bluegrass to lonestar

Saturday night we headed to Longbranch. It was packed. After a couple drinks we decided to check out Shangri-La, another east side joint.  The host an acclaimed sock hop on the second Sunday of each month, but I haven’t made it to that yet.  They have a nice patio area, pretty much a staple in Austin. It was too cold to enjoy so we headed inside.  There are a couple pool tables, a row of old school arcade games, and an odd seating area in the corner.  A cursory glance at the juke box looked fairly promising. The bathroom doors are marked with a rooster and a cat (clever).  They have a couple decent beers on tap and prices seem pretty cheap.  It was also very busy and some strange dude started to hit on my companions so we left.

We walked a bit further east to Rio Ritas.  This place is the total opposite of Shangri-La.  It was well lit and had lots of seating.  This is most likely because they are a coffee shop during the day.  The bar is tiny and oddly placed.  The line bascially runs right through the middle of the place.  Lauren knew the bartender from Bloomington, a pleasant surprise.  Drinks in hand we grabbed a couch by the door.  The vibe is nicely relaxed.  They serve slice of East Side Pies if your hungry and I hear they make the best bloody mary in Austin.  I need to investigate this claim soon.

The last time we saw our buddies from South Bend, we went on a fruitless scavenger hunt for Putt Putt in Louisville.  Last weekend we spotted this guy while driving down South Lamar.

So we thought it might make for some good Saturday afternoon entertainment.  Unfortunately it was about 45 degrees, but the course was still great.  Almost every hole involved maneuvering around a painted concrete dinosaur, clown or animal that has probably been in the same exact spot since Peter Pan’s opened in 1948.  Just for the record, Lauren killed us all.  The greens were a bit rough, lots of debris and some standing water from the last 3 days of rain, but it was only $5 for 18 holes.  Did I mention it’s also BYOB?!  The cold-weather crowd was definitely taking advantage of that concession.  I’m pretty sure the guys taking the payment would have let us play through the other 18 for free too.  But it was cold and we needed to grab something hot and filling before a night on the town.

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Three days of this had begun to take it’s toll, but we are professionals so we persevered. We hopped the bus to the SxSeattle party Saturday afternoon. Best decision of the week. Apparently, the Seattle record labels are raking it in because they put on one impressive free party. Catered food that included sushi, veggie empanadas, salmon/halibut cakes, marion berry tarts, and iced coffee. The drinks were top shelf too–Makers Mark, Grey Goose, etc.

We sat out on the porch overlooking the creek and let Hey Marseilles provide some nice background music for our lunch. After we ate Dynah started their set. The singer had some absurd fake tattoo eye makeup on, and a fake British accent that turned out to be a real British accent. Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band was up next and brought the energy and lots of instruments.

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Feeling a bit worse for wear from the previous day we started Friday out in search of free food and drink once again. Maggie Mae’s was a bust, and we got one drink ticket each at Habana 6, but the bar wasn’t open yet. Lauren opted to stay there for Parenthetical Girls and That Ghost (both good in very different ways, says she), but the rest of the gang walked up to Red Eyed Fly for free, spicy bloody marys and PBR tallboys. Matt Ellis provided some crappy country music as soundtrack to our drink.

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Now these are the ridiculous swells of people I was expecting.  We got downtown early to snag some free chow and the streets were already half full of people.  The food place wasn’t open yet so we went to Beauty Bar for free beer and doughnuts.  Breakfast of champions.  While there we happened upon French Miami who were really great.  The guitarist was a crazy finger tapper and the drummer sang along, the mark of a guy who loves his band.  After their set we went around the corner to Flamingo Cantina to see a few songs of Telekinesis.  I can’t dislike drummer-singers, but they were really fun and poppy besides.  We headed out for free tacos and Red Stripe at the My Old Kentucky Blog party, which seemed pretty lame aside from the beer.  They were out of tacos but had abundant Sweet Leaf Tea which kept our resident non-beer drinker happy.

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