Report from Austin and SXSW

18 March 2009

When I lived in Denton, my friends and I would take regular road trips to Austin and I found myself daydreaming about living here for all the great music - heavily into the Dallas scene via the University of North Texas, Austin seemed friendlier and had a lot more daytime, outdoor stuff to do. Now, years later, I'm actually living in my favorite Texas town and have - for the most part - avoided the whole SXSW scene - too many people, too much smoke and way, way too much traffic everywhere. You would think I would be all over it after having daydreamed about it for so long - all of my choices from high school to career path were heavily influenced by music and musicians - but I haven't been since I moved here. That said, however, I had a great spontaneous evening last night at the dawn of SXSW 2009 and thought I would share.

My friend, Mel, and I bonded over punk music in high school, and she is how I found myself at Emo's last night at some film/music thing as the guest of some British music distributor named Harry. Earlier in the day, Harry (who I just met last night) ran into David Yow - he was very excited because David is one of his punk rock idols. David used to be with Jesus Lizard and Scratch Acid and it was a reunion that my husband and I fell into by accident (they hadn't seen each other in 9 years!) - so we spent the evening hanging out, having a beer with David Yow and Steve Anderson (also formerly of Scratch Acid). They were nice laid back guys and considering what they've been through, looked pretty damn good. They were joined by Ellen, Steve's wife and a friend known as "Muffy" or "Buffy" (sorry, my hearing in a loud bar is not so good, I think her real name is Diane) - all really nice folks living in Austin (well, David is in L.A.).

Honestly, I didn't know who Scratch Acid was (according to Wikipedia, they broke up the year I graduated from high school) - I was more into Brit Punk back then - Pistols, Anti-Nowhere League...but I knew Jesus Lizard - love their music! As I'm sitting across from these guys, I'm wondering have they gone through all the emotional earthquakes of life and become happier people and what does that mean for their music or do they still play? And if they don't play, what do they do? One thing I've experienced and witnessed in others is this softening of attitude with age - I'm so NOT punk now. What is in store for all of us old rockers? How do you maintain that dark bitter rage when life gets good? Hell, every day, I'm amazed to still be alive and healthy, and I look back on my life and I am content with it's contents - everything has happened in the right time for reasons that I don't always fathom immediately but ultimately recognize as necessity for growth. I hope it is the same for them although that could mean the music could start to suck.....

Arlene

Austin, TX