Ah! Austin. Even after being around you so many years, your awful, awful traffic never ceases to amaze. Then again, you have an awesome downtown. Yet it’s still weird that the University of Texas AND the Texas State Capitol have existed blocks away from one another for over a hundred years and you STILL thought it was cool to have only two freeways servicing the entire population. And now the areas AROUND downtown have become congested to the point that residents die because ambulances cannot attend to emergencies in the low-income residences east of the freeway.But, aside from bad coordination among city planners, Austin’s downtown is still a sight to behold. Bars, pizza restaurants on wheels, drunk people—everything a great downtown needs! And this afternoon downtown Austin was accompanied by the marvelous, batshit crazy, loud sounds of Monterrey’s Bam Bam. While I missed the first two or three songs of their set, it became clear upon arrival that the band was firing on all cylinders, commanding the tiny stage as if it were their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
In this dark shell of a bar, “Ragatrón” cooed and then sizzled like dream-thrash paranoid shakedowns. “Hipnódromo” brought the Lone Star-inebriated house down, bringing people in from the venue’s outdoor stage to see who was creating this bombastic noise. In the end, there were calls from hipsters and common gringos alike yelling “Otra!” and “Who are you?!!!” My response to one couple: “If you only knew.”
NOTE: I ultimately told that couple that they were watching Bam Bam. I’m not that much of a dick.