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sxsw2011 Mon Mar 21 2011
SXSW Tour Diary: White Mystery
[Editor's note: Here's a SXSW tour diary from White Mystery, who played the SXSW Music Festival as part of their ongoing tour.]
Photo by CraSH.
SXSW is a celebration of bands, and the people who love them from around the world. Hundreds of thousands converge on Austin to partake in a total free for all, where every restaurant, cafe, and vintage shop form a loose confederation of concerts that take shape as an internationally acclaimed, city-wide festival.
White Mystery embarked on tour weeks ago and shredded shows with amazing bands in Iowa City, Omaha, Kansas City, Memphis, and Dallas en route. Terrain, weather, and punk cultures change like a gradient from the Midwest to the South in March, with leather jackets in blizzards to sweat-drenched rockers in sweltering weather.
Francis and I are siblings, and a band. White Mystery played eight shows in five days, ranging from the Ice Cream Man showcase with the Screaming Females at Club Deville on Tuesday, where the outdoor stage is surrounded by natural cliff-like walls and the crowd is huge (see photo above), to PBR Blast-Off surrounded by beer-fueled native Chicagoans like Rabble Rabble and My Gold Mask, then off to the California-based Burger Records Showcase with King Tuff and Apache sponsored by CHIRP at a lawless record shop called Trailer Space (tell Spot that Alex White sent you), slaying a secret show with the Black Lips and Greenhornes at the Sailor Jerry festival, to playing with Thee Ohsees and Davilla 666 at Beerland.
We spent the week tromping the litter-strewn streets of Austin, cruising VICE parties to see buzz bands Davilla 666, OFF! and Odd Future, and partaking in generous helpings of street food. Congestion in Austin is over the top, but eerily similar to the Wicker Park Six Corners on a Saturday night, with persistent hipster traffic stumbling out of bars, carrying bags full of records, and eating hotdogs.
The goal at SXSW is to play with your favorite bands, at festival where the line between musician and fan is blurred. That mission was accomplished.
Check out White Mystery tour photos on Facebook here, and upcoming White Mystery concerts here. Our new record, Blood & Venom drops on April 20 with release shows at Pancho's in Chicago. Miss Alex White is a native Chicagoan and musician whose band blog is right here.
