From the Hip Photo

Last week, Danny and I went down to Austin, Texas for the SXSW festival. Danny is way into music and writes about it daily on his blog One Track Mind, so we headed down to discover some new favorites and do a little musical reconnaissance.

Above is our pal Erin, who runs The Donnybrook Writing Academy along with her boyfriend Cliff. Danny is the site’s music editor and we all shared a hotel room during our stay. Below are some scenes from along 6th street, where the bulk of Austin’s venues make their home. In the first shot, you can see a sign for Mekong River, a great place for pho and Vietnamese/Thai food.

One of the nice things about Danny’s music industry connections was using them to get into swanky shindigs. Above, Denver electronic music artist Pictureplane DJs a set of great hip-hop at the SESAC brunch party at the Driskill Hotel, where we indulged in mimosas and a hot breakfast buffet. Below are some shots of an NPR day party; the band on stage is the excellent Smith Westerns.

At the conclusion of their set at a Filter day party, Fool’s Gold took their last song out onto the streets of Austin, with half the band riding away in a pedicab (the other half stayed behind, looking confused). Elsewhere, our friend Rose looks pensive at our friend Ricardo’s Thursday evening pool party.

Danny somehow finagled an “artist” wristband, which gained us entry into the artists’ village above. Hooray for free pizza, burgers, and beer!

The shots above are of Blue Aeroplanes, one of the bands Danny was most excited about seeing. They’re a lot like Art Brut, although they’ve been around about twenty years longer.

A moment from People Under the Stairs’ performance on Thursday evening at a warehouse space on the east side of the highway. A lot edgier than we had anticipated, but very, very cool.

Chilean rapper Anita Tijoux hitting the stage at Flamingo Cantina.

Houses brings a little Colorado love at the Mile High Fidelity Showcase.

This is me making friends with a Monster at the iheartcomix Carniville. (It was way too loud there, but we did catch a great set by YACHT.)

Elk City performs at the Friendly Fire Recordings showcase at Lambert’s (above). In the shots below, Sammy Bananas DJs and Telephoned takes the stage at the Fool’s Gold Records showcase (no relation to Fool’s Gold the band).

Oh No Ono, above, were another highlight of the festival. We caught them twice, and not just they’re signed to Danny’s friend Dan Koplowitz’s Friendly Fire label. They killed it both times we saw them and won the “Best Hair” award for SXSW 2010.

Alan Palomo (aka Neon Indian) takes the stage with VEGA, above, while Theophilus London turns in a great performance in the images beneath this.

Another highlight of our trip was the Friend Island party produced by the folks at Hometapes. In the shot above, Garotas Suecas takes the stage. The event featured great music, nachos (with tequila-spiked queso), candy, organic beer, and our favorite… pancakes! Cliff liked them, too:

Danny made me a souvenir at the Austin Museum of Art. Below, a closeup of a relief map of Austin from their sesquicentennial.

After some Google sleuthing, we realized that the Colorado River which cuts through Austin east to west is actually a different Colorado River than the one which runs through the Grand Canyon. Also, Austin residents refer to their river as the Lake, maybe just to confuse tourists like us.

At the recommendation of our Brooklyn friends and former Austin Residents Jim and Brittany, we spent our final day in Austin exploring the South Congress area, home to such intriguing shops as Uncommon Objects.