I have lots of video to share with you from Thursday!
I missed the two things I wanted to see at the Austin Convention Center. I slept right through a keynote address by Quincy Jones. I tried to make it to a panel discussion by DEVO, but got there late and found it full and closed to new arrivals. So I wandered over to the music hub of 6th street. You never know what you'll run across.
Katzenjammer hails from Oslo, Norway. Quoting their flyer, this fun-orchestra proves Norway has more to offer than chaos and darkness. It certainly does. It was the hilarious looking bass that drew me toward the all-girl quartet. Aside from this street performance, they appeared four times at SXSW venues, headlining Thursday night at the Rio.
Katzenjammer from David Fell on Vimeo.
I had a delicious meal called Chicken Poppicotti at The Old Pecan Street Café, then walked about half a mile to the Elephant Room, a dark basement club. There I saw a local Austin band called the Golden Arm Trio. Despite the name, there were five men on stage, and I'm told the band is even bigger, but they couldn't get any more people onto the stage. They performed an entire set of Duke Ellington numbers, and sounded fantastic, as you can tell from the video below. I was about 4 feet from the stage. I'm really glad I bought that wide-angle lens for my Sony HDV camcorder. This was by far the best music I've heard so far, proving you don't have to be a cutting-edge rock band to find a place at South by Southwest.
The Golden Arm Trio from David Fell on Vimeo.
Then another longish walk took me to Mother Egan's, where I heard a few songs by The Belleville Outfit. The MP3 they have on the SXSW web site sounded like Django Reinhardt, although they really are a bit more modern then that. They have a good sound, and a fetching violinist.
The Belleville Outfit from David Fell on Vimeo.
After that, I came back to the hotel, to try to get this done by a reasonable time.
Leave a comment