South by Southwest rings into action with Austin Music Awards

Sung Park/American-Statesman Daniel Johnston was among the performers at Wednesday night's Austin Music Prom, also known as the Austin Music Awards.

By Michael Corcoran

American-Statesman Staff

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Wednesday afternoon at the Hole in the Wall, Robyn Hitchcock sang a ditty about television to rapt fans who will probably not watch much TV for the next few days. Then the twisted British pop singer, an ordained minister, officiated over a marriage between a journalist and an exotic dancer.

Let the weirdness begin, though with warmer weather than Wednesday's South By Southwest Music Festival kickoff, when uncharacteristically frigid temperatures in the 40s transformed black leather jackets from fashion statements to necessities.

At the Austin Music Awards inside the toasty Austin Music Hall on Wednesday night, Los Lonely Boys repeated last year's Band of the Year victory, and longtime AMA pets Eric Johnson (Musician of the Year) and Bob Schneider (Album of the Year) racked up the other top awards.

The cast of MTV's "Real World Austin" is working on a documentary of this year's festival. But the "real world" and Austin will have little in common until Sunday, when more people than usual will be sleeping on planes leaving the city.

With a record high 1,350 bands playing on 58 stages, the 19th year of the fest promises to be the biggest ever, which was exemplified by long lines at the registration counters Wednesday.

"I waited about 40 minutes," said Brian Smith, who books talent for Hollywood nightclub the Troubadour. "It was about what I expected, but what's the deal with this weather?"

In previous SXSW campaigns, the thermometer mirrored public course golf scores, from the high 70s to mid-80s.

As the cold wind whipped around the outside of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, New York comic and music fan Jackie Martling quipped, "That was a long flight, and it still feels like Long Island."

Still, the chill didn't stop one New York visitor from trying to catch a little sun at the Radisson Hotel pool in the early afternoon.

"I saw a little patch of blue," said Jeremy Simon, who has neither badge nor wristband but plans to hit day shows open to the public. "This is still balmy compared to the weather I just left."

The rain and cold did cause the postponement of the world premiere of the "Willie Nelson: Tsunami Relief" DVD, filmed at the Austin Music Hall in January, which was to be shown free at Republic Square downtown.

Singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne was a late scratch due to illness, canceling his Wednesday showcase as well as today's "Austin City Limits" taping. (Spoon will tape its "ACL" segment this afternoon as planned.)

Meanwhile, the cold didn't keep away Austinites who had one last chance to buy wristbands Wednesday morning. The initial allotment has been sold out for more than a week, so when it was announced on the radio that an additional 1,000 wristbands would go on sale, they were snapped up, at $150 each, in less than two hours.

The total number of wristbands sold is about 7,000, SXSW publicity director Elizabeth Derczo said. She expects more than 8,000 badgewearers at this year's event, which mixes industry panels with record label parties, rock icons such as Robert Plant and Elvis Costello with scruffy upstarts.

So, where's the party? That was the top question in year's past, when festivalgoers hung out at the Convention Center on opening Wednesday, seeking out publicists and insiders for tips on where the booze and bands would be during the day.

But with the assistance of such Internet sites as www. showlistaustin.com, this year's attendees had the private bash scene scoped out before they hit the city limits.

But, as always, the biggest bash for the local music scene was the music awards show, long referred to as the Austin Music Prom for its stabs at formality amid a charmingly amateuristic presentation.

Mesmerizing in an early slot were John Cale and Alejandro Escovedo, who brought chills of an entirely emotional sort with a set that began with Cale's "Paris 1919" and ended with a stunningly vulnerable duet of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."

Big winners included Wideawake, which won four Austin Music Awards, including best male vocalist and best songwriter for Scott Leger, despite having a limited local following.

Crazed bluesrock band Grady was voted Best New Band, and such perennial victors as Toni Price (blues), Cruiserweight (punk) and Dale Watson (country) were also on hand at the ceremonies, which included musical performances by Daniel Johnston, a link to the SXSW film counterpart as the subject of a lauded documentary, a salute to Austin's original honky tonkers, and Nanci Griffith with the original Crickets.