SXSW Followup II

I went over the bands I'd tagged "must see" a couple days ago. The following is a list of shows I had resonably high expectations for that fell flat.

* Echo Base Soundsystem - I had such high hopes for these guys after being the drummer's neighbor for a couple months last year. It was wall-to-wall white boy dreads. For future reference this is not a sign that the show is going to be great. The group of us left soon after I detected "noodling".

* Twinemen - The two other guys from Morphine were in this band. They were so entertaining, I spent most of the show watching some guy sleep through all the racket and talking to some french dude about cheese.

* Fatboy Slim - He DJ'd the whole set, not playing any of his music. The show had a rave feel to it, but it was outside at Stubbs and there weren't any drugs.

* Aqualung - These guys weren't on my list, but I had to endure them in order to see Bloc Party a show later. Not good. Surrounded by old people making out. Snuck off to a corner and listened to my ipod.

* Bleach 03 - Josh and I kicked things off the day before SXSW by going to Bleach 03's CD release party. This 3 piece comprised of cute little japanese girls fucking blew me away. Easily the hardest METAL show I saw the whole week. They were so good we decide to see their showcase at the whisky bar. The whisky bar doesn't have a stage so these cute little japanese girls are set up on the floor, surrounded by wall of guys 6'3" and taller. The only way to see anything was to look at the view screen on a camcorder held by a guy standing on a bar stool.