Friday, December 24th, 2004
I Saw You Talking To Christopher Walken
While I highly question the authenticity of these children’s Christmas letters to Christopher Walken, they’re still pretty dang funny.
JAM! collects some quotable quotes from 2004 and assembles their own albums of the year list.
Sterogum has his year-end list up, complete with non-album mp3s for each record! Keener.
Stylus spikes the egg nog with some haterade, listing off the 40 worst albums of 2004. Considering the list is identical to their Best of 2004 list, I think we can assume that their tongues are planted firmly in cheek.
Also from Stylus – Top 10 inevitable reunions for 2005. As much as I’d like to see some of these (Replacments, My Bloody Valentine), I don’t see much hope for most of these prospects.
Res Magazine has a Q&A with Jeff Tweedy about the whys and wherefores of The Wilco Book.
French Kicks at the Horseshoe March 10, $10.
Since it worked so well for Stars, Metric have added a second, all-ages show to compliment their Mod Club date on the 21st of January. The underagers can get their rocks off on the 22nd at a 7pm early show.
Bored over the holidays? This zoomquilt will keep you occupied for hours. Or drive you stark raving mad.
I am looking to book a hotel for SXSW. Is five miles far? I don’t understand your crazy moon distances.
It was Christmas Eve day, in the drunk tank… I expect many if not most will be en route to homes or whatnot for the weekend. I myself am heading back to the homestead this afternoon and enjoying the start of a full week off from work. Everyone have a happy holiday weekend, and for God’s sake – be careful out there.
np – Stars / Set Yourself On Fire
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12/24/04 10:25 am
Nope, five miles is like a block down here in Texas. Of course, that’s assuming you will have a car when you’re down here. Will you?
12/24/04 10:25 am
Hey Frank,
Merry Christmas first of all. With regards to whether accommodations five miles away from a music venue is far, it’s pretty decent distance if you’re driving. Transit, well that might be a problem. Although, considering when my friend and I went to Coachella last year on the first night after the show we had to drive an hour to get back to the motel.(I think it was about 20 miles away). Thankfully on the second night we had closer asccommodations.
12/24/04 10:29 am
Car? No car, unless I rent one. And that hadn’t really occurred to me, I generally expect to foot it whenever I go anywhere. Dumb idea?
Let’s see, pay more for close hotel vs pay less for far hotel and add price of rental car.
How much is it to rent and park a car?
See, this is why I rarely ever leave my house.
12/24/04 1:06 pm
What/where’s the hotel?
Parking and driving around sxsw venues at night can be nightmarish…as is navigating to day shows if you are going to try to skip around (they are more problematically scattered about town and don’t run on the strict schedules of the night showcases). The overlap between day and night venues is surprisingly narrow.
Most out of towners seem to walk from close hotels or taxi downtown once at night and then back after showcases. If you want to stay put for the range of acts at a day show venue you can taxi to those easily and fairly cheaply, too.
The 50 or so venues for the night shows are all in walking distance of each other. The ones that are outlyers are still walkable if you don’t mind forgoing an act (since there is only 15-20 minutes max between slots which includes your time in line waiting to get in). There are also bike taxis (kinda like bike rickshaws) for getting between night venues downtown a little quicker.
We try to hit a lot of day shows all around town but we bike to as many as possible. Since you are a bike commuter you might be happy being 5 miles out and renting a bike? Excepting rain, the weather is generally great for biking that time of year.
Let me know if any of this doesn’t make sense or isn’t answering your question…and merry xmas!
Joyce
12/24/04 1:35 pm
Do not drive in Austin. Do not drive in Texas. Canadians tend to have nightmares for months afterwards. Take a cab. It’s not that much, and there will probably be other people going to the shows you can split it with. I may even come chauffeur you around a bit.
12/24/04 1:44 pm
Expedia wants to put me in the Red Lion Hotel (http://…/). My standards for opulance are pretty low, so I’m not concerned about that – just the five miles. I would expect to be pretty tired every night… how much would a 5-mile cab ride cost me? That hotel plus flight would cost me around $700 CAN, flight alone is $450 or so? I dunno, I need to write this stuff down. I don’t think I’m going with the rental car option, though. I’m just weighing price vs distance now.
12/24/04 2:08 pm
Some people jog 5 miles every morning, so that amount of walking wouldn’t be out of the question. But I certainly wouldn’t want to do it and then go stand for several hours at shows.
The converter I just used has 5 miles listed as 8.05 km. I think you’ll want to bring along cab fare.
12/24/04 5:08 pm
merry christmas and happy new year! can’t believe sxsw is 3 months away. they announce the full bands line-up around valentine’s day. i can’t wait.
basically, if you can spare the cash, i’d stay downtown since you don’t want to get lost, and you get a better feel of the energy during sxsw music. however, the hotels know this, and raise their prices accordingly. would you be able to find somebody to split a room with? it’s way cheaper and way more fun!
here’s a PDF map of last year’s venues, if it helps:
http://…/
i remember walking from seeing nada surf at #50 (tambaleo) to see shearwater at #37 (maggie mae’s) in about 10 minutes, but i’m a new yorker and i walk quickly.
12/24/04 6:14 pm
as an austenite i agree with all the anti driving comments. parking is a nitemare in downtown austin during. i got lucky at the last sxsw, some homeless dude was scoping out parking spots and waving people down to take them. saved my butt.
12/26/04 12:33 pm
frank, look at the sxsw map here:
http://…/
your best bets are to stay at #’s 1, 9, 10, or 11, or possibly 13, 14, 12, 2, 3, or 4.
it’s totally worth paying the extra money to stay close to everything.
12/27/04 12:30 pm
i’m sure you figured out that the red lion isn’t in walking distance of the downtown music venues, but I think a taxi at the beginning and end of you day wouldn’t be that much. and I think you might be surprised how easy it is to find/share rides during the day between venues if you are flexible about what you want to see.
and to reiterate…the night showcase venues are all in walking distance of each other once you get down there from your hotel. one new yorker last year told me that this is why sxsw is so much better than cmj.