End of Silence

With SXSW keeping this year’s band list close to their chest, Austinist has cobbled together a pretty good list of the bands that are likely to appear this year.

I saw a post yesterday from Pitchfork mentioning Mastodon and Thurston Moore among others. Those two make my list of possibilities. Brooklyn Vegan and Done Waiting are also good sources for your SXSW music needs.

<shameless plug>My band is playing the Get Hip showcase on 3/16 at Habana Calle 6 with local pals, Ugly Beats, and Cynics among others.</shameless plug>

A guerrilla marketing campaign for Adult Swim and Aqua Teen Hunger Force has gone awry in Boston, touching off the same overreaction that the birds caused us earlier this month.

I’ve linked the first post on the Boston Metblog, but there have been several since that one. I’m not sure if they’re still up, but there were a few billboards here in town similar to the LED ads in Boston (fashioned along the same lines as those geekerrific LED throwies). Our own Austin Swim has a lot more. You’ll recall that they got in trouble for some banners advertising Adult Swim on local overpasses.

Fuzzy has more in Chicago, where they seem to be able to distinguish between suspicious and just plain strange.

Update (Friday, 02.02.07 08:39 CST): The Statesman is reporting that 20 of the LED signs were placed around town yesterday here as well, but they were quickly collected by those who placed them once all hell broke loose in Boston. Anybody see one before it got collected or know who was placing them locally? I’d love to get my hands on one.

Update 2 (Friday, 02.02.07 09:21 CST): Security demigod Bruce Schneier has an awesome post on this.

Photo from cjabest on Flickr

FronteraFest 2007 kicked off last Thursday, a couple of days late due to the ice storm that hit early last week. KUT had a report on the festival on opening day.

You can check out all the details on their site, but here’s a quick rundown. The 14th annual fringe theater event is grouped into three sections:

• The Short Fringe (25 minutes or less) at Hyde Park Theater
• The Long Fringe (90 minutes or less) at Blue Theater and City Theatre
• Mi Casa Es Su Teatro (site specific productions around town

The festival runs into February with the Short Fringe performances judged each week and culminating in a Best of the Fest week at the end.

I’m going to check out St. Nicholas, an entry in the Long Fringe. It’s written by Conor McPherson and performed by Ken Webster. Performances are Wednesday, Jan. 24th at 7pm, Sunday, Jan. 28th at noon, Friday, Feb. 2nd at 10:45pm and Saturday, Feb. 3rd at 8:15pm at The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd. Suite D. Ken performed this piece last fall at Hyde Park Theater, you can check out the page from those performances and some links to reviews here.

Apparently, The Nuge performed at Governor Rick Perry’s Inaugural Ball on Tuesday night and got a little out of hand.

I’ve got a few questions about this:

1. I know The Nuge is now a right wing nutjob, but what’s he doing hanging out with Rick Perry? Political aspirations?
2. Isn’t this the sort of thing people expect from The Nuge? Why was anyone shocked?
3. Did he play “Wang Dang Sweet Pootang”?

Photo from Flickr by Lancefestivalen

Yep. It snowed earlier and we’re still seeing a mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow.