We have visuals, people...

The rumors are true.

H.G. Hills on Murfreesboro Road, 4:45 pm Friday.


Let the rejoicing begin.

How to tell you've been drinking too much soda...

When you see this flying up behind you and you recognize it at the Vault truck even while it's still in your rearview mirror.

Vault: Drinks like a soda, kicks like an energy drink. This blog posting brought to you by my unnatural devotion to Coca-Cola brand products...

ACL Fest - Day Three

I love the smell of Coppertone in the morning.

Took me a good two hours Sunday morning to decide if I was going to make the trek back out to Zilker to finish out the fest. It never officially devolved into a pro/con list, but glancing at the schedule and knowing that the stuff I really wanted to see was either not happening at all (Rodrigo y Gabriela, my primary reason for heading to ACL in the first place) or happening while I was on a plane (Wilco, Decembrists, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Dylan), it was tough to make the justification.

But then I remembered that this trip was all about exploration, and while I'd probably get some great breakfast tacos (apparently the national food of Austin) by taking Sunday easy, I'd probably kick myself If I didn't go.

I mustered a shower which, while refreshing and needed, didn't really spark up the engine. It wasn't until the final touch before heading out the door, the application of the sunblock (thank the lord and good chemists) that I really got fired up again.

Weatherwise, the day was perfect...ly identical to the previous two: warm with scattered patches of warm. But once you get that first good sweat on, get your bearings and a general idea for the day (at least to the mid-afternoon, in this case), it becomes about hoofin' it around to see/hear music you've not seen before.

In the end, I was pleasantly surprised by what I experienced Sunday, and had fun wandering the periphery of the grounds to at least visually take in every nook and cranny. By 4:15, when I had to head out the Town Lake exit, still scratching my head (in a good way) over the musical enigma that is DeVotchKa, the festival felt complete. I accomplished what I set out to accomplish, heard and saw bands that I will continue to keep my eye on as they make their way to my neck of the woods.

I met new people, made some contacts, developed a renewed sense of respect for the other "live music capital of the world" (I'll still take Nashville as an overall living experience), ate some great (and not so great) food, and basically just had fun.

Oh, yeah, I wrote about 5000 words, too.

Now that's what I call a vacation.

Final ACL notebook purge:

• The good news: they had a ACL Fest T-shirt in Large Land Mammal size. The bad news: it's white. The good news: it's a Hanes Beefy-T, which means it won't shrink if I play my cards right. The bad news: the White Stripes, Rodrigo y Gabriela and Amy Winehouse (wait, is she on there, I haven't really looked) didn't play the festival, but, them's the breaks. Drat you, long lead screenprint jobs! Drat, I say!
• The promised mosquitos never really manifested themselves, but there were dragonflies about as big as your head. Felt like I was in a Hitchcock film a couple of times.
• Sunday's First Find: The National, whose poppy dirges are quite Nick Cave/Lloyd Cole-esque. Will learn more about them. But man, they needed somebody to mix the vocals better...the Stateman's music blog hit the nail on the head when they complained about the Blue Room stages compression woes. Painful at times...
• Sunday's Second Find: L.A.'s The Broken West, unpretentious 2GBDK (two guitars, bass, drums, keyboards) rock und roll. Ran into Will Hoge at the airport and he said they'd be touring with Hoge in Colorado in a month or so. I'd see that bill in a minute. Might even pay for it...ah, who'm I kidding?
• Usually at things like this, there's a visible hierarchy based on the types of laminates you have. People eye them covetously, and angle every which way possible to acquire the one that gets them the best access, usually to food and clean bathrooms, really. But at ACL, only certain staff members had laminates. Everything else was about the wristband. But every once in a while, my eyes would flash on somebody wearing a lanyard, only to see the ACL iTunes gift card your paid entrance got you. The democratization of the laminate happened right before my very eyes.

• Attempted another experiment Sunday, but it didn't pan out. 'Twas going to see if I could every stage featuring music for at least one song during the 2:30-3:30 hour. (Hey, you do what you can to amuse yourself/generate content ideas.) Started with the AT&T stage at the far east of the grounds for Ben Kweller, then headed counterclockwise to the WaMu shed for Grace Potter & The Nocturnals (another one to keep an ear out for, B3-playing chick with seriously smoky vocals), then to the Austin Kiddie Limits stage for something called Q Brothers. But the plan got halted when I finally made text message connection with a friend from the Citysearch days, and we made plans to connect at the press village.
• Seriously...how did we ever do these things without text messaging?

• The prevalent user generated landmark for ACL was the flag on the flexible pole. No longer can you just yell into a cell phone, "Hey, look! I'm waving! To your left...more...too much..." etc. (Well, unless you're, you know, me. Only saw one guy the whole weekend taller than me, and even then it wasn't by much.) But there were flags everywhere and of every affiliation: UTexas, Dallas Cowboys, Texas, pirates, happy faces, Aussies, Swedes, the Swiss flag, Marines, you name it. There was even, yes, a Titans flag waving proudly even in defeat.
• Headed to the exit while listening to DeVotchKa, an interesting acoustic/Eastern European influenced outfit out of Colorado. It was good to leave the fest still having that sense of exploration intact...but, after about 24 total hours in a park over the course of three days, it was time to G.O.
• The plane back to Nashville was packed, as you might imagine. The guy sitting next to me was wearing an artist wristband that clearly had some wear on it. He may or may not have been somebody I should have talked to. Didn't matter. I needed to be in my own world, and on a plane, I can do that easily, despite how much space I take up. Knocked off about 60 pages of "Bird By Bird," and slept. Time to head back to the real world.

ACL Fest - Day Two

You can't see everything.

That's the mantra you have to keep repeating to yourself at an event like ACL. There's just too much spread out over too much geography for one music fan to be able to draw it all in.

Saturday was no exception. I had the people who I'd interviewed that I wanted to see (Raul Malo, Kelly Willis, Sara Hickman), the Farm Rock Superstar who never fails to deliver a good time (Trent Summar and the New Row Mob), and the buzz bands about which I know some but want to know more (Arctic Monkeys, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Arcade Fire).

But then there are the things you miss that you give yourself the mental slap upside the forehead, channel your inner Homer Simpson but then deal with the regret. My quick hit list Saturday: Paolo Nutini, Blue October, Andrew Bird, Beausoliel, Nashville songwriter Jeffrey Steele (who got a solid mention on the Austin American Statesman's music blog), Cross Canadian Ragweed and Aterciopelados.

I can't even look at the back half of Sunday's lineup, because I'm gonna be on a plane.

You have to look at these things as buffets...you sample a lot of great menu items, you don't overstuff yourself on any one thing, and you wait till later to make a meal out of the ones you like best. And if you don't get around to taking a taste of something, there's always next time.

Notebook dump:

• My photog du jour is a guy Laura hooked me up with named Eric Hegwer, a scientist-turned-shooter who's building a great business for himself in the Austin area. He was experiencing a rare wedding-free Saturday, so he jumped at the chance to snag a photo wristband and fire away. We plotted out a general game plan, then we pretty much went our separate ways for the day. We intersected a couple of times, and he showed me some great images. Again, it's fun to watch people having fun doing what they do...
• Easy ingress to the festival from the Town Lake pedestrian bridge. But it was only about five minutes in when I started to channel my inner Ron Burgundy concerning my choice of shirt: "Polyester and Rayon was a bad idea."
• Raul Malo had the right idea to combat the heat: flowing white shirt and buzz cut, and languid renditions of his material, kicking off with a downtempo version of Every Little Thing About You off his solo debut. Other highlights included a jazzy reinvention of "Cold Cold Heart" and a gritty take on "Dance The Night Away," one of my favorite Mavericks tunes.
• It was during Malo's set that I really noticed my only primary complaint about the festival: no clear walkways. You have to dart in and out of moving, then stationary, masses of people, and people started to get chippy when you wanted to try to get past them. Usually at things like this, natural flow ways start to take shape over time. Not here. Organizers should try to plot out some ways to direct traffic flow, and I know they can do it in a non-disruptive fashion.
• Speaking of non-disruptive, the whole visual design and layout of the festival grounds is that way. Everything is consistent and well thought out, whereas most festival approaching this size would have gaudy vendors plopped down right in the middle of it, breaking up the natural rhythm. The food vendors (not carnival stuff, but booths featuring Austin's finest eateries) and the merchandise tents are on the periphery of the grounds, so as not to break up the focus on the music. If you want to ignore commerce, you can; if you want to focus on food, all your choices are right there in front of you. Kudos to the festival's designers.
• Austin's own Sara Hickman typified the response the local acts got when they took their respective stages; you could see people who were clearly fans and clearly happy to see their hometown folks draw good-sized crowds. Sara responded by giving gifts to the crowd, chucking beach balls into the crowd and encouraging their frequent use. I remember Sara fondly from her post-label trauma Necessary Angels record and a quirky side project called the Domestic Science Club, and while she retreated to the world of children's music for a few years after garnering a child of her own, she's back with a record for grown-ups, some of which she showcased Saturday. Oddly enough, she closed the set with a tune called "Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?" which, while it isn't for children, it certainly is about them.
• During Sara's set, I headed to the aforementioned food court (though it feels wholly inadequate to call it that), and made the quasi-unfortunate choice to grab a sliced beef sandwich from the Stubb's BBQ tent. It was...eh. But at least I can say I've had barbecue on the trip...and didn't have to fight the crowd at the late night Dylan show at the venue proper later Saturday night.
• After Sara's set came the first "Holy Crap" moment of the day, when I turned the corner and saw that the valley between the AMD and AT&T Blue Room stages was wall-to-wall people for Cold War Kids, and it was only 3:30 in the afternoon. This did not bode well for the evening acts. I spun on my heels and headed back to the press area only slightly terrified, but mainly because I needed to stock up on water.
• Mid-afternoon saw the natural trifecta of Steve Earle, Trent Summar and Zap Mama (and yes, there's sarcasm there), and then I did round two of Lightning 100's ACL wrap-up show, which was fun. No jalapenos before showtime this time, so it was just the external heat making me slightly uncomfortable.
• Two words only the Reverend will appreciate: No chafing. (Thanks Gold Bond!)
• Headed back out around 6:45 to wander: Kelly Willis playing the song "Wrapped," which her husband Bruce Robison wrote, they both recorded and George Strait made into a huge hit. (Side note: both Robison boys, Bruce and Charlie, outpunted their coverage as far as mates are concerned, Bruce with Kelly, Charlie with Emily from the Dixie Chicks. I'm just sayin'...)
• Twilight time was the start of the purposeful social experiment. Positioning myself behind the soundboard of the inactive Blue Room stage, which was setting up for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, I could witness the tail end of the Arctic Monkeys set, while watching the crowd start to filter over for CYHSY, and then the plan was to catch a few songs here, then see how the journey would be to a similar spot across the way for Arcade Fire. Any hard data to report? Not really, other than people tend to make a hole when they see a behatted six-and-a-half-foot man striding their way.
• CYHSY is hard to describe. Nerdcore, as a descriptor, doesn't really do it for me. Gonna need to spend some time with the record...or at least the streaming files off Rhapsody.
• Made my way to said spot on the much-nicer appointed soundboard for Arcade Fire...and it was then I realized I'd hit the wall. Texted Craig and Eric re: extraction points, repositioned myself closer to the exits, and watched two songs from the Canadian imports before heading out. Again the buffet analogy comes into play...I want to make a meal out of an Arcade Fire show, but this was not the time nor place to do it.
• Easy egress as well, then a quick meal at El Arroyo, fulfilling my TexMex requirement via the Enchiladas Del Mar. Head back to HQ for the evening, rest, relax, recharge, rinse, repeat...

ACL Fest - Day One

It ain't supposed to be pretty...but it is.

Several things happen when you stand still too long. You can let the items around start to pile up and trap you, and you can focus your energies on keeping some things pristine that are meant to get beat up a little.

I'll leave the metaphysical aspects of those ideas to those who are more able to pay for the therapy that would better address them, but in my particular case, it means I'm beating up the notebook a little bit.

I love paper. I don't put pen to it often enough (thanks Macbook!) but when I do it, I really enjoy the tactile process of getting thoughts down on pulped wood. And when I ran across Moleskine notebooks a few years ago, with their oiled covers and thick paper that soaks up the ink, well, I'd found my personal professional fetish object.

The problem was/is, I'd buy them and not use them enough. Or not be able/willing to work them into my routine, such that it is.

Not so much at ACL Fest. Sure, I've got the gadgets that go along with the modern day vagaries of infogathering (thanks M-Audio Microtrack!), but the Moleskine reporters notebook is getting the bulk of the action. It's the primary repository of info: stuffed with the ACL Fest pocket schedule, the BMI stage sked handed off by the lovely and talented Kay Clary, and notes about the 15 bands (a mere 32 percent of the overall Friday lineup) I've seen thus far.

The notebook is the thing I find myself frisking myself for most often...more than my phone, more than my wallet. It's my current lifeline, part Google, part safety blanket. And it's starting to show a little wear-and-tear...you know, like it's supposed to.

I'm looking forward to using it the rest of the weekend. And then I need to look forward to continuing to use it...beat it up some more while getting back out into the world.

It ain't gonna be pretty...but it is.

Emptying said notebook:

• Hit the festival ground right at about 1:30pm yesterday. Press check-in was a breeze, and the Staff Entrance gate took us right into the nicely appointed press area (for an outdoor festival), right behind a B-level stage (one of eight) where Joseph Arthur, the first artist PhotoLaura wanted to see, so that worked out well.
• After Arthur, we started the trek across Zilker Park (first stop: buy a hat. My bank account is 50 bucks lighter, but one, I found something that fits, and two, doesn't make me look too stupid. And the upshot is, I'm still alive, because I would have roasted if not for said chapeau), and it was here that it was firmly established that a festival of this magnitude just couldn't work in Nashville proper. We just don't have the space for it. Acres and acres and acres of open greenspace, and just enough hill coverage that doesn't make it difficult to walk, but buffers the sound enough so there's not ridiculous bleed. Again, eight stages, and staggered start times so you can do a walk-by on all the things you want to see/hear.
• After walk-by viewings of the Del McCoury Band and the Heartless Bastards, mainly just to get a feel for the place, came the first quasi-extended set of the day: Nashville's own Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Again, while the ACL Fest folks know what they're doing from a press aspect (a cordoned off photo pit in front of the stage where photogs can shoot the first three songs of a set), the 'Tones opening number, with extended solos by all four players, went about 10 minutes. Ah, jammity jam jam...but they're the only jam band I like, so 'twas fun to watch from Bela's feet. (Yeah, I slid in with my "media" armband...this was before the Great Photo Pit Clampdown that happened later in the afternoon.)
• From Fleck to Hoge: After depositing Laura safely under some shade to catch a breather, I moved over to the Austin Ventures stage, a smaller venue alongside "Rock Island" smack dab in the middle of the park, to catch Will Hoge's set. Gotta support the homies...and while it wasn't humanity as far as the eye could see, Will drew in a decent sized crowd that hung around, always a dicey prospect at a fest of this size. He broke out some new material from the record coming out on Oct. 9, and did a blistering seven minute (or so) version of "Sweet Magdeline" that got the crowd buzzing. After it was over, more than a few folks were seen walking around in circles saying "Where can we get his record?"...always a good sign. Grabbed Will for a couple of seconds for a quick interview on ye olde recording gadget, which later got repurposed for radio (more in a minute), and it was clear he had some fun. Good for him...hope this label deal works a lot better than the last one.
• Reconvened with Laura in front of Peter Bjorn and John (whoever told anyone that wearing a long sleeve shirt on stage was a good idea midday should be fired), then dipped back down into the press area where I ran into Jayson Chalfant from Lightning 100 (say it with me..."Nashville's Progressive Radio"). Didn't realize L100 was going to be doing stuff from ACL live, but it was good to see a familiar face. Asked me what was I doing, told him, he said "What are you doing at about 6pm? Why don't you come back and we'll put you on the air?" Yeah...don't have to ask me twice. Told him about the Hoge clip, played it for him, he gave it the thumbs-up and all of a sudden I'm an accidental radio correspondent.
• Wandered back across the expanse to see Crowded House (never saw 'em live in their first incarnation, have seen 'em twice in two days in their current one) then ambled back to Press Village, listening/glancing at LCD Soundsystem and M.I.A. on the way, did the Lightning thing, availed myself of the facilities and amenities (and yes, the age old mantra of "free food tastes better" applies universally...though the first thing I ate at the festival was part of a wrap sandwich in the press area, and it was, unbeknownst to me at the outset, stuffed full of jalapenos. I sat through the whole L100 experience with my mouth on fire. Fortunately, there was a can of water [and barley and hops] that came to my aid), then headed back out into what was now a huge mass of humanity.
• The cool thing about the 1- and 1A-level stages is that if you want to, you can park a chair at a position that would allow you to enjoy both stages (which are only going one at a time) by just rotating your position 180 degrees. Did that for the Kaiser Chiefs and The Killers, and the sound and video systems allowed for full enjoyment of both sets with only half a turn in position. Leave the jockeying for position down by the stage to the young and fully engaged fans of the band. For casual fans (or old farts, take your pick) this was the way to go.
• Checked out after four songs from The Killers to attempt to avoid the outgoing masses, then headed with Craig (Laura's new S.O.) and his friend Rick (a fellow ACU grad) cross-country (then via cab) to Craig's truck, where we then headed to a joint called Mangia's for pizza, beer and a two-hour conversation on the current state of power pop. Three guys on the verge of and/or well past 40 debating the merits of post-Jellyfish output would have been a hilarious sight had there been anybody else in the place.
• Back at the ranch and in the bunk by midnight, relatively unsunburned (thanks three applications of Coppertone Continuous Spray Ultra Sweatproof SPF 30!) and oddly enough, ready to do it all again.

ACL Fest - Day Zero

I don't do displacement well.

I like to travel, sure, but since I don't get to do it all that often, the sense of exploration gets dulled until/unless I'm quasi-comfortable with my surroundings.

Most of the time that takes time...or at the least, time spent with locals who know their way around. When those locals are friends you've known for years, it cuts that time down dramatically.

I still don't know where I am, but at least I feel safe being here.

I haven't spent a lot of time in Austin...just a couple times, quickly in and out, in college. And even in the attempt of covering music for as long as I have, I have ably resisted the siren call of the industry spring break known as South By Southwest for so long that it's kind of a badge of honor that I've never been.

But when the tumblers of opportunity all clicked into place for me to attend/cover/loiter at this year's Austin City Limits Music Festival (press creds, cheap plane fare, available gratis lodging), clearly I was destined to break my Texas capital drought.

But back to the locals, in this case my friend Jenny, with whom I shared several of the joys and miseries of high school and one of the few folks from that part of my life I've kept in contact with. Jenny's been in the Austin area for a decade, and while she confidently and competently served as my tour guide for the late morning/early afternoon time frame of Day Zero, she blithely slid by a couple of Austin's musical landmarks without even recognizing their importance: places like Stubb's BBQ and the Continental Club.

(I'm sure we Nashvillains do the exact same thing when ferrying around knowledgeable music fans from other parts of the globe: "Oh yeah, there's Music Row/the Ryman/Tootsie's/the Bluebird/Robert's Western Wear, etc...")

And even in the midst of thinking about some of the epic performances that have taken place on those stages, I'm always struck by one thought about legendary clubs: They are, most frequently, pits. Holes in the wall. Or as Jenny put it, "Someplace you'd want to be packing a switchblade."

I was handed off mid-afternoon to another friend, Laura Harris, a ridiculously talented woman for whom this is the reversal of our normal interaction; I'm occasionally involved in transporting her to-and-fro on my home court, but after 12 years of friendship, the tables are turned.

One of Laura's other claims to fame within our little circle (aside from being one of The Coolest People We Know - Texas Division) comes from her genetics. Laura's father is a man named Bill Arhos, the creator of Austin City Limits the TV show, and one of the true characters in country music circles.

I'd never met Bill before Thursday night, but it couldn't have been more than five minutes into the conversation before he had me howling with laughter over his stories. I'm sure there were several people looking on with concern as I'm bent over in the middle of a street on the UT campus trying to catch my breath, but it was merely because I'd just heard the punchline on a story that involved a deer, a rifle, a Peugeot, a deaf-mute, the President of the United States and a pair of pajamas. And it was all true.

Though he retired from the show a few years ago, ACL is still "Bill's show" in many ways, as was evident when we entered Studio 6A and everyone came up to talk to him. Not wanting to intrude on any reunions, I wandered into the audience area and climbed up the bleachers to get a quick glimpse around the studio, with it's famed faux skyline wrapping around three walls and the fake foliage through which many a long shot has been focused.

(As I told Laura later, I had this very palpable memory from when I was a kid of thinking, "Where did they find someplace in Austin where they could shoot a music show outside?" Ah, the innocence of youth...)

Here's the place where it gets weird, where you wonder if the cosmic forces (take your pick) just want your brain to get turned sideways to see how you'll react. As I'm looking around the room and as people start to file in and fill the seats and the SRO area on the floor, a guy roughly my age, dressed fairly "industry-casual," and his wife take their places across the aisle from me.

I swear I know him from somewhere, but what with my penchant for being bad with names and faces together, I can't pull it out of the mental database. Well, mainly because I'm trying to place him from Nashville.

Just before the show starts (special guest: Crowded House, which I'll touch on in a minute), he leans across the aisle and asks, "Is your name Lance?" which is, oddly enough, the name mine most often gets confused for, but at least it tells me we have indeed met before.

I correct him, shake his hand, and he replies, "I don't know if you remember me, but my name is Brandon Laird." And the room started to spin, not only because here was a guy I went to college with, was on the college newspaper staff with, and hadn't seen in 17 years, but also because, I kid you not, I Googled his name the day before on a complete and total whim.

And so the displacement came full circle, but in a very cool way. Brandon and his wife, a Ph.D. in music who has written a book on the Louisiana Hayride and is working on one on ACL, are in town to bridge both festival and TV show (they're doing a boatload of tapings with all these great bands in town...when I heard the lineup, I thought "Screw the festival, I'm hangin' out here. It's air conditioned.").

So I sat in this television studio I've glanced at since childhood, across an aisle from a man with whom I spent a few late nights in our nascent pre-professional days, next to a woman I've known for a decade-plus (alongside the new man in her life), listening to recently reformed band from the other side of the world. And feeling completely at home.

Emptying the notebook from Day Zero:

• Crowded House was on it last night. They're tight, the songs new and old sound great, and clearly they're enjoying being back together (minus Tim Finn, sadly.) However, "Something So Strong"? Nowhere to be found on the ACL set list, which left me feeling a tad incomplete.
• The folks at ACL TV know what they're doing. Granted they've had 33 years to tweak it to high heaven, but they do something in Studio 6A that's incredibly rare: they mix sound that sounds good both on television and in the room. OK, it's a controlled environment to be sure, but holy crap did it sound good live, plenty of punch and thump but absolutely none of the trademark CH jangle was lost. Neil Finn's vocals were crisp and clean, and nothing overpowered anything else. Kudos to the sound guys.
• Remember this one word: Ashes. But you're gonna have to ask me in person what it means.
• Projected weather for all three days of ACL Fest: 93 and sunny. I'm gonna be parbroiled when it's all said and done.

On the ground in the capital...

...of Texas.

In Austin for the Austin City Limits Music Festival. The epic endeavor starts Friday.