SXSW Thursday Night Roundup:

All afternoon: Cherrywood block party

Bands of note:
* The Silos. OK, but I used to love 'em around the time of their self-titled release in 1990.
* The lead singer of Long Winters. Quite Mountain Goatish.
* Li'l Cap'n Travis. Pretty good set, but the sound system sucked.

Thursday evening, I camped out at La Zona Rosa all night because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get in for Mission of Burma otherwise. LZR has a terrible L shape (bands play in the crook), high ceilings, and the muddiest sound system in Austin. Yuck. The bands were:

9 pm Seachange. Overwrought crap. They sounded like the worst of British alternative rock circa 1986 brought to the lowest common denominator. Urgh.

10 Preston School of Industry. Disappointingly jam-bandish. There was a kernel of goodness in each song, but I really expect more out of an ex-co-leader of Pavement.

11 Pretty Girls Make Graves. Good lord, they rocked. It sounded like the Voidoids with the Gang of Four's rhythm section and Debbie Harry on vocals. But somehow current, too. Wow.

12 Mission of Burma. I felt like I died and went to heaven. Thanks to Jon, I met Clint Conley afterwards, too, and he was quite nice.

Oh yeah, quote of the evening.

Spiral Stairs: "All our songs are about d. boon. Well, me and d. boon."

Guy Behind Me, in all seriousness: "Daniel Boone? Is he kidding?"

His Buddy: "Who else?"