Week in review: High Dudgeon Edition
SXSW: Come for the music, stay for the food.
Turns out, impersonating the classic chicken with its head cut off for the last month was really effective for spending the week enjoying some scrumptious bands and delicious foods. In high school, my colleagues and I created “The List,” a dichotomous indicator of whether or not non-drinking, non-smoking, and certainly non-sex-having teenagers such as ourselves considered someone fornication partner worthy. In the interest of time this week, Kara and I resorted to indicating front people of bands who are decidedly NOT on the list. I’m currently developing a salacious, objectifying, but-also-awesome, calendar of all the swoon-worthy crooners we’ve lusted over throughout the festival.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: The food here kicks ass – and not just in the shredded beef, dead cow sort of way. There are so many moderately priced, moderately casual, dining venues where delicious, delicious combinations of things vegetable and fish are served. Last night I seriously considered moving here because the food is so damn good.
In old business, I sent a very diplomatic email to Honorable Mention. He responded with a really gracious reply that made me hope I was breaking it off with the right guy. I’m glad I ended it before anyone’s feelings got hurt, but I can’t say that I didn’t write the last post without the hope that a resounding cry of, “ignore the problem until it goes away!” would rise from the comments section.
As promised in the title, fodder for annoyance.
Yesterday Kara and I went to this party where some California bands played and we got free fish tacos, drinks, hair products and rubber bananas (I know, sorta weird). A handful of bands played – one I’m a big fan of, one I’ve heard of, one I hadn’t, and one that, as I had told Kara, I liked their music, but not their personalities. Yesterday morning was a prime example of why they have personality cancer. This band is a three person girl band composed of young hipsters who have very important fathers in the music industry. I don’t want to mention any names but their initials are “The Like.” I saw them in December and kept getting annoyed by Z’s, the lead singer, penchant for saying “fuck” in seeming compensation for being about 6 years shy of the modal audience member age. They were the last band slated to go on at brunch yesterday. They take about 20 minutes to set up, about 700 to tune their (3) instruments, and they sing one song, through which Z’s voice kind of cracks a little – which, judging by the glances and smiles exchanged between she and bassist Charlotte, is hilarious. Z then reports that she’s lost her voice, she can’t “do this,” and Charlotte chimes in that she has laryngitis while they remove their guitars. The intimate crowd consistingly largely of bands that have already performed and have waited around to be nice plus “industry” people look around awkwardly before some good natured people that appear to be less annoyed start chanting “one more song!” Z remarks that she likes their enthusiasm, but she “just can’t do it” and also, “Fuck you, banana people!” aimed toward the balcony, where people had been (appropriately, I felt), tossing the rubber bananas onstage during their performance. Here’s the deal. One would think that these girls would be somewhat eager, or at least amenable to the idea, to prove that they are more than just rich kids with well-connected parents. One would think they could at least play an abbreviated set, or at least the one additional song that people who could’ve been at other venues watching other shows had asked to see. But I guess that if one thought that, she’d be wrong. So that comprises my single complaint about a really fun week filled with some great performances.
Second, I cannot deal with reply-all email abuse. I try to limit gratuitous swearing in the event that God-fearing, decent folk like my parents even want to read this blog, but seriously – for fuck’s sake – two syllable emails that go out to more than two people (not to mention 17) should be censored. Friends don’t let friends needlessly litter our inboxes with the likes of “Keep me posted!” and “Me too!” Please, do your part – only you can stop forest fires and this kind of bullshit.
Turns out, impersonating the classic chicken with its head cut off for the last month was really effective for spending the week enjoying some scrumptious bands and delicious foods. In high school, my colleagues and I created “The List,” a dichotomous indicator of whether or not non-drinking, non-smoking, and certainly non-sex-having teenagers such as ourselves considered someone fornication partner worthy. In the interest of time this week, Kara and I resorted to indicating front people of bands who are decidedly NOT on the list. I’m currently developing a salacious, objectifying, but-also-awesome, calendar of all the swoon-worthy crooners we’ve lusted over throughout the festival.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: The food here kicks ass – and not just in the shredded beef, dead cow sort of way. There are so many moderately priced, moderately casual, dining venues where delicious, delicious combinations of things vegetable and fish are served. Last night I seriously considered moving here because the food is so damn good.
In old business, I sent a very diplomatic email to Honorable Mention. He responded with a really gracious reply that made me hope I was breaking it off with the right guy. I’m glad I ended it before anyone’s feelings got hurt, but I can’t say that I didn’t write the last post without the hope that a resounding cry of, “ignore the problem until it goes away!” would rise from the comments section.
As promised in the title, fodder for annoyance.
Yesterday Kara and I went to this party where some California bands played and we got free fish tacos, drinks, hair products and rubber bananas (I know, sorta weird). A handful of bands played – one I’m a big fan of, one I’ve heard of, one I hadn’t, and one that, as I had told Kara, I liked their music, but not their personalities. Yesterday morning was a prime example of why they have personality cancer. This band is a three person girl band composed of young hipsters who have very important fathers in the music industry. I don’t want to mention any names but their initials are “The Like.” I saw them in December and kept getting annoyed by Z’s, the lead singer, penchant for saying “fuck” in seeming compensation for being about 6 years shy of the modal audience member age. They were the last band slated to go on at brunch yesterday. They take about 20 minutes to set up, about 700 to tune their (3) instruments, and they sing one song, through which Z’s voice kind of cracks a little – which, judging by the glances and smiles exchanged between she and bassist Charlotte, is hilarious. Z then reports that she’s lost her voice, she can’t “do this,” and Charlotte chimes in that she has laryngitis while they remove their guitars. The intimate crowd consistingly largely of bands that have already performed and have waited around to be nice plus “industry” people look around awkwardly before some good natured people that appear to be less annoyed start chanting “one more song!” Z remarks that she likes their enthusiasm, but she “just can’t do it” and also, “Fuck you, banana people!” aimed toward the balcony, where people had been (appropriately, I felt), tossing the rubber bananas onstage during their performance. Here’s the deal. One would think that these girls would be somewhat eager, or at least amenable to the idea, to prove that they are more than just rich kids with well-connected parents. One would think they could at least play an abbreviated set, or at least the one additional song that people who could’ve been at other venues watching other shows had asked to see. But I guess that if one thought that, she’d be wrong. So that comprises my single complaint about a really fun week filled with some great performances.
Second, I cannot deal with reply-all email abuse. I try to limit gratuitous swearing in the event that God-fearing, decent folk like my parents even want to read this blog, but seriously – for fuck’s sake – two syllable emails that go out to more than two people (not to mention 17) should be censored. Friends don’t let friends needlessly litter our inboxes with the likes of “Keep me posted!” and “Me too!” Please, do your part – only you can stop forest fires and this kind of bullshit.
posted by kelly at 4:39 PM
2 Comments:
Well said!
ltaf said there were a lot of cute british boys from bands there.
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