An Eyewitness Account of the Unmitigated Schmoozing, Boozing, and Cruising at Austin’s Biggest Music Conference

By GREGG KIRK
Big Shout Magazine, April 1990

“… And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car… No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.”

— Hunter S. Thompson
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas“

Bat Out of Hell

We were an hour outside of St. Louis when the captain’s voice crackled over the plane’s intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I would like call to your attention to the fire trucks and rescue equipment lined along the runway when we attempt to make our landing in St. Louis. There is no cause for alarm. We’ve had to shut down our No. 2 engine due to loss of oil. The fire equipment is only a precautionary measure…”

Great.

As I buried my face in my hands, I wondered what else could go wrong before I even made it to Austin, TX for the annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (SXSW). Ever since it was decided that I would represent the magazine at the southwestern answer to the New Music Seminar, things had had a way of swinging wildly out of control.

It all started a few weeks after Earwig‘s Carol Schutzbank and Karen McVicker gave the Big Shout staff an impressive sales pitch as to the importance of our presence at the annual event. Not only did the magazine want to help them sponsor the “Taste of Philadelphia” booth that would give the conference goers a representation of Philly’s music scene, but the Earwig girls stressed the great amount of outside exposure Big Shout would get as well as a crack at some national advertisers.

Karen McVicker (left) and Carol Schutzbank of Earwig were the brains behind the “Taste of Philadelphia” booth at SXSW. (photo by Gregg Kirk)

The words “national advertisers” struck a chord with us. They translated into advertising dollars, which caused cash-register sounds in our minds and dollar signs to appear in our eyes. I volunteered to go since I had made two previous trips to Austin. I’d also attended last summer’s New Music Seminar, which had prepared me for the major-league schmoozing extravaganza. But most importantly — “Letter’s from the Front” columnist Tim Abbott offered to give me a free place to stay.

After a scheduling and pricing SNAFU with the airline had been cleared up (they had me booked on a flight to New Orleans for $776 — almost double the actual price of my ticket), and after I had made arrangements with the SXSW organization to have two free press passes waiting for Tim and me when we arrived, I felt confident that things were well in hand.

Experience has taught me that whenever I am overcome by this feeling, I should soon expect to be hurled headlong into a vortex of entropy.

And without fail, the first tugs of the vortex were felt on the morning of my flight as I lugged the 125-pound box of magazines, a suitcase, camera bag and duffel bag into my ailing car and sped towards the airport. The car was leaking antifreeze like a man with his jugular cut, and the three hours of sleep I had had gave a special edge to my mood. I was running late, but I still had the wherewithal to go over a cloudy mental checklist of things I needed to bring to the conference.

Camera, film, notebooks, issues, money, credit card, plane tickets … PLANE TICKETS?! Where the hell were my plane tickets?! I was beyond the point of no return, as I frantically rifled through my duffel bag and suitcase with one hand while steering wildly with the other. The car swerved all over I-95, and as I emptied the contents of every bag I had meticulously packed, I caught a frightening image of my own face in the rear-view mirror. It looked exactly like the Edvard Munch’s famous painting titled “The Scream” — a picture of a man crossing a bridge with his hands clapped to his head and his mouth open in an expression of abject terror.

I arrived at the airport in a frenzy and decided my only recourse was to buy another plane ticket. With only minutes to spare, I got my boarding pass and threw myself into a seat on Flight 59 from Philadelphia to St. Louis.

One hour later, the voice of the pilot interrupted my reading, and I wondered if I would meet my maker on the tarmac of the St. Louis airport. As I opened the side compartment of my camera bag to put my crumpled ticket inside, I found the original ticket — nice, crisp, and unused.

Terra Firma

Was it my imagination or did I detect an air of suppressed emotion and drama in the voice of the stewardess when she said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the staff and crew of Flight 59 would like to welcome you to St. Louis,” as the yawing aircraft finally touched the ground? The passengers of the plane responded with a round of applause.

I deplaned and met Tim by the baggage claim area, and we wasted no time in laying plans for the four days ahead. Because I had visited Tim under similar circumstances two times before, the groundwork was almost academic.

Our diet would consist of three simple things — Shiner Bock beer, migas, and fajitas. Bock beer is a special beverage brewed only around Lent, and it is known for its nutritional value, as those who fast during the Lenten season and drink the brew are well aware. Migas is a Mexican breakfast dish prepared with scrambled eggs, crushed tortilla shells, jalapeños, chilies, cheese, and spices. It is well known for its uncanny ability to burn the hangover out of a person while enabling them to remain very regular. And fajitas … while they have become a familiar sight even in these parts, the knowledge that vendors sell them on the streets for little over $2 comes in handy when roaming from venue to venue in Austin.

The first thing Tim and I did was point his 20-ft. 1974 Catalina land shark toward the Hyatt Regency and drive to get our press passes.

As we rode with the top down, I remembered the importance of the laminated press pass that I wore around my neck like a talisman at the New Music Seminar. Any time I had been met with any resistance when trying to see an important band at one of the New York venues, I simply held up my pass, screwed up my face, and yelled, “PRESS!!!”

More often than naught, this worked splendidly. It felled simple-minded bouncers and doormen like so many trees, and after awhile I actually looked for people to give me a hard time just so I could wield my newfound power.

Of course when we arrived at the Hyatt and registered, our passes were nowhere to be found. At this point I knew I was still within the grip of the vortex, so I told Tim we had no alternative but to begin drinking heavily. The young lady who was in charge of finding our passes told us it wouldn’t take long for them to turn up.

“Exactly how long?” Tim asked, rather annoyed.

“14 minutes!” the girl shot back.

“Good,” Tim said, giving her a baleful look. “Because we’re serious drunks.”

Forty-five minutes later, we had our passes and we watched the other conference goers check in. I remarked to Tim how like vampire bats these people would be in the days to come.

“They’ll sleep during the day, rise at night, and suck each others’ blood the entire span of the conference,” I told him as I drank an overpriced Shiner Bock purchased in the hotel lobby. He took a pull from his beer and grinned. He knew we would be no better.

An “Austin-tatious” Kind of Town

We took it easy the first night of the conference. There was no sense wasting money on going to see bands on Sixth Street — Austin’s ground zero for live music — because none of the good groups would begin playing until Thursday night, we reasoned.

As we stepped out of the Hyatt and into the fresh night air, Tim showed me a peculiar thing. Not but a hundred yards from the hotel looms the Congress Avenue Bridge that crosses the Colorado River. Under this concrete structure resides the country’s largest colony of bats. At dusk each night of the summer, the bats come out in such droves that the bridge has become famous for it, and the sight of a handful of people with flashlights poking around its ominous Romanesque arches is not uncommon.

A photo of the Congress Avenue Bridge when the bats are actually flying out of it near dusk on a summer’s night.

I tried to take a few pictures of the swooping beasts the first night, but because of the cooler air, they didn’t congregate in any numbers worth mentioning. Each night, I religiously trudged under the bridge, and in every instance, the only sign of the creatures was the scent of their guano, which smells exactly like tortillas. The famous bats under the bridge proved to be the Comet Kahoutek of the conference — everyone talked about them, but not many got to see them. Instead, it seemed most of the bats had assumed human form and were attending the panels and manning the trade show booths.

In spite of ourselves, we ended up on Sixth Street that first night. We knew everyone would be at the Austin Music Awards, which was taking place at a smallish auditorium near the hotel, but the prospect of cramming ourselves into a confined space with hundreds of others during a five-hour stretch was not appealing. What we ended up doing was not a whole lot better, however. We walked the unusually quiet Sixth Street and spent more money than we had planned on Shiner Bock and fajitas.

It was a strange time to be on the street. On any other night, the sidewalks are brimming with club goers who have an incredible variety of venues to choose from. It seems that every available storefront on a four-block section is either a bar with a live band or a restaurant. The street is comparable to Bleeker Street in Greenwich Village, Bourbon Street in New Orleans, or South Street in Philly. The town’s active chamber of commerce is responsible for every bit of its success as a mecca for live music entertainment. It has even gone so far as to dub itself the “Live Music Capital of the World.”

Not only had the town pulled of a coup by sponsoring SXSW, but during our stay the city was also the host to the NCAA basketball playoffs, a sculling regatta on the Colorado River, and another convention of some kind that moved into the Hyatt even as SXSW attendees lingered on the final day.

The Bands

Despite our attempts at restraint, we awoke with hangovers the next day. We pulled some clothes on and dragged ourselves to one of the best migas places around called Mexico Tipico. Without even looking at the menu, Tim ordered coffee and plates of migas con queso for us both. We scanned the conference guide to see who was scheduled to play as we waited for the food to arrive.

To our surprise, in walked Phil Anderson, Paul Curci, and Bruce Schimmel from Philadelphia’s City Paper. Greetings were made, and we briefly discussed our respective plans at the conference. We recommended the migas to them, but they ordered something else. The poor bastards would see the bats soon enough, I thought.

Tim and I spent the better part of the day behind the “Taste of Philadelphia” booth on the exhibit floor at the Hyatt. The Philly booth at SXSW was perhaps the better organized, smoother run, and more effective than even that of the New Music Seminar. The Earwig contingent deserves a lot of credit for compiling a 27-song double compilation, an array of literature and information about the Philly scene, and a fleet of sponsors that made the booth one of the focal points of the exhibit floor.

That night, most of the attendees from Philadelphia went to see the Wishniaks perform at Burger-Tex Showbar — a combination hamburger joint and bar. We arrived just as No Reason to Hate, a band from Raleigh, NC finished their set, and Tim and I tried to explain the wonders of Shiner Bock to the Philly group — which consisted of Carol and Karen from Earwig, Vikki Walls of Fast Forward Productions, and the guys from Naked Twister — as we waited for the band to go on.

Some of the “Taste of Philadelphia” contingent man the Philly both on the SXSW exhibit floor. (Left to right) John Ware of Momentum Design, Vikki Walls of Fast Forward Productions, artist/performer Daria, and Kathy James of J.C. Dobbs.

The Wishniaks played a spirited set that was marred by a PA breakdown. Lead man James Hostetter pulled through this rather well by doing a tongue-in-cheek version of Steve Howe’s “Mood for a Day.” Before long, the system was working again and they were back in business.

We went from B-Tex to Liberty Lunch, one of the larger clubs in Austin that is located about a mile from Sixth Street. There we saw the Reivers, but the place was so packed that I ended up participating in a drunken pinball tournament with the Earwigians. Later on, we ran into Kathy James of J.C. Dobbs, whose flight had just gotten into Austin. As the press of the crowd became too much for us, a group of about 20 of us walked the mile to Sixth Street, where we saw a band from Atlanta called Marching Two Step at the Cannibal Club. Tim and I weren’t impressed so a smaller group of us walked down the block to the Ritz to see a band from San Francisco called Sister Double Happiness. When we walked into the huge club, we thought the guys on stage were roadies, but this rag-tag group of musicians played some high-energy roots rock.

Round Two

The next day began with our usual routine of migas at Mexico Tipico, and Tim dropped me off at the Hyatt because I had an important panel to attend concerning advertising. He told me he would meet me on the exhibit floor later, and he drove back home to get some sleep. It was the last time I would see him for more than 18 hours.

I spent my day schmoozing madly with the best of them. I schmoozed at the panel; I schmoozed at the booth; I got schmoozed myself. By the end of the day I was completely exhausted — the vampire bats had sucked the life out of me.

The entire time I looked for signs of Tim but to no avail. I found some friends of his who told me that he was at an all-day party in room 1513 of the Hyatt, but when I got to the 15th floor, there was no room 1513. The superstitious builders had skipped from room numbers 1512 to 1514.

I took a cab to Tim’s house, and his roommate told me he had just left. I took a free bus to Sixth Street and decided I might be able to run into him there. The rest of the evening was a blur of bands and venues. It was on this night that I saw some of the best groups the country has to offer.

I saw Nathan Crow & the Wedding Band, which featured Buddy Ebsen‘s son on bass at the Austin Opera House. I saw Exene Cervenka at Liberty Lunch, and was mildly impressed. But the best two bands I saw that night were at the Ritz.

Hollyfaith, a four-piece group from Atlanta impressed me with their ruthlessly original songs that some at the conference compared to Mudhoney. They gave such a sublime performance that I thought the lead singer was on strong hallucinogens, but when I talked to him afterward, he was completely coherent. Unfortunately, their set was cut short by a maniacal Ritz employee who kept giving them the finger-across-the-neck sign.

Trip Shakespeare from Minnesota was just as wild. They played a blend of high-energy psychedelic rock laced with three-part harmonies that had the audience and me picking our jaws up from the floor. Their female drummer also played standing up, and her bass drum was tilted on its side so that she played it with drum sticks instead of a foot pedal.

I went from the Ritz back to the Hyatt and tried to find Tim on the 15th floor again. My attention was drawn to a group of drunks throwing paper airplanes and blown-up rubber gloves from the railing down to the lobby area 15 stories below. Of course it was here that I found Tim — in room 1531. Upon seeing him, my hands instinctively closed around his throat. He lied that he had been looking for me all day. After a few hours of raucous partying, we decided to leave before security came. We made it home and slept until 1:30 p.m. the next day. The conference was taking its toll.

The Grand Finale

Not much was accomplished on the final day of the conference. The booths were torn down, and several of us attended a party at the city of New Orleans hospitality suite later that night. But all the while, everyone looked forward to and talked about seeing Public Service at Mercado Caribé on Sixth Street that night. The talk built to such a fever pitch that I wondered if the Philly ska band could hold up to all the scrutiny.

Public Service rock the rafters at Mercado Caribé on Sixth Street in Austin, TX. (photo by Gregg Kirk)

They did. When we got to the club that night, we found a line that snaked around the front door. It was St. Patrick’s Day and the police had considered closing off Sixth Street to traffic (which is not that unusual during special events), but the line outside Mercado Caribé was still unexpected. Tim and I stood in line for about two minutes before we pulled out our passes and shouldered our way through the crowd yelling, “PRESS!!!” to anyone who resisted us. We parted the mob like the Red Sea and walked straight into the club just in time to catch Public Service’s set.

The place was packed to the gills, and the band blazed into their first song with such fury the entire room was transformed into a writhing mass of bodies doing the irie slam dance. Without a doubt, Public Service played the most energetic set of the conference, and they impressed everyone who attended with their brand of rap/funk/ska/thrash music. An article that appeared in the Austin American-Stateman a few days later described them as such — “The group’s vigorous combination of hard-edged ska and in-your-face funk energized even previously disinterested fans into thrashing, hard-core converts. What the band could do on a big stage with a full night of frenzy is almost frightening to think about.”

An amazing thing happened when the group ended their set. The placed emptied out, and surprisingly few stayed for local reggae favorites Michael E. Johnson & the Killer Bees. Later that night, we ran into several members of Public Service in the infamous room 1531 of the Hyatt. They told us how they drove halfway across the country in an RV and rehearsed at a friend’s farm in Austin to prepare for that very night. It was refreshing to meet such a group of down-to-earth guys who were ignoring the schmoozing and bloodsucking at the conference.

The Vortex Returns

When I awoke the next day with the worst hangover since I had been in Austin, I felt the tug of the vortex again. There was no time for migas as Tim drove me straight to the airport and dropped me there with my luggage.

It didn’t matter that I missed my flight and had to wait four hours to get the last plane out of Austin that day. It didn’t matter that I almost didn’t get on the flight and that when we got to St. Louis there was a half-hour layover that turned into another half-hour layover that turned into a flight cancellation. It didn’t matter that because I called home and talked on the phone for 20-minutes that I found that the last flight from St. Louis was completely booked. It didn’t matter that while I finally did get on the plane, when I drove home, my car blew a head gasket and had to be towed from I-95.

None of this mattered. I expected it. I was just happy that I made it home in one piece. The bats had drained most of my life’s essence, but I was still alive to tell about it — and to think about doing it all over again next year.

Editor’s Update: In 2025, the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference (SXSW) announced they would be downsizing the live music portion of the conference next year due to the reconstruction of their home base (Austin Convention Center) and the fact that more participants are joining online instead of going to see live bands in person. In fact, they’ve eliminated the music-only weekend that was the foundation of the original conference. If video killed the radio star, streaming services have killed everything else related to music.