1. Catching Pittsburgh psych-metal band Midnite Snake playing on someone’s porch on the last night of SXSW 2007. Seriously. Some friends of mine invited me to an impromptu session by ‘the Snake’ after the last bands had finished their sets on Sixth Street. I showed up just as they were getting started, and three minutes in, there were people moshing in the street. The drummer Paul Quattrone (Modey Lemon) had set up his kit in a cactus plant. It was sheer rage, energy and joy.

2. Seeing Echo and the Bunnymen play “Killing Moon” at a warehouse in the outskirts of Austin in 2006. It was 3am, everyone was exhausted, but when Ian McCulloch took the stage, we got a second wind.

3. Seeing my friend Joe play his first show as White Williams at Beauty Bar last year. Playing behind a backlit screen and joined by cutout animal puppets dancing around his head, WW was magic.

4. The three B’s: BBQ, breakfast burritos, and (free) beer!

5. Renting a lakehouse on Lake Austin with ten friends and about 15 or others just “passing through.” We were treated to nightly jam sessions by the band Spindrift (ex-Warlocks, BJM). One of the pictures of our late-night house sessions made its way onto rollingstone.com and into the hands of the house owner. Needless to say, she wasn’t that pleased about finding a photo of 30 dirty hippies playing guitars, tambourines, gourds, and about whatever instrument they could get their hands onto in her kitchen (!), but it remains one of my top 5 all-time moments in Austin.

Tags: SXSW 2008

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