Girl Germs at SXSW: Dana

THURSDAY, MARCH 18
Today was day two of SXSW, and the festival was in full swing! Anna spent the afternoon at the French Legation Museum and when I got into town, we headed to the GINORMOUS Whole Foods store on Lamar Street to eat dinner (including something called "Miles of Chocolate") on the roof. We then headed over to the Galaxy Room for the Sub Pop/Hardly Art showcase, where I met Ruth from Happy Birthday, who just signed to Sub Pop. It turns out Ruth's sister is Merrill Garbus, aka Tuneyards! She told me Merrill isn't really into the whole SXSW scene so she was sitting it out this year. I got to see Golden Triangle, the Duchess and the Duke, and Dum Dum Girls.

Dum Dum Girls’ harmonies translated surprisingly well to their live performance, although I was personally a tiny bit turned off by their seemingly aloof attitudes (coulda been SXSW overload, who knows). The band was one of the superstars of this year’s SXSW, playing several shows every day of the fest. 

     Dum Dum Girls

The many members of Brooklyn’s Golden Triangle crowded onto the Galaxy Room’s indoor stage. After some technical difficulties (kudos to the sound guy!), the band’s energetic show was all a big blur of body parts, dancing and tambourines.

        
The blur of Brooklyn's Golden Triangle

Tomorrow and Thursday will be epic SXSW days, so we called it a night (relatively) early. Looking forward to the bounty of shows!

FRIDAY, MARCH 19

Anna spent the day doing interviews for Radio K’s SXSW broadcast while I covered the fest for Venus Zine. I had lunch with Allison Apperson, the singer/guitarist of Richmond's Hot Lava, at the famous Star Seeds diner (an Austin must). Hot Lava (who played Radio K’s 2009 SXSW broadcast) isn’t playing this year, but we talked about Allison’s SXSW experience as an observer rather than a performer, her new band (?) and Hot Lava’s most recent release – a split 7” with the Sad Cobras, who are apparently her favorite band ever (listen here!)

My friend (and ace photographer) Joanna and I headed over to the French Legation Museum, one of my favorite places to visit in Austin even during non-SXSW times. Dengue Fever played not only an amazing show at the Museum but Radio K’s 2010 SXSW broadcast as well. See Joanna's way better photos here.

    Dengue Fever

Anni Rossi debuted some newer songs, which sounded amazing! They are a lot more rocking than the ones on her previous records and that she played during Radio K's 2009 SXSW broadcast.  She played with a full band for most of the set and then did some older songs solo.

 Anni Rossi

After seeing some great dude bands (Austin’s own…And You Will Know us by the Trail of Dead and the ever-sassy Mayer Hawthorne), I caught up with Lucy and Ashley from Minneapolis’s own Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles. As is often the case at SXSW, we had to conduct the interview next to a dumpster in a dark, seedy alley off of Red River Street…and I think there might have been some guy peeing back there. The band made the roadtrip down to Austin and played one show before heading back to Minneapolis (listen here!)

           Lucy and Ashley of Lucy Michelle and the Velvet Lapelles (photo by Joanna Ramos)

Pierced Arrows at Encore

 Pierced Arrows capped off the evening with a show at the WFMU party, where I also caught Moon Duo and Sonny and the Sunsets (both from San Francisco and both awesome). Fred, Toody and Kelly pulled off their usual high-energy performance (I swear you would never know Fred and Toody are in their 60s) and even though I interviewed the band for their Radio K in-studio session a few weeks ago, I was too nervous to talk to Toody when she was next to me at the bar. Put that one in the SXSW regrets column.

SATURDAY, MARCH 20

The temperature barely got above 50 degrees and it was windy all day (so bad that it cut out the sound at Malachai’s early afternoon show). Even we Minnesotans were freezing. I took the opportunity to spend as much time indoors as possible, eating some Ethiopian food and catching up with some friends from New York and St. Louis.

Then it was on to Buffalo Billiards for Midnight Masses, who played Radio K’s 2009 SXSW broadcast after their tour with Trail of Dead (guitarist/singer Jason Reece is also a founding member of ToD) last year. In the year since they played our broadcast, the band has changed its lineup a bit and released an EP on Team Love. Check out Radio K DJ Sam's interview with the entire band, and my interview with guitarist/singer/multi-instrumentalist/all-around talented lady Destiny Montague. We discussed how Midnight Masses is playing bigger shows this year, what she likes about SXSW and what it's like writing and recording with all the band members not living in the same city (listen here!)

 Destiny Montague from Midnight Masses

After Midnight Masses, I met up with Anna and the rest of the Radio K crew at Red 7 for the Woodsist showcase, where Woods and Real Estate did a cover of Blind Melon’s “No Rain” (viva Bee Girl!) and I spotted Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland fame. I <3 Austin.