Posts Tagged ‘sxsw’
Hawkwind’s Nik Turner
While I’m not the biggest Hawkwind fan in the world, their albums Doremi Fasol Latido and Space Ritual are pretty massive records. This years SxSW music festival brought Nik Turner in town to pay and he performed Space Ritual. I wasn’t able to make the show but I did see him at the meet and greet the next day at End of An Ear Records. He was a quite a nice and funny guy. I had him sign The Book and snapped a few pictures.
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- Hawkwind’s Nik Turner
On Meeting Tard, the Grumpy Cat
Yes, SxSW (South by Southwest for those who don’t know) is upon Austin right now and the website Mashable brought in Tard for a public meet and greet for select hours March 8-10.
My love for cats runs deep and I’ve had them in my life since childhood. When I saw that there was a chance to see and get a picture taken with this cat, I was all about it. For many who know me, I abhor most things that are super popular, but this cat is the exception to the rule.
I picked up my friend around 9:30AM and we headed downtown to get in line. When we got there, it seemed like about 100 people were ahead of us. Ultimately we stood in line for 2 hours to get 10 seconds with the cat. No petting. She was asleep as I think that’s what she does most (more so than most cats methinks). The line behind us was around the block, maybe farther.
If you’re not familiar with Tard, go to the website and take a look. She’s apparently a runt and I think she’s mentally challenged. They woke her up right after my picture was snapped and I think she looks like Jabba The Hut.
It was quite fun, though. Met some fun people in line and we all agreed on the ridiculousness of standing in line for hours to to get a picture with a cat that no one will remember in a few years. Hell, if a line for a restaurant is more than 30 minutes long, I get annoyed. Kitties > food, right?
Here’s Tard and me in a meme that I created. See other memes with this cat if you don’t get it.
She met me, she hated it.
And here’s my Shitty Kitty, who really is a grumpy cat. I’ve had him for over 15 years now and he’ll be 16 this summer. For as annoying and non-affectionate as he is, I love the little bastard.
Shitty Kitty
Rick Colaluca of Watchtower SxSW
w/Rick Colaluca of Watchtower fame. Not many things could make me happier right now.
Serpent Throne
White Summer*Black Winter
I like a lot of instrumental bands but I’ve always found it difficult to find quality instrumental rock bands that didn’t write their stuff to sound like they were writing around having a singer. Philadelphia’s Serpent Throne satisfies my instrumental craving perfectly.
I met the two guitarists, Demian Fenton and Don Argott, at the premier for the movie Last Days Here during the SxSW 2011 Film and Music Festival. You can read my review of their movie here. They are the guys behind the production/direction of the movie and in talking with Demian after the flick, he mentioned that he was in a band and I had forgotten about it until a few days after seeing the movie as I was wrapped up in a lot of SxSW activities.
Since then I have been spinning their stuff practically non-stop. Metal has a lot of sub-genres and these guys would typically be classified in the stoner rock and doom categories. To call them Black Sabbath worship is too easy. Pretty much all metal bands worship Sabbath whether they know it or not. Serpent Throne take it to a bit of a different level in my opinion. They use lots great dual guitar harmonies that are reminiscent of Thin Lizzy in places. I hear hints of Trouble (S/T LP era) in there as well, intended or not. There are some cool hints of 70s Scorpions as well as Uriah Heep and Wishbone Ash. Maybe some Cactus too. It’s a nice blend of great rock and metal without sounding like they are just ripping off all of the classic bands.
I think it’s pretty tough for an instrumental band of this genre to continue to write stuff and keep it interesting and Serpent Throne has done that
The Battle of Old Crow
with all 3 of their albums: Ride Satan Ride (2007), The Battle of Old Crow (2009) and White Summer*Black Winter (2010). I highly recommend picking up all of their stuff. Battle of Old Crow and White Summer*Black Winter are available for download from Amazon and iTunes. I had to buy the CD for Ride Satan Ride and convert it to MP3 myself as it’s not available for legal download.
Hopefully I’ll catch these guys live sometime, even if it means heading to Philly for it. Would be cool to have them hit Austin for a show sometime. I think they’d do well here, especially if they were in on a SxSW gig. So, nice work, guys! Hope all good things come out of Last Days Here as well.
The Metal Files 
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