SLUG SXSW 2014 Stats – Day Two 03.12

SLUGger: Cody Kirkland, Digital Content Coordinator
Number of shows: 9
Number of FREE alcoholic beverages: 4
Food item of the day: Vegan corn dog at Fire & Soul
Number of parties attended: 2
Number of black pleather shorts/skirts/pants spotted: 10 (one white pleather pant, too)
Amount of swag: Two granola bars, four caffeine pills, one bag of chips.

-1:00 p.m. Mutual Benefit/Spotify showcase @ Spotify House = Thumbs Down
-2:00 p.m. Dum Dum Girls (with Debbie Harry!)/Spotify Showcase @ Spotify House = Both Thumbs Up
-4:45 p.m. Creative Adult @ Hotel Vegas Patio = Thumbs Up
-5:15 p.m. Bleeding Rainbow @ Hotel Vegas Patio = Thumbs Up
-6:00 p.m. The Coathangers @ Hotel Vegas Patio = Both Thumbs Up
-8:15 p.m. “Taking Back Nirvana” @ The Aquarium on 6th = Both Thumbs Down
-8:30 p.m. Not A BeatMaker @ busking somewhere in the middle of 6th Street = Thumbs Up
-11:30 p.m. TEEN @ Mohawk Indoor = Thumbs Up
-11:45 p.m. X @ Mohawk Outdoor = Thumbs Up

Best show of the day:
-6:00 p.m. The Coathangers @ Hotel Vegas Patio

This was my first time seeing The Coathangers and they fucking ripped—raw, sarcastic, DGAF punk rock, like riot grrrls playing punk in the late ‘70s. Before the show, the three Coathanger girls were milling around the venue in their matching white denim jackets and it made me nervous, like high school boy nervous. Onstage, they screamed and thrashed around and switched instruments a couple times. I began to flail mildly. At the peak of their fury, a crazed audience member somersaulted onto the stage, knocking the mic stand into Crook Kid Coathanger (my SXSW crush) before stage diving headfirst into the dirt floor and taking out an old guy on the way down. A beer was flung into SLUG Editorial Assistant Alexander Ortega’s face. It was a good show.

Worst Show of the Day (Tie):
-8:15 p.m. Taking Back Nirvana @ The Aquarium on 6th = Both Thumbs Down

Taking Back Nirvana isn’t really their name. They just looked and sounded like Nirvana trying to play Taking Back Sunday music. It fucking sucked. I couldn’t get into the Top Dawg Entertainment show so I walked into a random bar on 6th Street, which happened to be The Aquarium—a bar on Complex Magazine’s 25 Douchiest Bars in Austin list. I walked out 10 seconds into their first song. Ugh.

-1 a.m. Tyler the Creator @ Mohawk Outdoor = Default Both Thumbs Down

I didn’t actually see this show. It was cancelled because, while X was halfway through their set at the same venue, a drunk driver fleeing a cop ran over a bunch of people right outside the building. After X was done, a man onstage told the crowd what happened, and that the Tyler show was cancelled. Several audience members began chanting “WOLF GANG! WOLF GANG!” and yelled “What about Tyler?!” Outside was chaos with flashing police and ambulance lights and groups of people sobbing. I went back to my hotel and got drunk.