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Photo by Daniel Morrison

The Sunday night after SXSW never fails to be a weird experience. Although you are dog-tired, and back in your own bed, you can't sleep. A phantasmagoria of sights and sounds from the past few days runs through mind on a reel that seems to have no end.

You remember short conversations with old friends, most of whom you see too briefly to reconnect with, the hissing sound of ambient cymbal wash that bathes East Sixth Street nearly continuously for 100 or so hours, the peaceful interludes as you cross Town Lake on the Congress Street Bridge, the rickety racket of Austin's booming grackle population...

Photo by clared23

"I've been drunk all around this town, from the downside up to the upside down...." So sings Scott Miller in "Drunk All Around this Town," which he calls "the most beautiful ballad I have ever written." That might not be true but it is a most apropos song for SXSW, and it never sounded better than it did Thursday night at Waterloo Ice House.

Like John Prine, Miller is not just a funny songwriter, although can be one of the most humorous out there. He can also come up with lines that are downright Zen - like "every winter will spring and every summer will fall" from "Loving That Girl is Too Hard on a Man."

Not sure if you noticed, but we took a ton of photos over the last few days. Click the links for all kinds of action.

South by Southwest Day One

Photo by Mark C. Austin

The Austin Music Awards

A chronicle in picture form of some of the SXSW live acts you could have caught on Wednesday, March 18, if only you had been in Austin, TX. And really, why weren't you? Featuring Alejandro Escovedo, Aqualung, The Dicks, and more.

Live at the Red Eyed Fly and Stubb's BBQ

Photo by Patrick Michels

Heartless Bastards

Folks from all over crammed into two of Austin's best known venues on Wednesday, March 18, to catch some of the first acts of SXSW, including the Heartless Bastards, The Decemberists, The Von Bondies, and more.

As usual, Saturday afternoon for me was all about South Congress. Bands like Houston's own Allen Oldies Band - fronted by the High Priest of the Oldies and the State of Texas's official unofficial Minister of Fun - are traditions, as are people like Jon Dee Graham and James McMurtry at Mojo Nixon's party at the Continental Club.

Photo by Mark C. Austin

There are always a few revelations each year. For me, on South Congress anyway, that person was Amy Lavere. A somewhat rare female upright bass player, Lavere has a little bit of a sultry Norah Jones vibe to her, although her music sounds like acoustic Zeppelin.

Chris Gray

Black Joe Lewis and a couple of Honeybears

Well, thank God that's over. SXSW 09 is history now, so before we completely block it out of our mind for another 11 months, here's Rocks Off's top five reasons it was worth going to after all.

Dave Alvin & the Guilty Women: L.A. roots-rocker and all-star band honored his late best friend Chris Gaffney with roadhouse fire, Cajun zeal and honky-tonk sensitivity.

Austin Music Awards: The Dicks, Alejandro Escovedo, the Fireants, Roky Erickson and the Black Angels bridged past and present at the Austin music scene's annual pat on the back.

Echo & the Bunnymen: Ageless Liverpudlians' shimmering post-punk psychedelia melted SXSW fatigue into the warm March air.

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears: Texas' new king of R&B broke out in a big way with gospel grunts, a Stax-steeped sound and a badass band.

Finally, as seen here and here, the carnival of humanity crowding the streets of Austin during SXSW can be as entertaining as any showcase.

See ya next year, SXSW... 

Photos by Craig Hlavaty

Who says Aftermath ain't rock n' roll?

On the way to see Houston's own Balaclavas at the Independent to debut new stuff off the soon-to-be released Roman Holiday, I abruptly hit a curb with bicycle. Luckily my elbow took one for the team. Well, it it ended up getting fractured and I have all kinds of internal business going on with it. But nonetheless I got back up and tied up my bike to a light pole and walked across IH-35 to catch the show. Which was alternately stupid or dedicated.

Balaclavas now features Rafe from the Dead Roses and the legendary Painteens on saxophone, which makes the new and old stuff sound like the Stooges circa Fun House. Tyler Morris' vocals have gotten even more frantically ominous and Brian Harrison is starting to do weird and beautiful shit on bass. Pretty much the whole game done changed. This is now my most anticipated release this year.

I gotta go now. It's hard typing with one hand, and the meds are kicking in. It's cartoon time!

So I generally don't know how to feel about Daniel Johnston. I think he's a songwriter whose simple chord progressions and simplistic lyrics meld together into absolute brilliance, no matter that his voice belongs squarely in the love-it-or-hate-it camp. I'm just uncomfortable with his history of mental illness, not in the sense that I have a problem with him having problems -- far from it -- but I often wonder just what people are getting out of seeing him stand up on stage, chain-smoking cigarettes and shaking the mike back and forth.

Are we all just staring at some kind of human zoo animal, or are we seeing beyond all that and just appreciating his awesomeness? I don't know, although I suspect the answer lies somewhere in between.

Either way, his awesomeness was on display Saturday night, and after he ditched the backing band and just became a dude on a stage with a guitar, the audience was transfixed, cheering along as he went through a few songs sans anyone else. It was magical, and simple, and a great way to end four days of sensory overload.

Thank you, DJ. Here's hoping you play Houston again sometime soon.

"Fuck National Geographic."

"It's not technically a mullet."

"No, I'm not fucking kidding. She and I are done."

"I can't hear you." (Heard umpteen times)

"Awesome."

"This is awful."

A dozen Austin activists staked out the four corners of the University of Texas communications building earlier today, passing out flyers to people on the way to Ben Harper's Austin City Limits taping. Surprisingly, the flyer had nothing to do with herb not being a gift of the earth, but rather was a call to support the production and engineering employees inside.

KLRU, the Austin PBS station behind Austin City Limits, wants to eliminate longstanding provisions in the employee's contracts, including guaranteed overtime for working more than 10 hours or five days in a row, as well as an extra hour's pay when working too long without a meal break.

The protest went off smoothly, although there was a minor confrontation when a member of station management asked two activists to stop passing out flyers to folks right by the entry stairway. A member of management was also videotaping the leafletters. "He looked like a borg," said one activist, who declined to be identified.

The reactions of passersby were amicable enough. One activist said a guy read the flyer and then handed it back, but not before pulling out his cell phone and punching in the number of the station's general manager. He hit his phone's green button as he walked away.

Photos by Craig Hlavaty

We valiantly attended the Rachael Ray party at Maggie Mae's on Sixth, braving free food curate by the talk show host and Rose's Mojitos by the gallon.

Hometown boy Bob Schneider opened the show upstairs, doing his old reliable ladykilling jams. While downstairs New York's Semi Precious Weapons preened and pouted, jolting the middle of the road crowd out of their food coma with sleazy rock and roll straight outta the Bowery circa 1977.

The food was excellent of course. Not really worth the nearly hour wait in line, but whatever's free, brother.

More pics after the jump...