Austin’s Rock N Romp Recap
On Sunday we had our special SXSW edition of Rock N Romp at the Mohawk here in Austin with Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater, Neal Pollack and Black Before Red. Even though it rained, and the time change probably confused some people, we had a fantastic time.
Jonathan performed with his bandmate Thor, who played drums and vibraphone, and the songs took on a whole new sort of feeling in the somewhat deconstructed way in which they were arranged. Because the Romp had been moved indoors, most of the people there were able to sit on the couches at the bar and the kids could walk around and be entirely curious about the instruments. Jonathan’s voice sounded amazing that setting, and even though he joked that he felt bad playing gloomy songs for (mostly) kids, they were all clearly enchanted. After the set, Thor let the kids get on stage and play his vibraphone and look at his drum set, which is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.
Neal read a few times from his book, Alternadad, and it was great because the passages he chose were entertaining for the younger set as well. It’s funny how every parent has an extreme poop story that sticks with them for the rest of their life. The highlight of Neal’s readings was the moment when he asked the kids to tell him what kind of music their parents make them listen to, and Tim’s son yelled, “Mastodon!”
Everyone loved Black Before Red, too, what with the easy-to-dance-to tunes, Rhodes and tambourines. The drummer, Marc, had his little daughter Lily with him and she introduced her favorite song and found dancing partners right up front. Needless to say, it’s pretty awesome when you’re three and can go see your dad’s rock band play on a Sunday afternoon with your friends. The whole event made me really, really happy.
I’ll have (lots) more photos to share soon, but for now there are just a couple on my Flickr. This week is insane for me, our Austinist pre-party was the night before the Romp (and also went really well, we had burlesque dancers and Wii stations!) and our day party is tomorrow so I’m sort of insanely busy. If you came to the Romp thank you, and I hope to see you at our next event in April at the Lone Star School of Music. If you’re in town for SXSW, please come to our Austinist day party at Mohawk (again, these guys at Mohawk have been so incredibly awesome and accommodating to us, such great people) with Architecture in Helsinki and Loney, Dear!
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