South by

This past weekend pretty much revolved around SXSW activities.

Friday, the Gingerman hosted an Athens, Georgia showcase. Alison ran into June there during the day and later chatted with Peter Buck after his Baseball Project gig and was told "they" would be playing at midnight that night. With a surprise R.E.M. show on our minds, we revisited the G-man later that evening to catch Supercluster:



Casper and the Cookies:


and Flash to Bang Time (featuring Lynda Stipe, Michael's sister):



Anyway, midnight came and went, but no surprise R.E.M. performance. They were in the audience, however. And not always happy with each other:



Saturday, Pete was offered tickets to the Austin Music Awards, so he was kind enough to take Glenn and me along. Lots of great music was played that night, but The Wagoneers reunion after 21 years had to be the highlight for me. Even cooler was having Joe Ely play with them for their last song:




Also on the bill for the evening were the Meat Puppets with special guest Roky Erickson:





Traffic sucked getting to and from the Austin Music Hall, but once inside the hall, all was right. And all in all, it was a good night.

Porn stars

Last week was the North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NABHS to the glitterati). The Austin Convention Center has never hosted so much bike porn. Desirous, lustful, gloriously naked and objectified - it was a sight to behold.

And as with any porn endeavor, there must be porn stars. Over the 2 days I attended, I had a chance to catch up with some of the finest:

Andy Hampsten at the Hampsten bike booth (I have one of their stainless frames):


Chris King (with his wife):


Mike DeSalvo (I have one of his 10th Anniversary frames that I still can't decide on the final build):


Sacha White (of Vanilla Bicycles, seen here talking to a poser Austin hipster - note the lack of the requisite messenger bag):


Richard Sachs (including a pic of the Sachs cyclocross team frame that I picked up last year):



More timely, this past weekend, Jeremy and his daughter Erin were in town for a wedding. We tried to go for a bike ride Saturday morning, but a cold front brought in a thunderstorm (replete with lightning). Instead, we went over to Pete's for Torchy's Tacos and a homebrew session:


Sunday morning we tried again. And what a glorious day for a ride. We took Jeremy around the Spicewood Springs loop. Afterward, we picked up Erin and Pablo and headed to Julio's for breakfast tacos:


Overall, just a very nice weekend.