My SXSW
Music fest diary
By Stan Ridgway, Fri., March 18, 2005
This is gonna ramble a bit, and like the great monologist and beat prophet Lord Buckley once said, "Here's a little wig bubble for ya."
Spring is here and the egg is about to hatch. Is Austin the new Berlin? And I mean the old Berlin when the wall was still up. Back in those days, Berlin was surrounded by the Deutsch Democratic Republic. It was a free city, creative and thriving, yet surrounded by a repressive regime. To get to Berlin you had to travel through the dark gray, time-warped landscape of East Germany, where paint came in only one government-issued color and thinking was discouraged. But artists, intellectuals, and free-thinking people from all over the world came to Berlin to let their freak-flag fly.
March 11
Having just played two gigs in Arizona, it's a long way to Austin from Tucson. Our overnight stay on the way here was the charming city of Fort Stockton, Texas, where the TV seemed to only be broadcasting strange and hateful religious sermons. One show had a Franciscan friar holding a small wooden statue of St. Francis of Assisi and ranting against homosexuals, deviants, the media, Hollywood, and well ... everything. It was pretty entertaining until you realized this Wilford Brimley look-alike from the Inquisition wasn't kidding. The atmosphere of the town was overwhelming and raw. We were told by an angry local shopkeeper that they "like it that way." We ate some bad burgers at the local meat house, said three Hail Marys, and woke up feeling lousy.
March 12-14
More driving through the gravel pit that seems to be most of West Texas, and now the van has a transmission problem and we're a virtual grinding machine. Like a wood chipper on wheels, we pull into Austin early Monday night and go to the 7-Eleven and buy as much booze as we can. Then it's off to Sixth Street to take a look.
Walking into the Chuggin' Monkey we found ourselves in yet another bad episode of Elimidate. Life has been a bit dull lately, so I think I need to get a tattoo of a big ugly snake on my face and maybe some primitive Mike Tyson-like ink on my skin. Perhaps even a Prince Albert? Not having any whip cream to lick off Pietra's or Rick's stomach, we went to Denny's and saw a group of people so drunk that pushing forks toward their meals was a Herculean task; all fell over from the strain and threw up on the carpet by our table. Was this the end of the SXSW Film Festival? Shocking to be sure, but then again this happens in Hollywood all the time, but on a bigger budget and at Dan Tana's or the Ivy no less. Show business is a jungle.
March 15
At last we play and do what we came here to do. Tonight we blew it up at the Saxon Pub at 8pm and the Hole in the Wall's Swollen Circus at midnight. Rick King and Pietra Wexstun and me. The Stan Ridgway Acoustic Trio. SXSW for us has begun. Great crowds and friends to meet up with like Steve Wynn and the Silos and a virtual cabaret of kooks! Now we're cookin'! People from Europe, people from all over the U.S., and well, people from Mars, too. All here and fully protected, behind the big repressive dusty wall of woe in this shiny diamond oasis called Austin. Should we move here, we say. Is Austin really in Texas?
This is the second time in a year we've been here, and it's getting to be more like home. Hey! I know there's plenty more traffic now and the city is changing like you all say, but compared to living in Los Angeles at this point (yup! L.A. is just like Blade Runner now, but with a soundtrack by Kenny G meets DJ Stoopid) Austin is a pretty happening locale, and for artists, musicians, and thinking folks it seems like "Hey?! Is this the place to park my tuff shed?" As we said in the beginning here, it's really a lot more like Berlin now, but with BBQ. See ya at the show.
Stan Ridgway's SXSW showcase is at the Cactus Cafe, Thursday, March 17 @ 12mid.