1991: The Year SXSW Drinks to Forget
I think I'll just stay home this week and crank out austalgic posts about SX
It was the first time the music conference was held when UT students were in town, a week before Spring Break, and the frats and bowheads packed Sixth Street. Frustrated that no one would voluntarily leave Mercado Caribe at the fire marshal’s insistence, the owner shot a pistol into the ceiling. Everybody was taking speed to work as hard and party as long as they could.
It was the birth of the entitled townie at SXSW. They thought their $25 wristband guaranteed admission to any show they wanted to attend, so there were near-riot situations at several venues, as the badge-wearers waltzed in. The fire marshal didn’t help, enforcing load cards which had customarily been lowballed for a variety of reasons, regardless of how full the clubs actually were. I waited in line for half an hour to see a rare Jim Dickinson performance at the Saxon Pub, and the place was not even half-full.
I remember ‘91 as the year we followed Southern Culture on the Skids from their great show at the Ritz to a party at Mojo Nixon’s room at the Embassy Suites. Some guy showed up with a trash bag full of mushrooms, but it was late so I took mine to go.
The next morning the guy’s friend came up to me, and excitedly asked, “did you take those mushrooms?!” Not yet, I said. “Good! They’re poisonous!” he said. “My friend’s at the hospital right now getting his stomach pumped.” Oh, shit, I needed to alert some of the others, including Mojo’s guitar player Roscoe, so I got a posse together to find them. We raced to Liberty Lunch, where Mojo was onstage, mid-set. Roscoe was playing brilliantly. Whew! After he came off stage, we warned him, “don’t take those mushrooms!” He had a big, stoned smile. “I took ‘em a few hours ago, and they’re great!” But one guy had to go to the hospital, we said. “That guy’s a wimp.” I’ve had those panic attacks where you think something you ingested might kill you, but who goes to the hospital during SXSW?!
On the Monday night after Southby ‘91, True Believers had an unannounced reunion at the Hole In the Wall. “We’re gonna lock the door at 2 a.m. and play all night,” Alejandro Escovedo announced about half an hour before last call. I popped in the “poison” mushrooms I’d been saving for Tuesday and dug in for a wild night and morning. But the band played only five or six songs. When did Alejandro become George Jones? Dammit, I was just starting to come on. Now, what was I supposed to do all night? It was too late to get beer.
I was walking with Debbie Pastor in West Campus, looking for a party, any party, at around 3 a.m., when we happened upon flames in a familiar place. The fire trucks arrived just as we did, and Pastor had her miniature movie camera out. “This is the South by Southwest office,” I told the head fireman. “I work here.” The fire was started with a stack of Austin Chronicles at the door, and the damage wasn’t extensive inside- mostly smoke and water. “Why don’t you call your boss,” the fireman said, after they put out the mini-blaze, so I went inside and got Louis Black on the phone. I told him the fire was under control and he went back to sleep. Then I called SX director Roland Swenson, who arrived in a matter of minutes.
“Do you have any enemies?” the chief asked Roland. The day after SXSW? You could start with 400 angry Lucinda fans who couldn’t get in. The year the fire department dampened the fun, they ended up putting out a fire they probably contributed to.
With the firemen still inside and the mushrooms coming on strong, I explored the back office where much of the SXSW prep was done. There I found a trash can full of iced-down Miller Lite- the fest’s beer sponsor. And I sat there drinking one after the other while Deb asked me questions while filming. “Let’s make love on the burning embers,” I said at one point. To which Debbie, appropriately, laughed. Maybe a little too long.
Years later, in 2010, when Arts & Labor was making the Outside Industry doc about SXSW that used Pastor’s footage, I was told that within the Chron/SXSW circle I’d been considered a suspect in starting the fire. “Oh, right, he just happened to be walking by at 3 a.m. on a Tuesday morning.” I know it looks bad, but although I’ve gone to great lengths for free beer, I draw the line at arson.
Watch SXSW:OUTSIDE INDUSTRY. Fire at 49:11.
I, for one, won't be mad if you bring us more SX stories. 😊
So, green beer cans was 90?