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Mega-Austin Day
I'm picking us up again, on the many small roads in western Texas. Eastern New Mexico and western Texas had some of the least interesting scenery of the trip, but incredible vistas would still pop up. We made real good time and got to Austin much earlier than expected, but it was still nighttime. We first went to get some food when we got in town and went to a place called Kerbey Lane Cafe. Good food. I had bison and wild boar frito pie (sorry, Buffalo Friend, I should have thought of you at the time). After that we went to a bar in the same part of town called Draught House Pub. Then we went to find a hotel. I first got directions to the wrong Super 8 and we got there and it was way too expensive but the guy whose smoke break we interrupted was still nice and told us where to find a restroom nearby. The other Super 8 was still on the expensive side so I took us to the Motel 6 that was nearby and on Mary Beth's list. They were out of nonsmoking rooms so I got us a smoking room much to the consternation of Mary Beth. This was the low point of the trip. She suggested we even cut the trip early and head back as soon as we could. In the morning I woke up early and was able to switch rooms so we were then able to enjoy Austin.
It's Thursday and we've got a nonsmoking hotel room and we skip breakfast because we got up so late (after a rough night being up pretty late). By skip breakfast, I mean we go straight to lunch. We went to the La Barbecue food truck and had brisket sandwiches. Holy shit. Holy shit. This is some of the best food I've put in my mouth. Their brisket seriously has the texture of butter. They gave us a sample before we ordered too. Oh my good. I'm drooling thinking about it again. Well, our hardcore day of enjoying Austin was off to a good start. Next I dropped Mary Beth off at a bar/coffeehouse and went to Switched On. Longtime dream realized! (Okay, I've only known about it less than a year or so or two years or so? maybe "longtime" is a strong word.) Well I had a blast. I pretty much knew which modules I wanted to get beforehand, but I got a chance to play with 'em first. I ended up getting an Intellijel Rubicon (through-zero VCO) and a 4MS VCA Matrix (just like it sounds, a voltage controlled matrix mixer!). Playing around with 'em made me realize I should get a little Pittsburgh Multiple module (also picking up some cables and a t-shirt, I'm getting ahead of myself though). It was fun playing with the modular, but I kind've knew what to expect. The most fun was playing the old synths! I played an Oberheim Two Voice and a Prophet 5! I can tell the Two Voice would be a LOT of fun with a lot time spent working with it. The voices being completely separate can lead you to a lot of interesting possibilities, but of course that makes programming it a little more involved. It was pretty sweet though. I spent more time playing the Prophet 5. Damn it sounds good! Just on sounds it does sound better than my modern Prophet 08. It's much simpler in its capabilities, but that's also its advantage somewhat. It doesn't take much effort to get great sounds, also the envelopes seem more responsive and "bouncy" (and the filter is better). It fulfills the whole "warmer" cliche. Anyway, I had a lot of nerdy fun. Now that I've been to two synths stores I can compare! I had known about Switched On longer, but ended up at Control Voltage first. Control Voltage was better for trying out eurorack modules. They had a ton all over the place. Switched On was fine for that, but they didn't have nearly as many. They excelled in the vintage stuff you could play (or buy). Now I'm picking up Mary Beth and we set out to this place she recently heard about: the cathedral of junk. This artist dude has his backyard dedicated to a two-story sculpture of junk. It was a pretty awesome experience. I guess he's sort of like Austin's Paul McLeod (except I don't think he's actually unhinged...apparent libertarianism aside). We again took tons of pictures and just wandered around it all. It was great 'cuz you'd keep revisiting a spot and each time see things you never noticed before. A baroque monument to trash. Next we went to a real museum: the Blanton Museum of Art. It was really nice. They allowed picture-taking so I again took to many pictures, mostly details. There was a lot of really good stuff. The modernist room was awesome. They even had a room of postmodern sculpture, typically not my thing, but the pieces in here were really well-done. A good way to spend the afternoon. Free and COOL (and great art, how can you go wrong?). Then we went back up to this part of town that's hip or whatever on Congress Ave. We walked up a bit and found a bookstore that way the fuck overcharged on everything, but I found a couple unusual items I picked up: The Dramatic Symphony/The Forms of Art by Andrey Bely and Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature by Gilles Deluze and Félix Guattari. I looked up a record store that was down the block, but had SLC flashbacks...it was no more! Well, I had also looked up a record store over on 1st St. A little place called End of an Ear. Um...holy fuck! Holy mother fucking fuck! What a great fucking record store! It was pretty big for an indie place. It had good categorization of stuff and it was easy to find amazing electronic/experimental/composer stuff. As you will soon see, I got quite a haul of amazing shit. They also had a good bit of more standard rock that I didn't find the time to look through as much. They even had listening stations and they weren't afriad to to put weird stuff like electronic and musique concrete on 'em (that's how I found out about the Paul Bowles I got, great writer as he is, I'd forgotten he was a composer too and didn't know he'd done anything experimental, but I guess it was just put out this year so how could I?). Well, here's the verdict: Paul Bowles: The Pool K III, Einstürzende Neubauten: Drawings of Patient O. T., Nurse with Wound: Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella, Raymond Scott: Soothing Sounds for Baby Volume 2: 6 to 12 Months, Raymond Scott: Soothing Sounds for Baby Volume 3: 12 to 18 Months, Daphne Oram: Oramics, 23 Skidoo: Seven Songs, Suzanne Ciani: Lixiviation, Harmonia: Live 1974. Susie Ibarra: Drum Sketches, Conrad & Gregor Schnitzler: Conrad & Sohn (reissue with bonus tracks, thanks to Creel Pone for paving my way to this day), and Bruno Spoerri: Glückskugel. Ah! I also got a version of Autechre's Gantz Graf that I thought had the dvd, but didn't (that's why it was only $3...I took it back the next day to see if the dvd was supposed to be there or not...the guy at the register that day got all excited about how great that single and video are...that was endearing). The girl checking me out, upon seeing the Raymond Scott, asked if I had a baby. Heh. Well, now it's time to see some fucking bats! We parked in the newspaper lot and made it down to the little park where people were gathered to watch this awesome spectacle. So, when the Congress Ave. bridge was rennovated in the early 80s, the way the beams or whatever on the underside were situated led to ideal conditions for this colony of bats to start living in the spring and summer and early fall (they migrate to Mexico in the winter). At dusk, a million or so bats (I'm NOT using this figure figuratively) start flying out in file to go eat and do bat stuff. We watched for about 20 or 30 minutes or so and the colony was still on its way out (though I believe the main thrust had passed). Really awesome to watch. I just read that during the summer there are more bats than people in Austin. Pretty cool. We had dinner at a place called Polvos. Some good texmex stuff. I also drank a ton of horchata in all these places we went. Okay, so we go downtown to this speakeasy bar Mary Beth wanted to try. It was in the middle of Austin's Beale St. analog. It was actually pretty neat in that context. Drunk people loudly roaming the middle of the street amidst loud bars and there's this small, signless door. Just a fake doorbell directory (you have to know the right button to push, Mary Beth said she would've known anyway because it's some famous cocktail dude's name). They happened to have a reservated table's occupants not show up so we got lucky and got a seat. I even had some tasty mocktails. Then back to the hotel. That was all one fucking day? Did I say how much I fucking love Austin? Well, hey, there's even more!
Friday wasn't quite as crazy-awesome-fuck-shit as the day before, but it was still a great day. Well, looks like it's getting to be time to break this post up. How weird looking is that last paragraph amidst these stubs?
It's Thursday and we've got a nonsmoking hotel room and we skip breakfast because we got up so late (after a rough night being up pretty late). By skip breakfast, I mean we go straight to lunch. We went to the La Barbecue food truck and had brisket sandwiches. Holy shit. Holy shit. This is some of the best food I've put in my mouth. Their brisket seriously has the texture of butter. They gave us a sample before we ordered too. Oh my good. I'm drooling thinking about it again. Well, our hardcore day of enjoying Austin was off to a good start. Next I dropped Mary Beth off at a bar/coffeehouse and went to Switched On. Longtime dream realized! (Okay, I've only known about it less than a year or so or two years or so? maybe "longtime" is a strong word.) Well I had a blast. I pretty much knew which modules I wanted to get beforehand, but I got a chance to play with 'em first. I ended up getting an Intellijel Rubicon (through-zero VCO) and a 4MS VCA Matrix (just like it sounds, a voltage controlled matrix mixer!). Playing around with 'em made me realize I should get a little Pittsburgh Multiple module (also picking up some cables and a t-shirt, I'm getting ahead of myself though). It was fun playing with the modular, but I kind've knew what to expect. The most fun was playing the old synths! I played an Oberheim Two Voice and a Prophet 5! I can tell the Two Voice would be a LOT of fun with a lot time spent working with it. The voices being completely separate can lead you to a lot of interesting possibilities, but of course that makes programming it a little more involved. It was pretty sweet though. I spent more time playing the Prophet 5. Damn it sounds good! Just on sounds it does sound better than my modern Prophet 08. It's much simpler in its capabilities, but that's also its advantage somewhat. It doesn't take much effort to get great sounds, also the envelopes seem more responsive and "bouncy" (and the filter is better). It fulfills the whole "warmer" cliche. Anyway, I had a lot of nerdy fun. Now that I've been to two synths stores I can compare! I had known about Switched On longer, but ended up at Control Voltage first. Control Voltage was better for trying out eurorack modules. They had a ton all over the place. Switched On was fine for that, but they didn't have nearly as many. They excelled in the vintage stuff you could play (or buy). Now I'm picking up Mary Beth and we set out to this place she recently heard about: the cathedral of junk. This artist dude has his backyard dedicated to a two-story sculpture of junk. It was a pretty awesome experience. I guess he's sort of like Austin's Paul McLeod (except I don't think he's actually unhinged...apparent libertarianism aside). We again took tons of pictures and just wandered around it all. It was great 'cuz you'd keep revisiting a spot and each time see things you never noticed before. A baroque monument to trash. Next we went to a real museum: the Blanton Museum of Art. It was really nice. They allowed picture-taking so I again took to many pictures, mostly details. There was a lot of really good stuff. The modernist room was awesome. They even had a room of postmodern sculpture, typically not my thing, but the pieces in here were really well-done. A good way to spend the afternoon. Free and COOL (and great art, how can you go wrong?). Then we went back up to this part of town that's hip or whatever on Congress Ave. We walked up a bit and found a bookstore that way the fuck overcharged on everything, but I found a couple unusual items I picked up: The Dramatic Symphony/The Forms of Art by Andrey Bely and Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature by Gilles Deluze and Félix Guattari. I looked up a record store that was down the block, but had SLC flashbacks...it was no more! Well, I had also looked up a record store over on 1st St. A little place called End of an Ear. Um...holy fuck! Holy mother fucking fuck! What a great fucking record store! It was pretty big for an indie place. It had good categorization of stuff and it was easy to find amazing electronic/experimental/composer stuff. As you will soon see, I got quite a haul of amazing shit. They also had a good bit of more standard rock that I didn't find the time to look through as much. They even had listening stations and they weren't afriad to to put weird stuff like electronic and musique concrete on 'em (that's how I found out about the Paul Bowles I got, great writer as he is, I'd forgotten he was a composer too and didn't know he'd done anything experimental, but I guess it was just put out this year so how could I?). Well, here's the verdict: Paul Bowles: The Pool K III, Einstürzende Neubauten: Drawings of Patient O. T., Nurse with Wound: Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella, Raymond Scott: Soothing Sounds for Baby Volume 2: 6 to 12 Months, Raymond Scott: Soothing Sounds for Baby Volume 3: 12 to 18 Months, Daphne Oram: Oramics, 23 Skidoo: Seven Songs, Suzanne Ciani: Lixiviation, Harmonia: Live 1974. Susie Ibarra: Drum Sketches, Conrad & Gregor Schnitzler: Conrad & Sohn (reissue with bonus tracks, thanks to Creel Pone for paving my way to this day), and Bruno Spoerri: Glückskugel. Ah! I also got a version of Autechre's Gantz Graf that I thought had the dvd, but didn't (that's why it was only $3...I took it back the next day to see if the dvd was supposed to be there or not...the guy at the register that day got all excited about how great that single and video are...that was endearing). The girl checking me out, upon seeing the Raymond Scott, asked if I had a baby. Heh. Well, now it's time to see some fucking bats! We parked in the newspaper lot and made it down to the little park where people were gathered to watch this awesome spectacle. So, when the Congress Ave. bridge was rennovated in the early 80s, the way the beams or whatever on the underside were situated led to ideal conditions for this colony of bats to start living in the spring and summer and early fall (they migrate to Mexico in the winter). At dusk, a million or so bats (I'm NOT using this figure figuratively) start flying out in file to go eat and do bat stuff. We watched for about 20 or 30 minutes or so and the colony was still on its way out (though I believe the main thrust had passed). Really awesome to watch. I just read that during the summer there are more bats than people in Austin. Pretty cool. We had dinner at a place called Polvos. Some good texmex stuff. I also drank a ton of horchata in all these places we went. Okay, so we go downtown to this speakeasy bar Mary Beth wanted to try. It was in the middle of Austin's Beale St. analog. It was actually pretty neat in that context. Drunk people loudly roaming the middle of the street amidst loud bars and there's this small, signless door. Just a fake doorbell directory (you have to know the right button to push, Mary Beth said she would've known anyway because it's some famous cocktail dude's name). They happened to have a reservated table's occupants not show up so we got lucky and got a seat. I even had some tasty mocktails. Then back to the hotel. That was all one fucking day? Did I say how much I fucking love Austin? Well, hey, there's even more!
Friday wasn't quite as crazy-awesome-fuck-shit as the day before, but it was still a great day. Well, looks like it's getting to be time to break this post up. How weird looking is that last paragraph amidst these stubs?