Bunbury Music Festival Announces 2020 Lineup

Bunbury
Bunbury
Photo by Victoria Moorwood

Entering its ninth year, Cincinnati’s upcoming Bunbury Music Festival is going to be a doozy. The mixed-genre fest announced its 2020 lineup on Thursday and will offer an eclectic mix of rock, pop, and electronic music. Twenty One Pilots, Marshmello and The Avett Brothers are set to be the three-day festival’s headliners. Supporting acts will include Kane Brown, Melanie Martinez, blackbear, Ski Mask The Slump God, Alec Benjamin, The Struts, Cake, COIN, Betty Who, Neon Trees, iDKHOW and more. According to a festival press release, additional artists are also expected to perform and will be announced later on. Once again, PromoWest Productions will organize the festival.

A version of the 2020 lineup was first leaked to fans early on Thursday morning. Despite the leak, the final lineup was announced later that night, which showed a new design, artist rearrangements and the addition of Nine Inch Nails drummer Ilan Rubin’s band, The New Regime.

Last year’s Bunbury hosted a large mix of alternative rock and hip hop and also spotlighted a handful of local acts. Featured artists included Machine Gun Kelly, Run the Jewels, Fall Out Boy, Stone Temple Pilots and Cincinnati’s own TRIIIBE.

“I feel like healing is its own vibration. Music carries and supports that vibration,” TRIIIBE’s ex-member, Aziza Love, said of the performing experience. “Joining with people we’ve never met before in that same space, to invite them to do the same thing, I think is so powerful.”

Bringing in around 50,000 attendees, 2019’s festival was possibly most notable for its ease. While some music events can be derailed by overcrowding or poor organization, Bunbury’s adequate number of food and drink vendors, spacious grounds and multiple stages made for a convenient and easy-going festival experience.

General admission, VIP and Ultimate VIP tickets are currently for sale on the Bunbury website. The festival will return to downtown Cincinnati’s Sawyer Point and Yeatman’s Cove on June 5, 6 and 7. According to the website, the daily performance schedule will be announced soon.

See the full Bunbury 2020 lineup below.

Bunbury

 

PLAYING CINCY: TRIIIBE Stays Busy With New Album, Solo Projects & Outreach Programs

TRIIIBE

With three very active members in Cincy’s hip-hop community, TRIIIBE always has a lot going on. Aziza Love recently dropped her solo effort Views From The Cut EP, Siri Imani is gearing up to release her debut solo project Therapy project next month, and as a trio they’ve not only been working on new music, but also developing community outreach projects, and credit Cincinnati for stepping up and following them on their musical and philanthropic journey.

After their Bunbury Music Festival set on June 2, members Siri Imani, PXVCE, and Aziza Love opened up about spreading positivity on stage, their individual and group growth, their next album arriving this fall, details on their youth and homeless outreach programs, and the important of investing in their community.

AF: Your set was awesome, really great energy. Siri, I know you have a solo project coming out soon, can you tell me a little bit about it?

Siri: Yeah, it’s called Therapy. It releases on July 19. It definitely just goes into a journey of my life, not only this year, but just everything I’ve been through.

AF: And since it’s your debut solo, how has that been different from your usual group recording?

Siri: It is different. Not too different, because PXVCE is producing pretty much every beat that’s on the project, so it still has the TRIIIBE feel. It has the same vibe and message, but it’s more personal and it’s more specific. Therapy goes into five points and it’s the five stages of healing from PTSD and it goes into different parts of my life that reflect those different stages, leading into the transition of a healthier life and healing.

AF: At your set today, you had everybody repeat: “I love me.” You said, “You are worthy.” You implement that positivity not only into your music, but also in your stage presence. Why are those messages important to you?

Aziza: I feel like healing is its own vibration. Music carries and supports that vibration when we all come together to speak our truths. I think that, in itself, creates the opportunity for community healing. So our music, not only when we perform live, but when we’re in the studio among ourselves performing, we open that space for clear communication and raw expression and that, in itself, can be a release, which supports a healthier state of mind, spirit, and being. So joining with people we’ve never met before in that same space, to invite them to do the same thing, I think is really powerful.

PXVCE: It’s a healing process. It’s a transfer of energy. We are able to get to know the audience [and] the audience is able to get to know us, in a very small amount of time, and it’s a lot of our first impressions for a lot of people, so in order for us to relay our message I think it’s powerful to have it received so easily. Words are very powerful; vibrations are very powerful. With us saying, ‘We love you, we love ourselves,’ I think it is very healing.

TRIIIBE
TRIIIBE performing at Bunbury on June 2, 2019. Photos by Victoria Moorwood.

AF: Siri, you’ve got a solo project coming out. Aziza, you just released your Views From The Cut EP. Is TRIIIBE recording anything together at the moment?

Siri: Oh yeah. Our last album came out on 10/10, our next album comes out 10/10.

PXVCE: We’re about to make it like a ceremonial thing.

AF: What stage is the project in?

Aziza: We’re in a transformative stage because it’s a mixture of writing, recording, reconnecting. We’re setting our focus to our philanthropic side and all that we do. Especially seeing all what’s been happening in Dayton right now, reconfiguring in general with one how we’re operating in Cincinnati and how we’re operating elsewhere and how we can help on a more grand scale. We’re in a transformative state in our music because it reflects our work in the community as well.

Siri: It reflects the project. III Am What III Am was last year. That was us literally showing who we were. III Am What III Wanna Be is showing what we want to be, that’s musically, physically, in reality and all. It’s all a process and we’re playing with different styles. We all bring different things to the table and us figuring out how to leverage that is the key toward III Am What III Wanna Be.

AF: What philanthropic projects are you currently working on?

Siri: Potluck For The People is for people experiencing displacement, homelessness, and that’s every final Sunday from 12 to 5 [p.m.] and Raising The Barz is every first and third Thursday at the public library. That is an Intro To Hip Hop class for the youth, we’ve got as young as 6-year-olds and as old as 30. We invite local artists and local students to help themselves get better with hip hop or any craft they want to work with.

AF: Most Cincinnati artists I’ve spoken with credit you to bringing togetherness and acceptance in the hip hop scene here.

Aziza: Really!?

Siri: Wow.

Aziza: That’s so beautiful.

AF: Do you guys feel a little bit of pressure with that recognition or has this just been your natural progression?

Siri: We curate spaces, but we can curate a space and nobody shows up. The people genuinely wanted to connect and taking the time to do it makes this work. Without anybody supporting, we’d just be three people trying to do something. This is something that the city wants and the city made it happen and it’s not just the credit to us, it’s never just the credit to us. That’s the whole point of TRIIIBE, it’s understanding that we are doing this. It’s one big machine and without any of us playing our part it wouldn’t work out.

PXVCE: When you look at Atlanta or Chicago, who have huge underground scenes, many people can become catalysts for some of those movements, but to take the credit completely, it just doesn’t make sense because if not everyone is participating then you can’t even say that.

AF: It’s a give and take.

Aziza: It’s a unified decision to make change.

Siri: I’m definitely proud to be one of the holders of the idea… but the city and the people are the catalysts of it.

Aziza: We’re not the first. And we’re not the last.

TRIIIBE
Find more of TRIIIBE on their website.

LIVE REVIEW: Basilica Soundscape 2017

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Blanck Mass at Basilica Soundscape 2017. Photo by Samantha Marble/The Creative Independent

Day 1:

I knew this would happen. My one-person tent is sagging like ruined soufflé. Its support beams are in all the wrong holes, and the whole thing is yet to be staked in the ground. The bus for Basilica Soundscape leaves in one minute. At 5:59 in Meadowgreens Campground in Ghent, New York, I relinquish a losing battle with said tent, leaving it in a frightening half-mast tangle, and board the shuttle flushed with defeat. This row would have to be settled later. In the dark.

For a moment I feared that this tent dilemma would prevent me from enjoying myself at all. What if I kept dismembering and reconstructing the tent in my head all night, and missed all of the music surrounding me? It could happen. These obsessive thoughts ceased however, the moment I entered Basilica Hudson. The 18,000 square feet factory building was built in the 1880s, and has produced everything from railroad car wheels to glue, but these days its main export is art. In 2010, musician Melissa Auf der Maur and filmmaker Tony Stone acquired the building, transforming the space into a sanctuary for music, film, and visual art.

Basilica Soundscape offers all of these mediums at their finest. Often described as “the antifestival,” Basilica Soundscape is exactly that – the weekend of music, poetry, and visual art feeling far more intimate than the word “festival” suggests. In fact, Soundscape seems more akin to a house party hosted by wealthy eccentrics, or a wedding held in a medieval hamlet. Within minutes of surveying the grounds, it appeared as though all the romanticism and utopia promised by other festivals was actually here all along, from the rainbow arching across the sky to the flayed chickens sizzling on an open grill.

At 6:30 everyone funneled into the Main Hall, where openers Bing & Ruth plunged into a dizzying set that I can only describe as sounding like the ocean. Pianist David Moore’s technique was both dense and delicate, evoking a sense of moving through water. The blue light enrobing the musicians and the whale songs sung by cello and clarinet added to the seascape of sound. Even the stage decorations seemed marine in nature; plumes of pink silk hung from the ceiling, dissolving into tendrils of rope and swaying like jellyfish. It was only after Bing & Ruth left the stage that I realized they were hand-dyed parachutes and not aquatic invertebrates.

On the other end of the decibel spectrum, Philadelphia’s Moor Mother (aka Camae Ayewa) annihilated all previous serenity with her serrated poetry and beats. Ayewa stabbed through her set, entangling herself in the parachute ropes and assaulting the crowd with glass-shattering backing tracks and car crash raps. Ayewa’s brand of hyper-politicized poetry utilizes the distortion of punk and the rage of metal to potent effect. Her command of the crowd was immense; when Moor Mother demands that you “hug your motherfucking neighbor!” and “slow dance!” you’d be wise to do so. And we did.

The next best display of aggression was black metal band Thou, who filled Basilica’s smaller North Hall with bowel-shuddering screams and swampy instrumentation. Next, Tunisian artist Emel Mathlouthi had everyone looking upwards, as she performed from the building’s rafters, her colossal voice bellowing from above. For one last dose of drama, Baltimore’s Serpentwithfeet charmed us with his occult gospel. Singer and musician Josiah Wise – the snake in question – is always mesmerizing live, as he summons the spirits of Nina Simone, Josephine Baker, and Aleister Crowley. He is a poised and diverse performer, able to traverse songs about mourning with his operatic pipes, and then whip the audience into fits of laughter with his wry wit.

A far less verbal artist, Indiana’s JLIN closed out Friday night with her hard-driving electronic collages, often splicing horror movie screams with chopper-like drum beats. JLIN’s set was weaponized and dense, but that didn’t stop a pack of men from breaking into arrhythmic dance moves in the audience, convulsing like electrocuted lab rats under the strobe lights. I hoped to harness their energy for later…I still had a tent to set up.

Day 2:

Basilica’s second day was filled with far more fury than its first. Notable early sets from Yellow Eyes and Yvette got our blood pumping right off the bat. The former filled the North Hall with unrelenting drums and ear-piercing screams. Fog hung around the black metal trio, while two wrought iron candelabras added a solemnity to their set, which was dedicated to a late friend of the band.

Brooklyn’s noise duo Yvette played a wealth of new material on the main stage, opening with the older, hard-hitting “Radiation” before treating us to new songs. Rumor has it the pair are currently recording another album, and their Basilica set was a delightful preview. The energy harnessed by lead singer/guitarist Noah Kardos-Fein and drummer Dale Elsinger was strategically focused on Saturday, only improving their intensity as performers. If Yvette were previously men of chaos, they now appear to be mad scientists, fiddling with knobs and emitting blips and whirrs amidst controlled fury.

There was unfortunately some overlap during sets by Priests and Protomartyr, but I was able to catch a bit of both. Priests commanded the large stage expertly, lead singer Katie Alice Greer stalking the stage in a spangled mini dress like The Runaways’ Cherie Currie. On the other side of the building, Protomartyr channeled FEAR and The Fall with a one-two punch of distilled punk rock.

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Priests at Basilica Soundscape 2017. Photo by Samantha Marble/The Creative Independent

We looked to the rafters one last time for readings by Morgan Parker, Darcie Wilder, and Hole drummer Patty Schemel, who read excerpts from her new memoir Hit So Hard. Schemel’s tales of Kurt, Courtney, and rock n’ roll abounded before Blanck Mass’s Benjamin John Power mounted the smoke-cloaked main stage. The technical headliner for 2017’s Basilica Soundscape was Zola Jesus, but for me, it was Blanck Mass, whose diabolical wall of sound is more a physical experience than a purely sonic one. Power ripped through tracks off his latest LP World Eater, churning out frenzied tapestries like “John Doe’s Carnival of Error” and slow grinding dance cuts like “Please.” Power is obscured during most of his sets, dressed in black and barely visible within the fog and flashes of light. In this sense, he becomes more entity than man – more furious gospel than mere entertainment.

So what was my takeaway from Basilica Soundscape 2017? Go every summer, bring ear plugs, try the chicken, and definitely get to know your tent before next year.

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LIVE REVIEW: Time Warp

Time Warp, an annual electronic music festival in Mannheim, Germany, represents all the worst things EDM culture has become. But before I get into the poor safety conditions, the utterly depressing morning after, and the most antisocial ravers I have ever seen, I’ll start with the one good part: the music.

I arrived around 12:30 p.m. and instantly started swaying to RØDHÅD’s dramatic buildups fading into understated dubstep beats. Behind him were extraterrestrial-looking designs, and the sound effects made me feel like I was inside an alien-attack arcade game. Then, Dubfire’s psychedelic set hypnotized me with low, growling vocals and crashing wave sounds as fish swam over the screen.

Next door, glowing red fangs appeared to swallow the stage where Chris Liebing performed, and beams of light shot down from the ceiling like lasers darting to high-pitched percussion.

But the highlight of the festival (or at least the pre-9 a.m. portion, because how does anyone make it past that point?) was Nina Kravitz’s set. Behind her were projections of bats, spiders, cobwebs, and ghosts. Some of the music gave off an appropriately witchy vibe, with menacing whispers and operatic instrumentals. Other portions transported us to a rainforest, with chirping and waterfall effects. At one point, she mixed Da Hool’s “Met Her At The Love Parade,” an ode to Germany’s famous (though now-defunct) EDM parade. We had to wait for ten minutes just to make it into the hall, once again proving that EDM’s gender problem does not result from a lack of good women DJs.

The first and second stages were connected, and if you stood in the underpass between them, you could catch two sounds at once, blending the tunes just by moving your body. I lingered there to hear the clash between Adam Beyer’s haunting orchestrals and Richie Hawtin’s upbeat, futuristic synths.

If you spent the entire time staring at the stages, the event lived up to its expectations. But aside from the fact that this would probably be a safety hazard due to the heat, that’s not all I go to music festivals for. I go to meet interesting people and make meaningful memories with them. And that’s where Time Warp fell flat, big time.

When my boyfriend and I asked to sit next to a group, they side-eyed us as if to ask why we would talk to them and turned away. We tried again with a guy sitting alone against a wall, but he’d passed out before we could open our mouths. Excluding those I came with, only three people spoke to me: one to apologize for burning a red circle onto my hand with his cigarette, and two to ask if I had ecstasy on me. When a festival runs from 7:30 p.m. on a Saturday to 2 p.m. on a Sunday, drugs go from a fun addition to a survival strategy. And people barely survived.

During my first attempt to get water, the stand only carried beer, so I had to find a new one. Once I did, they were out of water bottles and could only sell me a small cup. Meanwhile, just the feeling of my ponytail on my neck was unbearable, and I had to step outside every few minutes to escape the heat. Equally often, I saw someone escorting a semi-conscious friend out. At one point, smoke filled my lungs and trains of people flooded out coughing. Throughout the night and into the morning, I witnessed stretchers carried into the first aid tent.

I remember at the end of EDC Vegas last year, buses and cars lined up to bring us home. In the one I entered, someone put on Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” and we all stood up and danced our way home. After EDC, everyone looked thrilled. After Time Warp, they looked defeated. That festival ate us alive and spit us out with blank expressions on our faces and giant bags under our eyes. I have never seen a sight as dreary as the zombies silently retreating from the concert halls to the Porta-potties that morning.

As an American expat in Germany, the party scene has been one of the biggest culture shocks. I now go out when I used to come home. I’ve grown accustomed to the orange and blue swirls of crushed pills on club floors. Along with an aversion to “commercial” music that makes them scoff at the DJs filling Vegas clubs, Europeans treat EDM like some extreme sport you must make your body suffer to take part in.

Maybe I’m just not well-versed in the art of raving. But I guess I’m OK with that. I’m still firmly in the camp that we can appreciate electronic music without sacrificing fun, safety, health, or camaraderie. And why not admit it: I’m not above that involving Justin Bieber.

FESTIVAL PREVIEW: Basilica SoundScape 2016

bas

Basilica Hudson is a “non-profit multidisciplinary arts center” in Hudson, NY that supports “the creation, production and presentation of arts and culture while fostering sustainable community.” They’re also throwing a killer music festival September 16-18, called Basilica SoundScape.

Wow, that sounds great! You’re probably thinking. But I have so many questions! Of course. Like, will there be after parties? Yes, at the nearby Half Moon barHow do I get to this Hudson Place? It’s two hours from NYC, by rail or car. Where will I stay? There’s camping nearby! And hotels. What else do they have besides music? Friday and Saturday pop-up shops, including one by Sacred Bones Records. How much does this cost? $75 covers a ticket for the weekend music festivities, $125 for the weekend + camping. Single day passes are also available. But let’s get to the most important question: Who’s playing at this thing?

Angel Olsen – Friday 

Angel Olsen’s new material from her upcoming My Woman is a bright and bold reinvention of this folk singer’s persona. “Shut Up Kiss Me” and “Intern” have shown a wilder and playfully sardonic side of Olsen, making her an act you won’t want to miss.

Bell Witch – Saturday

The Seattle duo is a gloomy, atmospheric doom band that brings a unique approach to metal. Using just drums, bass and, vocals, their sound is eerie and minimalistic. You might not get much head thrashing done during their set; if that’s your scene, just check out Cobalt on Friday.

Mary Lattimore- Friday

At The Dam, the harpist’s May 2016 album, creates its own little world with gentle, twinkling melodies that is delightfully easy to get lost in. If you camp at Basilica SoundScape, hopefully it will be much harder to lose your campsite.

Explosions In The Sky – Saturday

Bringing your dose of moody rock is Explosions In The Sky, scheduled to play on Saturday. Obviously, the nature friendly festival is the best place for them to play their latest album, The Wilderness. SoundScape’s organizers have described its lineup as “heavy,” and Explosions In The Sky is an ideal band to balance things out.

Deradoorian – Saturday

Angel Deradoorian is a former member of Dirty Projectors who has started a psychedelic solo project under her last name. A year ago, her Expanding Flower took us on quite a strange trip; read the review here.

BURGERAMA 4: The Femme’s List of Who to See

burgerama-four-lineup

For those of you not too familiar with the DIY whirlwind that is Burger Records, it is a Fullerton, California-based independent record label founded back in 2007 by Sean Bohrman and Lee Rickard. Burger is most well known for taking the off kilter route of releasing most of their material on cassette. This year marks their fourth year hosting the Burgerama music festival, which this year seemingly has their most impressive lineup yet. Held at the Santa Ana Observatory, it is quickly approaching on the weekend of March 28th and 29th. Other than the duh-worthy ripping main acts, here’s a list of bands us West Coast femmes are stoked to see.

 

Froth

For a band that was supposedly formed as a joke, their record certainly doesn’t sound like one. Froth emulates a well done version of the garage, surf, psych, and drone-sounding rock that is consuming the Southern California music scene right now. They definitely throw a little twist in their sound, though, with the use of an omnichord. Here’s a new track Burger uploaded on their Soundcloud a month ago titled, “Postcard Radio.”

 

Mr. Elevator & The Brain Hotel

These Los Angeles-based, wacky psychedelic dudes, sound exactly like what you’d think a band playing a similar festival set in the Sixties would sound like. We are so okay with that. Here’s them performing, “When the Morning Greets You With A Smile” for the video series Jam In The Van from last year’s Burgerama.

 

The Coathangers

The always badass Atlanta-based trio, The Coathangers, are a longtime AudioFemme favorite (they headlined one of our showcases last year). Yes we’re biased, but with good reason. From their 2009 full length, Scramble, to their recently released cover of The Gun Club’s “Sex Beat,” their set is bound to be seamlessly chock full of dance-y punk hits.

 

White Fence

Tim Presley is the blast-from-the-past prolific psych band that is White Fence. With almost all of his past releases recorded in his home, Presley helps to emulate what Burger Records seemingly stands for. Here’s a stream of his most recent album titled, For The Recently Found Innocent. Smoke a bowl and enjoy.

 

Meatbodies

Fronted by Chad Ubovich, guitarist of Mikal Cronin as well as the bassist for Fuzz, Meatbodies is a guitar heavy Jay Reatard lovers dream band. With their first album just released in October, this band’s buzz is about to explode. Highly suggested set to see for all of your head banging pleasures. Here’s a live video of them performing “Mountain” on KEXP Radio.

 

 

Jeff The Brotherhood

The always killer Jeff The Brotherhood, who recently announced being dropped by Warner Brothers Records, are releasing their new album (coming out just a few days before the festival) on Infinity Cat Recordings. With all of the excitement of a new start for the band as well as a new album, their set that weekend will not be one to miss. Here’s their new track featuring Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull on flute titled “Black Cherry Pie.”

 

La Luz

La Luz is a Seattle-based surf rock band. These girls’ mellow beach vibe is danceable and to blatantly put it, fun. La Luz, which translates to “light” in Spanish, perfectly emulates their vibe during live performances. This is their beautifully hazy video for their most popular track, titled”Call Me in the Day.”

Baby’s First South by Southwest: An Introduction

I’m staring at a computer screen, my eyes bleary, my bones aching. We’ve stopped in a hotel in someplace called Arkadelphia at 3AM to get a few hours rest before continuing our drive. It’s Sunday, and South by Southwest has just ended, queuing our departure from Austin, Texas. Tomorrow we’ll continue the journey to Ohio, where I’ll spend a few days doing absolutely nothing with my parents, and it will feel great after the glut of free shows, free beer, free food, and general debauchery that made up my first year at SXSW.

For now, I’m just trying to wrap my head around the whole of it. After having decided I would have to miss it again this year, things kept falling into place and suddenly there I was, standing on Texas soil, a balmy breeze ruffling my hair, wild with curls in the humidity. The week flew by in a blur and now all that remains is a sore throat and indelible tinnitus, a few LPS and some free beer cozies.
I can’t say that I didn’t have expectations for the week. Some of them held up and some of them didn’t. I knew I wouldn’t get to see all of the showcases I had initially planned to attend, though all told I probably wound up missing only a few acts I really would have loved to see. I found myself constantly having to choose – do I go to Club DeVille for Pictureplane or Flamingo Cantina for Tennis? – and making decisions based on whether I’d already seen the bands in NYC, how epic I thought the performances would be, if the RSVP policy would be lax enough to sneak past the gate, whether I’d have to brave the morass of 6th Ave, and how many points I’d get on FourSquare for checking into a new venue. Oh, and whether or not I could drink for free once I got there.
I didn’t really get the hang of it until midweek, by which time I was cramming in at least seven performances a day, catching free Chevys and dodging pedicab drivers like I was born to do it. But some of the best moments came early in the week, when my lack of SXSW know-how introduced me to the whole shebang in a more relaxed manner and I let everything come to me instead of breaking my neck to take in all I could. Those moments included a jamboree with some neighbors who sang Buddy Holly’s “Everyday” by my request, a family BBQ way East of the action (I had to ride in the back of a pickup truck full of gear to get downtown afterward), learning to throw knives, peacock spotting, and three very random conversations I had as I juiced my phone at the Whole Foods solar charging station.
meeting the locals
During one of those conversations, I pondered with a fellow blogger as to whether SXSW could really happen in any other city. The answer we came up with was an unequivocal NO. It’s not a big town, but its size is to its advantage; it makes it walkable, bikeable, accessible. The weather is gorgeous (or at least was the week I was in town) and its residents incredibly accommodating and personable. But the feature of Austin that really makes it uniquely suited to a festival like SXSW is that it pulses – practically every bar has a patio, which means practically every bar has the potential to host two and sometimes three bands at once. You can walk through almost any part of town and hear music happening all around you, coming from every direction. As you walk down the street, there are buskers, puppeteers, old men with fiddles and accordions and bongos performing in the middle of the street, school buses converted into mobile venues, storefronts housing DJs, and on and on and on. Literally everywhere you look, someone is vying for the chance to entertain you. While it seems like this would be overwhelming, the energy is intoxicating. It carries you as if caught in a current, and it’s difficult not to be swept away.
In between the bands I made a point to see and the bands I knew I was doomed to miss, there were a handful of bands I saw inadvertently, many of which blew me away. Some of these performances were among my favorite. Therein lies the beauty of a thing like SXSW – it’s easy to make a mile-long list of bands that are familiar but hard to see everyone on it, and while scurrying from one end of town to the next or waiting in line for admittance into a venue that’s already at capacity it’s easy to forget that the opportunity is there to be introduced to completely new acts. But that potential for discovery is what SXSW is all about, is why this festival draws acts from all over the globe and thousands upon thousands of fans.
warriors beneath dusky skies
So what follows, dear readers, is my SXSW diary, a chronological account of everything that made the week so memorable. I think if there’s anything this blog truly showcases, it’s a passion for existing in the thick of musical experience. For the fuzzy areas of my memory, there are videos and pictures to fill in the gaps, and my hope is that the amalgamation of the three will somehow communicate every thrill, every joy, every moment that made the week worth documenting.