Yesterday was rainy, and the previous day was torrential rainy. Today, day two of South by Southwest Music festival, was perfect. Around 80 degrees, windless, and all around pleasant. Today was the first day that the music portion of the festival was really kicked off, with music and people literally spilling out of every bar on sixth street here in Austin. I didn’t spend anytime on sixth today, I was across the river in the art boutique district taking in the Spin show at Schuba’s and then wandered down to Guero’s for the Galaxy showcase and caught Rocket from L.A. and Locksley from N.Y who were both fantastic.

Since properly recording this day will take some effort, I thought I would start with sharing a few pics that jumped out at me from the last two days.

This first pic belongs to Apes and Androids, an Austin NYC band that was much more than a just a bunch of guys on stage. They had facepaint and unusual garb reminiscent of the Ziggy Stardust aesthetic. They also had inflatable boogie monsters (boogie as in dancing not boogie as in scary, they weren’t).

This second pic features Rocket from L.A. in the final throws of their set. It seemed like all of the bands I saw at the Galaxy showcase were handpicked (by Mike Galaxy) for their stage presence, and this all girl group was no exception. I’d never heard of this band, and they blew me away. They were sexy as hell too.

Tommorow, the Agenda for the day is the Ballard Party with the Trucks, Thee Emergency at Whoopsie’s birthday party at 3pm, and then maybe Beirut at KEXP’s instudio. Seeing the Stooges for the in-studio was a goal of mine, but things didn’t exactly work to plan and I had to roll with it. Hopefully I RSVP’d soon enough for the Diesel party tommorow night, which features Girl Talk, Tokyo Police Club and Matt and Kim. We’ll see.

A final thought for the day: Every girl was wearing cowboy boots, regardless of whether they were wearing a skirt, dress, sweatpants, or jeans, and they were always tucked into the boot. I think cowgirl chic is about the hottest thing right now, but sweatpants? This I observed no less than three times, until I gave up counting and just accepted that Texas and cowboy boots are insepparable. Best boots of the day weren’t cowboy boots at all though, they were knee high black leather boots sported by none other than Rocket’s lead guitarist.