TEXAS #4

Sorry I didn't post this yesterday as I it was my first night at SxSW and we got back at around 330 after a night of catching Duchess Says [http://www.myspace.com/duchesssays] and Acid Mothers Temple [http://www.myspace.com/acidmotherstemple]. For free no less.

We left Houston yesterday at around 3 or so and after a quick and gluttonous brunch at Jack in the Box (known locally as Crack in the Box and Jack in the Crack) we set out through shitty backwoods highways until we reached our destination.

When we arrived in Austin, we found the address of the house we're staying at, which is where like 30 bands will be playing over the next few nights, was not exactly located on Austin's equivalent of St-Laurent and Prince-Arthur. Instead, the hood reminded us of something out of South Central L.A./Compton, with a dash of Mexican thrown in. But skeazy neighbourhood or not, we were in good spirits and even way out of the downtown core, we could feel the nervous agitation in the air. There were hundreds of shows going on around town at that instant and most if not all the American and European independent music scene had their eyes set on little old Austin, population 700,000.

We met nice people like Nick from Philadelphia who's in this band Procedure Club [http://www.myspace.com/procedureclub] and Chris from Gape Attack! [http://www.myspace.com/gapeattack], as well as others. The house is really not very big and the room we're playing with is only marginally larger than my bachelor apartment.

At around 1030 we set out for the city. I tried calling every cab company in town but of course, all their lines were jammed. This is the first night of SxSW Music.

So after discussing between the Alien8 Showcase andhipster woodstock, which was where of our housemates were going, we ended up catching the bus of all things 15 minutes to downtown Austin. I'll talk about the buses here tomorrow, because we[rape faction]'re going on in an hour or so.

Duchess Says was pretty awesome. We semi snuck our way into the venue (door was 5 bucks *if* you weren't one sly fox) and ended up in the front row of a show that had maybe 80 to 90 people. They sounded in top-form and the band are robotically tight now after all their touring. After the song they were playing ended, we rose up in separatist chants and slogans (Vive le Quebec libre! Vive le Montreal! Cinq-un-quatre!) which seemed to amuse their singer Annie-Claude.

The concert just got wilder and dirtier from there as Annie-Claude stepped into the audience and proceeded to start moshing with Mike and Michaela. For their last song she lead the entire audience out towards the entrance and proceeded to fall on the sidewalk, dancing and writhing like a , uh, like a wraith.

So good show. After them, there was this three piece of local Austin hippies called Ya Ho Wa 13 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ya_Ho_Wha_13] who jammed for their entire set.

But for however good Duchess Says, Acid Mothers Temple fucking blasted the whole room. Was one of the best sets I've ever seen and already made this whole crazy trip worthwhile. Words I could use but then I'd sound like a music critic. I'll put this laconically - if they're in town, go see them. Trust me.

Ok, I gotta run and tune guitars and get set up. Catch y'all niggaz later.

=//Turnquest

TEXAS #3

So we saw a dead possum today. But that's for after.

The day began late as usual but an hour earlier than planned (Mike hasn't updated his phone to central time yet). After indulging in Cap'n Crunch With Crunchberries (a delicacy foreign to Canada) we retired to our little bedroom studio. It rained today for the first time since we arrived, but it was a drizzly, half-hearted kind of rain.

Let me take a moment to describe some of the lovely people we're staying with in this lovely old-fashioned home north of Houston. The mistress of the house is Nana, a kindly genteel Southern woman who is Tara's grandmother (Tara being James's wife). She has cancer and spends most of the day in her room watching crime shows. Oh, she also owns a large pump-action shotgun which she keeps bedside in case 'anybody tries to break in and rape and kill her.' James warned us that she's hyper-conservative but honestly, she's been nothing but kind to me. Though we're all kind of constantly aware that our brand of noize-rock and liberal Canadian values could easily result in our sudden and bloody deaths at any moment. As I type this, this woman sleeps a few feet down the hallway. Or maybe she's awake, waiting to spring her deadly trap.

The other two guests staying at the house are Morton and Tomas. They are from Copenhagen, Denmark and they are two of the coolest Danes you will ever meet, believe you me. They don't drink or smoke or take drugs because as Tomas says 'I spend all my money on music.' They arrived here a couple days before us and they spend a lot of time on their laptops designing flyers for our upcoming shows in Austin and doing record label business. After all, from what I understand, they are some of the main players in Skrot Up (http://www.myspace.com/skrotup).

Then there's James, who's as close to my mind's idea of what Kevin Shields (of My Bloody Valentine you philistine) as anybody I've ever met. Quiet, soft-spoken but wise and generous. His wife Tara plays in Lashes (http://www.myspace.com/lashesnoise) and together they form Pink Playground (http://www.myspace.com/pinkplayground3). Tara is similar to James in personality and they are both super-awesome cool people who are kinda stuck in middle America. But they've accepted that fact and are almost proud to be labeled 'freaks' by the Republic-Biblethumping-rednecks they are forced to share a state with. They also make pretty fantastic music. They met in middle school around the time Tara was 14 and now they have a sweet daughter who's 7 and likes playing videogames with fairies.

So that's our cast of characters. After dickin' around for a lil' bit, we finally decided to actually practise for the first time since arriving on Sunday. To jam, we're using our own pedals and James and Tara's two Marshall MG100DFX amps for the guitars and a decent sized Samick bass amp. We managed to get through two sets of music before hunger struck. Since we had tried out Tex-Mex the day before, we decided to go for the 'authentic American breakfast' experience, which could only mean one thing : Denny's (www.dennys.com).

The Denny's that Tara took us to provided a fantastic breakfast. I got the "choose your own Grand Slam" for $5.99 (taxes in Texas are about 8%). We also got to sit in the smoking section, a novelty for Quebecers used to being scorned and demonized for smokin' a fag now and then. The patrons were as authentically Texas as could be (think Billy Bob Thornton from Sling Blade) but the waiter was a dear who admitted he thought we were 'great.'

After that, we got to explore the consumerist side of average American life by visiting a Target department store. Just to give you an idea of how fucking massive this store was, there were 24 checkout aisles, an entire Wal-Mart sized department store, a whole supermarket, and a bevy of little side boutiques like the Photo Studio and the pharmacy and such. It was a little overwhelming and that old Clash tune about the supermarket began ringing in my ears.

Then we went to a native smoke shop where taxes don't exist to pick up a carton of Marlboro mediums. I wanted the Reds but the others didn't think they could handle such extreme American tobacco flavour. We also went to a cool record store where I found a copy of Section 25's Looking From a Hilltop single but it was $30 and out of my budget. Big ups to Tara for taking us to these cool places and tolerating all our obnoxious pointing at things and commenting.

When we got back, we recorded a new-ish song called "Super Free," which is still in rough form but may go up on the MySpace in the next couple of days if we finish mixing it.

To cap off the evening, myself Michaela and Mike decided to make an ill-advised attempt to purchase alcohol, which involved walking like 20 minutes down the side of the road (the same one we went along yesterday). Instead of getting honked at, we saw a dead possum , which was interesting I suppose because I had never seen one before. In the end though, I forgot my I.D. and all the alcohol-selling establishments closed up shop by midnight.

That's day three. I promise the next few days will be more exciting because we're going to Austin and tomorrow's when SxSW starts for real.

Ta MTLers.

=//Turnquest

TEXAS #2

Mexican food is a gift from God. No not the Taco Bell-Carlos & Pepe's-Three Amigos BULLSHIT you consume in Montreal. No, as I've been told countless times by the people who know, authentic proper Mexican food can only be enjoyed in Mexico. Or well south in America, in places like southern California and of course, Texas, which offers its own brand of 'Tex-Mex' food.

This is what me Mike and Michaela set out for early this afternoon. We woke up late and after roaming around the house with little to do aside from a strong cup of real American coffee and checkin the ol' FB, we set out on foot to explore the neighbourhood. Spring, TX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring,_Texas) is a sleepy suburb north of Houston and a fairly 'red-state' one too, meaning plenty of conservatives and dudes in pick-up trucks. As we walked, almost every car that passed us on the road was either an SUV, a big luxury sedan (Mercedes are popular here) or a pick-up truck. Houstoners don't believe in thinking small.

We were also the only ones walking on the road's shoulder (no sidewalks round here cuz nobody walks). I'm relieved to say we were only honked at once. Otherwise, James our lovely and gracious host here in Houston directed us to a Mexican restaurant nearby called Los Generales but us being the young adventurous type set out farther than that. We passed a lot of very typical American Beauty houses with yellowy grass lawns (due to the lack of rainfall round these parts) on our way.

Along Louetta Rd we spotted a baptist church, a campaign sign for a Republican politician, a lot of strip malls and shopping plazas, a McDonalds, a roadside Taqueria and some odd redneck looking houses that had ominous "no trespassing" signs up.

Anyway, lunch was eventually had at the roadside taqeueria named "Los Lagos" (Michaela opted for Subway due to apprehensions about spicy Tex-Mex). The place was basically a run-down shack not dissimilar from the smoke shops you see on the highway through Kahnawake. A pleasant Mexican woman spoke haltingly in English and me and Mike feasted on real tacos and burritos. The absolute best Mexican I've had since living in California.

Afterwards we headed back and the combination of heat and food knocked us out. Hours later we awoke from our siesta and hung out for a bit before making a brief stop at a supermarket (completing our search for the authentic American experience) and now I'm typing this.

So ya, lazy day. Tomorrow more.

+Turnquest//

P.S.

This is my best guess as to where we are so you can see for yourself as to what it looks like :

View Larger Map

=//Turnquest

TEXAS #1

So we left the house at 11AM and drove for about an hour and then about twenty minutes before the border Khalil realises he forgot his drivers' license back in Montreal. This kinda spoiled our plan to rent a car but no biggie. Mike's car was packed with 4 people, 2 guitars, a bass guitar, a keyboard, and a handful of suitcases backpacks and duffel bags. With this we approached our first hurdle, the U.S. border going into Vermont. The nice border guard guy asked only a handful of questions to which Mike responded expertly and let us go through without too much of a hitch.

Soon after entering Burlington we stopped for smokes and bathroom break. Camel Turkish Golds advertise themselves as smooth and mellow and this was the consensus. Combo cheese snacks were somewhat more pungent than anticipated.

We arrived at Burlington airport pretty early and checked-in, again with nary a hitch. The trip overall went smoother than I thought, though as we found out later, both of our planes would get delayed. A woman at the counter saw our instruments and figured out we were going to South by Southwest. She also said that her daughter worked for the fest. A good omen.

It was around this time that I parted ways with the others as they took off for security and their connecting flight to Cleveland. I went and checked myself for my flight to NYC/LGA and we took off a good 15 minutes early in cloudy, wet weather.

The flight was brief, uneventful but more importantly, my guitar was allowed to come with me into the plane where it was strapped in by a seat belt into an empty seat. Smooth sailin' all the way.

At LaGuardia, I rushed to my gate thinking that I only had an hour left to catch my flight. What I actually had to do was go to a different terminal and go through security again, because I ended up landing in the US Airways terminal and my flight to Houston left from the main terminal. My flight was technically a United Airways flight but it was co-operated with Contintental in a confusing mess but all was well until I arrived at the gate and found out we were delayed for 2 hours. I listened to CDs including the BCASA's album and read Jean Chretien's memoirs of his prime minister years while I waited and texted with the others in Cleveland and my brother in California.

I've travelled enough to know delays are part of the process and I've also been delayed long enough to not be pissed off at two measly hours. I finally took off from LGA at around 8:45pm and after another uneventful flight arrived in Houston 2 hours late but coincidentally the same time as the others for their flight too had been delayed an hour.

So everything worked out fine and we were picked up by James of FLA and his sister-in-law and now I'm typing this in his bedroom studio surrounded by an awesome collection of vinyl, a huge Apple monitor, a wall of Marshall amps, a Fender Jaguar and the same drum machine that Suicide used on their first album.

Tomorrow's a new day.

=//Turnquest