Death by Mixtape

The original plan was so sweet and indulgent it was cavity inducing, no surprise coming from Seattle's most self-aware, media-savvy, indie-pop sextet. Our not- exactly-beloved Lashes, freshly inked to a two-album/one-EP deal with Lookout!, were to embark on a two-week West Coast tour that would climax with their baby-I'm-a-star debut at Austin's annual South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival last Saturday. Avid fans of Almost Famous, and fans enough of this silly column to immortalize it as the B-side to their only 45, the boys invited yours truly to add even more man-stink to their seven-passenger van while they "chased their dream." Suggested headline—and bear in mind, these dudes once paid Belltown's homeless to picket a Sub Pop anniversary party with signs reading "Sub Pop: Sign the Lashes!"—"Almost Shameless."

Raddin'. But in true best-laid-plans fashion, I got hella sick, lost hella weight, shaved hella hair (unrelated to illness, but still important), canceled my original flight, and missed the band hobnobbing with, of all people, AF's Patrick "the Enemy" Fugit, before (deep breath) miraculously regaining my health, flying out to Austin kamikaze-style last Tuesday, and arriving in a makeshift tent outside of Emo's, emaciated, hairless, and breathless, to receive a bear hug and the following greeting from Lashes front man Ben Clark:

"What's up, Philadelphia?"

Didn't crack a smile? Abandon all hope, ye who read on. Like their leader, the Lashes are gleefully facetious, bawdy, sardonic, politically incorrect fashion whores. Like Stillwater, they crave the rock-star cocktail (free schwag, free beer, and free pot, preferably delivered by free girls), but secretly want nothing more than to meet—and rock—"real Topeka people" along the way. They dress, strut, talk shit, and start shit like a gang. They play hopeless-romantic, press-on-nails power pop, not the introspective, (ahem) angular indie brainfood the Pacific Northwest cherishes. For that, deservedly or not, they're hunted and despised like Bela Lugosi in their hometown, and they still don't have a friggin' album out. The solution: extending their reachbeyond the Capitol Hill hipster hierarchy that fosters their boorish, bad-boy, barfly personas. Until then, when it's time to party, the Lashes will party hard. And me? I wanna SXSW you up.

WEDNESDAY, 1:30 A.M. Hanging at the Emo's tent, post quasi-AIDS joke. The official SXSW gigs kick off in the afternoon, so no events of any consequence tonight. Jason Von Bondie (the Lashes, like the Ramones and the English press before them, encourage the notion that musicians should adopt their band's moniker as surname) is drinking a few feet away, looking like Gwen Stefani post-electroshock. One simple shoving match would make the Lashes the talk of Austin, but Ben and equally extroverted keyboardist Jacob Hoffman are preoccupied securing a private party with two locals, Paige and Helen. Upside: limitless Lone Star beer, palatial apartment complex, hot tub. Downside: While generous, the girls are more or less nutters (kinder band consensus: "intense"). Luckily, so are Jacob and guitarist/co-founder Eric Howk (like myself, a mortifying encyclopedia of one-hit '90s alternacrap); by the time they're successfully encouraging Paige and Helen to clock them as hard as they can, Fight Club–style, I'm shivering to sleep in soaked boxers.

Dawn and dusk (of the dead) arrive too quickly. About 90 percent of SXSW occurs on and around East Sixth Street, aka what would happen if Pioneer Square kidnapped Capitol Hill, threw it in the trunk, and drove it to Vegas for a shotgun wedding. The artists, many already fast deteriorating on a gas-food-lodging diet of beef jerky and American Lights, have precious little in the way of nourishment options, including possibly the worst street pizza in the country. (Exception: Hoek's, which not only actually employs an oven correctly, but blasts Mastodon, Today Is the Day, and other art-metal non-fucking-stop). The Lashes are already ass-broke, with a paltry guarantee for Saturday's show and a paucity of merch to flog. They wonder aloud how they're going to afford gas for the drive back to Seattle, but money has a way of magically materializing at just the right moment on tour. I'm often compelled to feed them, but it would be a better story if they starved to death. Luckily, there's no shortage of free beer.

After the daily Fader magazine schmoozefest, in which Seattle scenesters get bombed under a tent in the middle of the afternoon and pretend not to know one another, I abandon the Lashes for the Hydra Head showcase at Emo's, featuring My Favorite Band Making Music Right Now, skyscraper-toppling Chicago instrumental sludgecore quartet Pelican. I celebrate by hooking myself up to the rum and Coke IV and breaking my neck via the always challenging "abrupt time signature change headbang." The Lot Six, Bronx, and Cave In (who dutifully rock out their killer old thrashy stuff) might as well be covering the Teletubbies theme. Pelican destroys. I'm still merrily air palm-muting in drop C when Ben pisses out of the van's shotgun window at 70 mph three hours later.

THURSDAY, 3:30 P.M. Today's Fader party surreality: The good folks at Levi's outfit and photograph the Lashes in saucy new jeans, vests, jackets, and sneaks, which I'd call absolute bullshit on if I weren't a jealous bastard, and if these guys didn't already vainly pass the pomade before every public appearance. Looks aren't everything in the Lashes, but they're definitely a sizable chunk of the pie chart. Diminutive spark plug bassist Nate Mooter and his fluffy Johnny Thunders 'do are the breakout stars of the shoot, although he'd rather be off skating with guitarist/best friend Scotty Rickard, who has his own "problems" as the quiet, intense, smoldering-but-spoken-for Lash. The cell phone eschewing duo are deceptively salt of the earth, often disappearing to bro down with street kids, but displaying the most thoughtfulness and originality of the lot. I'd love to watch them all get their bulging inseams measured, but am due to get my mind reblown by Pelican at Jackalope's and froth to Local H's spot-on CCR and Foreigner covers back at the Emo's tent.