you spin a coin. Then Chris came over. He said, "What's going on?" I said, "Spinning ash trays." He laughed. I was very thirsty and noticed he had gone out to a Starbucks and got a coffe. I pointed it out and that I was thirsty. I wasn't planing on going to Starbucks for my drink, but my mom thought we should. We left the club.
HUGE PROBLEM! When we got back and tried to get back in, they wouldn't let us. What a disappointment. Chris had gone to a club a few doors down. We tried to see if we could get in there to tell him we couldn't see him. They wouldn't let us in. We got worried. Would we be able to get into the other clubs that we were able to get into before?
When we saw Chris we told him. He was happy when he came up but then disappointed when I told him I wouldn't be able to see him. He asked if we'd be able to see him the next day. My mom explaind how we were going to see if we could get into the other clubs later. We talked and finally he went inside. The line out side of the door got so long.
We went to a couple clubs on that street and couldn't get in. Finally we went to the clubs we wanted to go to the next night. Those clubs were also 21 and over, but we got in. All they did was put an "X" on each of my hands. We finally figured that it was probably the location and set up of the clubs that alowed us to go in. They were away from downtown and the show would be more, outside of the club which meant it was away from the bar.
Later that night we saw little parts of shows of the bands playing at venues I was allowed into.
Saturday 20
We went to a panle that day too. Finally a panle I enjoyed. We know two people on the panle. This panle was more fun than the others. They allowed a bit of humor.
After that we went to where the exhibits were. There's a day stage there and Thalia Zedeck was playing right after the panle. We saw her. She was in a band with Chris. I didn't know till I saw her. I have a book that has a picture of that band they were in. I of course remember Chris, but I also remember her picture very well. I don't know, there's just something about her that makes you remember her. So when I saw her I had to call my mom and say, "Mom, mom. She, she was in a band with Chris?" I enjoyed her preformance. She also had a violin player and drummer on stage.
After that we wondered around. We eventually went to the club where Chris was to play solo. That felt like forever!!! I rested my head on my head on the back of my hand. Well, this was a 21 and over place and I had that ink on the back of my hand. It got on my face. I had to get it off. Then on my pants. I didn't do anything about that.
Finally, it was time for the band before Chris. They were Jole RL Phelps & The Downer Trio. I liked them. The singer was tring to be funny at times. It was just silly.
Then Chris. I kept bothering him while he set up. I kept asking him about his pedals. "What's that one?" "What's that do?" I asked some other questions too.
He decided to go on about, uhh six minutes early. I liked his set very much. Only problem was when he had the flanger and overdrive. Soo loud! I took out my ear plugs, that's why. I believe Chris got some new fans doing that set. An Englishman came up to him and asked him some questiions saying that he liked his set.
After that, we saw the next act. My mom just called it "Sally" beacuase that's the singer's name and my mom said she'd never seen Sally with her band. She was fun. Short cute songs. We had to leave early because Consonant was playing at 11. That has Chris and Clint.
Consonant was great. Clint had to borrow the previous band's guitars though. He played with the first one through most of the set but then he broke the second string. Then he needed another guitar. Jimmy tried to give him one but I heard him say, "a Mustang there" and Jimmy gave him the red Mustang. Part of the head was broken and was kept together with green tape.
After the set, Clint aske how we liked the show. I told him, "I liked the guitar thing." He laughed and I told him how I liked Mustangs. He called me a "Gearhead."
We wanted to see Silkworm and Thaila after that but I was so hungry. we got pizza and my mom suggested we go to the hotel. I was overtired and my mom's feet were in so much pain. We went back.
Well, that was it for the music. I had fun.
― Aja (aja), Thursday, 25 March 2004 05:33 (twenty-two years ago)