SXSW: 17 hours with an indie band

For the thousands of people who attend the South by Southwest Music Festival every year whether they splurge for a badge or a wristband or opt to stick to free events the routine is familiar: Wake up, hop from show to show, partake of free food and beer, crash, and do it all over again the next day.

But for the nearly 2,000 performing bands, the landscape looks a little different. They sashay hurriedly across Austin, many playing multiple gigs a day, contending with setting up and taking down equipment, fighting with traffic to get from place to place, squeezing in interviews and meetings and networking with industry personalities.

What's it like being a buzzed, up-and-coming band at SXSW, one of those groups that gets blog love and critical praise?

To find out, I spent from morning to night — or, technically, morning to morning — with just such a band, New Jersey's Titus Andronicus. The lo-fi rock band formed in 2005 and played its first SXSW last year. It's touring behind sophomore album "The Monitor," an epic hourlong concept album that centers on the Civil War and has received positive reviews from Pitchfork and Spin and a write-up in Rolling Stone. The band members arrived Wednesday night in Austin, at the tail end of a two-week tour playing exclusively independent record stores to celebrate the album's release. Sunday, they'll kick off a more traditional five-week tour with a show in El Paso.

This year, despite planning to trim their hectic festival schedule of 2009, they're playing even more shows — eight total — with plenty of meetings and press interviews scheduled, too. I was with them on a day with three shows and three interviews as well as a meeting with representatives of Beggars Group, the British record company that owns their label, XL Recordings.

Follow along as the young quintet storms Austin and faces down a challenging day that would look unusual to most — but that, for four days every March, is a reality for thousands of performing SXSW musicians.

9:55 a.m. Thursday

We begin in the parking lot of a Best Western in North Austin, where bass guitarist Ian Graetzer is alone in the early morning chill, making a valiant attempt to clear out the more offensive particles of trash that collect in the van of a touring indie rock band. I tell Graetzer that his hotel — situated off a freeway on-ramp — is a particularly glamorous place to stay, every bit indicative of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle. "Yeah, it seems like this is definitely where the hustle and bustle is," he quips. The band generally doesn't get to stay in hotels — Beggars Group is footing the bill for the in-store tour — and the members will soon return to sleeping on the floors with hosts they find through open calls on the band blog. "It's like having a sleepover with friends every night," Graetzer says, "only your friend is some stranger."

10:15 a.m.

The band barrels south down Interstate 35 for a meeting with label reps at Güero's Taco Bar. Since he's driving, Graetzer gets to choose the music — they call this policy "driver's delight" — but he defers to Patrick Stickles (lead vocals, guitar), who opts for North Carolina punk band Spider Bags. All five members of the band were on time this morning, reasonably bright-eyed after an unusual seven hours of sleep. The touring van, half seats and half cargo area where thousands of dollars' worth of gear is densely piled, has the expected appearance of a lived-in space, with a case of Miller High Life on the floorboards and books strewn about. Amy Klein (guitar, electric violin) suggests passing the time by doing mad libs, and the band shows all the maturity you'd expect from five twentysomethings — within minutes, drummer Eric Harm is asking his bandmates how to spell "diarrhea."

10:35 a.m.

Clad, appropriately, in a faded Abraham Lincoln T-shirt, Stickles is standing outside Güero's as Graetzer wanders off to phone their label reps, who are nowhere to be seen. The restaurant isn't open yet. Stickles, a wry wit constantly ready with a one-liner, tells me to take note. "You'll see a lot of this — all of us standing around and doing jack while we wait for Ian to tell us what to do," he says. "Ian is pretty much the boss around here. He's a master of logistics. Write that down."