The Current Music Blog
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Flat tire, don't stop me now!

Posted at 10:06 AM on March 14, 2008 by Christina Schmitt

A flat tire on a bike messenger's rickshaw put an end to my outing last night. Why I was trying to get across town seems silly to me now, but that's SXSW--plans are continually morphing and getting weirder.

At some point during the Current's broadcast yesterday - I think it was after the phenomenal DeVotchKa performance - I realized that I was not going to have time to see Motorhead. Although I did get to run over to stand outside Stubb's, where they were playing, and catch 15 minutes of the rock.

Then the Current's best friend Kate Beckman stopped by and the next thing I knew, the broadcast was over and we were off to the other side of the freeway--where Austin's true counterculture lives--to see a band called Dark Meat. How to describe this? If you've seen the TC band Chooglin - horn section, crazy drummer, soul-singing Stooges party band - then imagine Chooglin plus another drummer with full drum kit, several other percussionists, a female vocalist, violins and... I think I saw someone with a clarinet, but hard to say. I was too busy tucking my Lone Star under my arm so I wouldn't get any blue confetti in it (some guy was shooting it out of a gun).

All the Dark Meat-mates had these swipes of blue paint under their eyes - sort of a part tribal, part high school football player look. Some of their fans proudly sported the blue swipe, too. We saw many of them later on at the Jay Reatard show. Jay Reatard, by the way, was awesome with his new wave/garage/Flying V/curly hair rock'n'roll.

Next we jetted over to Emo's Jr to see the Marked Men, legendary Texas garage rockers. Wow. No kidding. I haven't had stars in my eyes in awhile, but when the one guitarist/singer let if fly, playing his Danelectro, I thought I found my soulmate. Then someone told me my soulmate was soon leaving for Japan to get married.

Life is short. Which is why I suddenly felt inspired to hop in the rickshaw to go see my TC buddies Birthday Suits playing across town. That's when the flat happened, and after a brief discussion about bad omens, I decided it was time to go back to the hotel. I'll get to see Birthday Suits at the Modern Radio showcase today, yeah!

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