This year, Dallas Observer music blog DC9 at Night and Houston Press music blog Rocks Off teamed up to bring you dispatches from the SXSW madness. Here are the nine worst things we saw.
See also: -There's an App to Get You Laid at SXSW, But You Absolutely Don't Need the Help -The 50 Commandments of SXSW -What You're Missing at SXSW: Missed Connections and Crappy Free Crap -The Five Biggest Sellouts at SXSW -50 Important SXSW Music Questions
9. Security and Cops Gettin' Wild: Look, I get it. Every drunken dickhead in town "knows someone" or thinks he has pull at the door, but that doesn't mean the hammer goes down on everyone. I was stopped by two cops who didn't want me to walk 50 yards from where the Smashing Pumpkins would be playing an hour hence, for unknown reasons.
Photos by Marco Torres Somebody somewhere really did not want us to see Smashing Pumpkins at SXSW.
And then when you want to play the whimpering "I have a SXSW badge, though" card, you feel like a choad and don't. I don't know what function preventing people from walking in the middle of a closed street had, but I hope it somehow saved thousands of lives. CRAIG HLAVATY
8. All the Garage-Rock Acts: Should just pool their beer, weed, and cigarette money together and start sending the Black Lips royalty checks. I steered clear of every obnoxious surf-, fuzz-, buzz- and ADHD-plagued group I could, and still some of it made its way into my earholes. I would say I am ready for the next big movement, but what if it involves garage and dubstep? What then? CRAIG HLAVATY
7. The Constant Noise: Did you know there is a lot of live music in Austin during SXSW? There is a lot. So much, in fact, that the din reaches a sufficient pitch as to drown out the more feeble buskers. I saw a tired dude playing acoustic guitar, muted completely by the nearby patio stages and the distant rumble from the monolithic vending machine or whatever and the hundreds of people rushing by, talking loudly on their cell phones. KIERNAN MALETSKY
