Snot by Southwest

Porterdavis at SXSW 3.15.07 I thought I'd riff on the popular hobby of making fun of the SXSW (TM) brand behemoth here...some of the happy little knock-offs I encountered last week: - The geographically oriented South by South Congress and South by South Lamar...simple street names. I can handle that. - The more obvious ripoffs like...South by San Antonio and South by San Jose. Oh, and South by Northwest. That one makes my head spin. Perhaps my favorite is South by Way South, in case you're not South enough. - Then there were the more flippant copycats...almost too cool for SXSW but still able to mock it by ripping it off...South by So What? and Free by No Charge. (Now we're getting into the territory of "Anything by Anything Else" is free game). - The best? Ok, maybe not the best. But the one that stood out? FXFU. You figure it out. My blatant title is derived from the unfortunate circumstance of being sick for most of SXSW week. This severely cramped my desire to stand, walk, breathe, or do anything but sleep. I did manage to see some cool music, though. Pam Tillis played in a parking lot. She was so totally on Country Music Television a decade ago. I happily stumbled in on Porterdavis at The Gingerman...they are one of my very favorite local groups and they rocked. Melissa on the Rocks...rocks. Melissa on the Rocks totally amped it up for Cafe Caffeine's stage on Sunday...and then Melissa and I tromped over to B Exhibition Studio for the GoGirls Showcase. I played right after 3 Kisses, the band that was on Wife Swap. They are awesome people. They have a song called Swapping Wives. They have wonderful senses of humor. :) And here I am a full week after encountering the cold virus of the century, feeling much better and looking back on 2 weeks of really fun gigs. The Jana Susana Banana Rama was just fun...the GoGirls gig was inspiring...my St. Patrick's Day show at the Irie Bean was a nice little window into Spring weather and blue skies. Last night I saw an incredible lineup at Maria's Taco Express...Cindy Cashdollar, Redd Volkaert, and Elana James...all who have played with Bob Dylan and a plethora of other people...all hanging out at Maria's in South Austin on a Wednesday night. These are certainly grand times indeed. Swingin' joy at Maria's Taco Express