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| Lindy: ALX 7 |
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| on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 - 12:00 AM - 647 Reads |
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The Annual Austin Lindy Exchange Continues to Kick Butt...
This weekend was a little inconsistent, but overall some of the best dances I've ever had. Saturday late night might have been the best late night I've ever been to. The music that night was incredible (Rayned, Shorty Dave and Thain DJing), and every dance I had was a bunch of fun, no matter who I danced with. Overall the level of dancing was better than Chicago, but I can't think of as many incredible dances that really stood out. Maybe that is just because I'm used to having good dances with my Austin friends, and they make up a large percentage of the amazing dancers at the Austin Exchange. Hosting was also a little stressful, but overall it worked out well. The big highlight is that since I haven't been traveling much, it was so nice to see a bunch of my traveling friends in town.
Venues: Standard for the Austin Exchange: 4 nights at the Fed, 2 late nights at Go Dance, and one at Ruta Maya. The only differences were using Jovita's for the meet and greet on Friday afternoon instead of the Broken Spoke, and a new venue for Sunday afternoon's dance. All of these were good choices, even though it was a bit disappointing that there wasn't an outdoor dancing option, since it was upper 60's/low 70's during the day.
Music: Very inconsistent. There were two rooms for dancing during the evenings, and 3 during Friday & Saturday late nights. So, generally speaking people could move around to find something they wanted to dance to. It is kind of frustrating to have to keep moving around to find something that speaks to you, but it is significantly better than having to put up with whatever one DJ decides is worth playing. I heard an out of town DJ complain about the quality of the in-town DJing, but I had more issues with the out of town DJs than the local ones. I'm guessing that has to do with out of towners not appreciating and/or respecting the preferred local music. I love medium to slow tempo lindy that has good gushy oomph to it. As soon as it starts to get faster or more staccato feeling, I lose interest. I'm also known as a blues dancer, but I'd take groove or blues almost all the time. I also heard complaints that the blues music played wasn't the greatest. I don't have much personal knowledge of this, but again, that was one of the reasons I'm not going to travel for blues events any more. I know what music I like to dance to, and not enough people play it or like dancing to it. I'm not surprised blues music is inconsistent in Austin, when there isn't much of a blues scene. One of these days, I'll organize my collection and start DJing the music I want to dance to.
The worst musical experience of the weekend was Sunday late night, when there were no options for what to dance to. I felt like the out of town DJs played too much music other than what I enjoy and have gotten used to hearing in Austin. As Tina pointed out, someone is always going to be unhappy with the DJing music choices, but a westie DJ playing classic rock and other such nonsense has no absolutely no place in a Sunday late night lineup, I don't care what anyone says. Also, the fast trad music doesn't bother me in small doses, but if that is all the DJ is capable of playing for an entire set, especially for the Sunday late night in Austin, I again will have serious issues. The bands were good, but not great. I found myself hanging out elsewhere or dancing in the blues room more than in the main room, so I never really got into the feel of the bands. I was especially looking forward to hearing Seth, but again, I missed the first set, and the second set seemed disappointingly short, and included too much latin stuff.
Hosting: I had Kristina, Mihai and Kenny stay with me. Also, a guy who works at TI in Dallas, attended a conference with me a couple weeks ago. He mentioned he and his girlfriend danced swing, so I invited them down, and they stayed with me Friday and Saturday nights as well. It is much different only hosting a few people than hosting over a dozen like I did in Chicago the two years I was there. I felt a little overwhelmed by the needs and requests of my guests, where in a bigger setting, they'd have known to better fend for themselves, or to work things out with other guests. Overall it was fine, and an enjoyable experience.
Dancers: My top 5 follows at the event, in alphabetical order...
Cassie (Baltimore) – Great to see this SF transplant again, we had some great dances. I so love fun SF styling
Emily (Knoxville) – I haven't seen this girl since STLBX '03. Really enjoyable to see and dance with her again
Laura (Austin) – She's been a favorite follow since I first met her at Lindygras '04. I had an amazing bluesy song with her Saturday late night, which was quite possibly my best blues dance ever.
Marci (Norfolk) – This girl blew me away with how much better she is than two years ago. And she's moving to Austin by next year!!!
Rebecca (Austin) – Probably the most underrated follow in Austin (if the amount of time she spends sitting against the wall at dances means anything), I had some great dances with her this weekend.
Friends Visiting I Enjoyed Seeing: Kristina (S. Florida), Kelly (Virginia Beach), James (Denver), Beth aka vsb (SF), Haley (Mexico), Shorty Dave & Kim Frey (NYC), Rayned (DC), Charlie (LA), Kent (SF), Mihai (SF), Kenny (SF), Lac & Angela (SF), Andrew (Sac), Darci (Michigan), Richard (Nashville), Anna (Houston), Lance (Dallas), Megan (Dallas), Lish (Chicago), Holly (Chicago), Jayoon (NY), Spyder (Vegas), William (Denver), Liz (San Diego), Karen Maria (Portland), Chelsea (LA), Mark Kapner (SF), Glenn (The US), Jimmie (Oklahoma), Andy (Denver), Megan (Ft Worth), Gary (Cleveland), Syrah (S Florida), Amy (St Louis), Jeramie (DC), Lou (England? Scotland? somewhere on that island).
It is always dangerous to make lists like these, because you invariably forget to include people, but I want to at least try remember the ones I can.
New Friends: Ashley (Denver), Emma (Australia), Evita (NYC), Kate & Mark (Dallas), Shorty George (NY)
I'm not even going to try to list all the incredible local Austinites I danced with. I can't express enough how incredibly happy I am that I live in this city.
Most Humorous Experience of the weekend: Me completely tripping on my pants at the end of a song and crashing into the floor at high speed.
Most Negative Experience of the weekend: Well, there wasn't anything in particular. I've already mentioned the inconsistency of the music. I spent most of the weekend either talking or dancing with people I already knew. I did not do a good job getting to know more people, or even remembering the names of the people I do remember meeting and dancing with before. That's always frustrating.
I never take pictures, but I should keep my camera phone on me more often and start updating my contact list with pictures...
Note: Updated title from ALX 8
ALX 7 / ALX 8, Whichever one it was they had this year... |
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