Day Party Crawl

Trail of Dead (Photo by Todd V. Wolfson)

Roky Erickson's Psychedelic Ice Cream Social

Stalking Lou Reed can make you feel pretty stupid. At least it's really nice weather for stalking, but after last night's Austin Music Awards show ran past Reed's bedtime, there's only a handful of places he could reasonably be expected to turn up before he skips town. So when the suspicious Gibson guitars bus was parked outside of Roky Erickson's Psychedelic Ice Cream Social, there was maybe a 1-in-4 chance that Mr. "B.A. in Dope" would turn up. The wait was made passable with a buoyant set from Canadians the Golden Dogs and some bash and pop from local heroes Trail of Dead. Thurston Moore introduced the New Wave Bandits by professing that he came "from the land of ice and snow," but the twin acoustic guitar psych-up never really got out of third gear until the set's closer. When Erickson finally got onstage, he quickly put to bed suspicion that last night's stellar cameo with Okkervil River owed more to the local kids than to Roky himself. He tore through a set highlighted by "Before You Accuse Me" and "Bloody Hammer" back-to-back. When it was time for a special guest appearance, well, that's when the stupid set in. It's more Billy Gibbons' bus than Reed's and Gibbons' pre-ZZ Top Moving Sidewalks go back to the formative days of Texas psychedelia. Duh. As the pair ripped up "Two Headed Dog," Gibbons made a nice consolation prize for a beautiful SXSW Thursday.