Day 4
Hello. My name is Ben. I play guitar for Aqualung, who is also my brother. His name is Matt. But you can call him 'Aqualung' if you wish. Or 'Mr Aqualung'.
Aside from playing the guitar and helping Matt to negotiate the giddy highs and crushing lows that are endemic to Genius at his level (he's a green-belt), I like to keep a tour diary* which normally lives at aqualung.net, but since we have to try to be nice to our new record company, I have agreed to let it take a short holiday here. Nice view.
The problem with tour diaries is that they tend to be an outlet for expressing the tedium that characterises a good tour. It's hard to explain how it actually feels to perform, it's too risky to say what you actually think of the people you meet and the conversations you have with them, and it's too dull to tell you exactly what we did, so you end up with what's left over. And that is an odd assortment of sweepings and leavings that often make no sense whatsoever.
I hope you enjoy it.
So, here we are at The South by SouthWest Musical Convention in Austin, Texas, USA. It's an annual 'shindig' or 'hoopla' wherein thousands of bands come to this fine University city and play and play and play. Apparently there is a complete embargo on all music in Austin for the entire rest of the year, so saturated does the city become. If you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the faint reverberrations of last years' SXSW.
I've been to the festival twice before, and it is a unique experience** - a musical theme park, if you like, though without a FastPass facility.
Right now I'm sitting in the lobby of the Convention Centre where they have the holy grail of modern touring life, a free wireless network! Hooray! Our tour manager, Roberto, has just left to collect Matt and his manager Phil from the airport. Matt was making a video yesterday in LA. I'm hoping he'll still be in his makeup. In the meantime I'm leafing through the goody-sack you get when you register and wondering how we're going to fit it in the car.
There are some great bandnames in the directory, such as 'I Love You But I Chose Darkness' and 'Whitey Houston'. You can't beat Japanese bandnames, though. As far as I can see, 'My Little Airport' haven't made it this year. A shame.
We have a busy schedule for the next few days, but tonight we're free so we should see some bands.
Or perhaps there'll be a good movie on TV.
Whatever.
*I tried keeping a tour dairy once, because it's nice to have fresh milk in your tea, but it was difficult to source a flight case suitable for livestock.
**FAO pedants: I realise you can't have a unique experience twice.
