Music
SXSW 2011: AUX in Austin Day 4
by Nicole Villeneuve
March 20, 2011
Punk icon Exene before her solo set.
Saturday—the last official music day of SXSW—started with a bit of frustration as all of the scheduling conflicts that we had been masterfully (and luckily) able to mostly avoid for the week seemed to happen all at once. Some interviews ended up not happening, but the silver lining was all of a sudden having time for actually taking in some music, something we’d been able to do but not spontaneously and for stretches of time, at least through the day. Ended up at and around the location of an interview we would be doing, L.A. band Vampires Everywhere, to check out some of Alternative Press magazine’s up and coming bands. An…interesting start to the day. Young, too.
From there it was over to speak with Atlanta’s main squeeze the Black Lips, who were happy to chat in the hot Texas sun who and remembered the breakfast we took them to over a year ago.
Again finding ourselves with some free time for some music, we raced to catch the very end of Fang Island’s crazy-huge, anthemic set and wish we’d been able to see more. From there it was over to a ubiquitous taco truck for a quick refueling before meeting up with the lovely Exene Cervenka to chat about her career and long history with SXSW. A real treat and a trip highlight.
We made it in time to check out New York’s Laura Stevenson and the Cans next, who were remarkably fresh for a band who was playing their third show by 8 p.m. There was also a huge line forming next door for Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. But we only got to see the line.
We then checked out Exene’s set at the Bloodshot Records showcase and decided after that to hunker down at the Vice magazine show to see Thee Oh Sees, OFF!, and the full Odd Future collective. One of us, however, made his way to the Kanye West show, where the only taste the rest of us had of the action was a quick drive-by sighting of Jay-Z and Beyonce peeling out of the venue minutes after they’d left the stage, apparently, when we went by to meet up on the way home.
A solid finish to an amazing week. SXSW—let’s do this again sometime.
