Day Two of SXSW starts with overcast skies and a rain-threatening disposition. First order of the day are breakfast tacos, which we find cheaply and deliciously at El Chilito’s on Manor Drive. Bleary-eyed Southwestians shake off the free beer/energy drink-combo blues with cheap coffee and dollar twenty-five burritos. The silence of the morning seems extra golden.

Approaching the grounds of the French Legation Museum, a familiar din of guitarage rings through the neighborhood’s otherwise peaceful quarter. Under a white tent, the silver-haired J Mascis is wrenching fuzzy ripplings of notes from an unsuspecting acoustic guitar. At first there appears to be two men on stage but one turned out to be an over-eager camera dude going in for a closeup. 

On the acoustic stage, Silje Nes from Norway (pictured) plays a quietly elegant set of songs accompanied by looping taps of her guitar and a friend’s ever-so-slight percussion. She is shy, singing about the ocean — we dig it. Just as we are slipping into our north European slumber fantasy, we are shaken out of our garden chairs by an assault of low-end so ferocious that we can hear King Tubby perk up out of his grave.

“We are These New Puritans and … that’s all I have to say.” It seems that these skinny English people (see evidence of skinniness) have come to Texas to announce the end of the world, or at least the end of the Western world. “China, India, my future!” they roar. And then, “Fire, Fire!” Burritos drop from hands, Birkenstocks evaporate, and the sun that had just started to shine quickly hides behind some dark grey clouds as TNP clobber us with kick-drum blasts to the chest. We take ten steps back to prevent our lungs from collapsing. At first, these three guys and a girl seem to be exemplary students of mancunian post-punk, but then we realize they sound exactly like Anthrax covering MIA. Exactly!

Bowerbirds from North Carolina have a tough task following the British invasion with their acoustic guitar, violin, and bass drum, but bring the audience pulse back out of the red gently with their sweet vocal harmonies and confident stance.

The always excited Mika Miko (pictured) skipped soundcheck in order to get the party started and within seconds command the audience out of their folding chairs to bum rush the stage. Their jumpy, jagged call-and-response skronk shake the last of the clouds off the sun and add some levity to the proceedings.

As any who have attended SXSW are well aware, hygiene is a rare commodity given the high rate of couch-surfing, car-sleeping, and back-to-back show schedules. It's no surprise then that we find Ethan Miller of Howlin Rain in the bushes brushing his teeth (evidence pictured). His half-sincere effort at being discreet is charming but we still bust him.

To transition day into night we stop off at the 9th street “jumps,” a stretch of forest in Duncan park downtown where teenage dirtbikers have built gnarly ramp hills out of dirt in order to get a taste of sky. According to some elaborate silent code, the huddled pack of youngsters take turns launching into the sun-sprayed air. We talk to one kid from Pennsylvania (pictured) who was down for the week. “You come down for South by Southwest?” we ask. “Naw, just for bikin’.” Bitchin’ little guys.

The legendary Half Japanese play a rousing set outside Lucky Flame gallery where HJer Jad Fair (pictured) is exhibiting some of his artwork. The brothers Fair are backed by an excellent gang of musicians who are dancing, joking and generally laughing their way through the Half Japanese endless back catalogue. They are the happiest band alive, and it's good to see them basking in the spotlight of a billion camera flashes.

Another round of tacos has us feeling confident and cocky enough to hatch a scheme to penetrate (err...) the Justice-headlining Playboy event. Just for kicks we join the mob of media and VIPs storming the back door. Men in red velour “bunny” robes beg the crowd of hungry “journalists” to stand back. As we push our way to the front we righteously present our Arthur Magazine press credentials to the listmaster only to see her eyes glaze over. She swats us away.

We laugh it off, but the humiliation hits home when a Hollywood she-devil in tight pants slugs Mark in the shoulder when he doesn’t respond to her drunken serenade. If she wasn’t so wasted we would have put her in the Akashic death grip but we just blessed her three times and booked it to the Austin Children’s Museum in hopes of a safer and more friendly environment. The handlers clearly played hooky on the day they explained crowd control and line formation as they take a perfectly orderly line and direct it into the middle of San Jacinto’s oncoming traffic. A hundreds-deep all-ages crowd has enough of their machinations and in a David-and-Goliath moment create a human slingshot propelling your adventurous reporters through the gates of the museum, past the list-checkers and wristband-attachers, and into the heart of a spaz-tacular mayhem being led by LA’s The Mae-Shi (pictured). There was none of the typical SXSW congregtion of indifference and free beer hunters; this all-ages crowd was there to par-tay...

Molly Frances and Mark Frohman are the genius art directors of Arthur Magazine, as well as being major editorial contributors to the hippie rag. They are filing daily reports from SXSW.