Kate Galloway's final report from SXSW

Here is Kate Galloway's final report from SXSW 2006:

"Finally, I'm home. Although the most crowded I've ever seen it, the 20th Annual SXSW Music Festival was smashing. I've heard reports that there were 8,000+ attendees, which sounds about right. The final day kicked off at 4:00 pm with finding out about a "secret" (yes, that word again) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show which we got in to quite easily, and there were only a couple hundred there at best.

Saturday also seemed to be a big day for day parties. I ended up going over to the RajiWorld party in the afternoon, just as I did last year, hosted again by groupie extraordinaire, Pamela Des Barres. It's a good place for me to catch up with old friends, and see one of my favorites, Steve Poltz. Steve brought a couple friends to play with him. Billy Harvey (please go to his website, it's great www.billyharveymusic.com) and A.J. Croce, son of Jim Croce. Craig, Aubry, and a whole bunch of other people went to the Vitriol Radio party, which was delayed by the rain. What are you going to do? That's how festivals go...

Had to rush across town to catch Dressy Bessy, but when I got there, I couldn't get in! Sometimes, even when you have a badge it doesn't matter because of capacity issues. It was evident that the place was a bit too small to host Dressy Bessy, and they could've played somewhere that had double the capacity. I was able to squeeze in during the last two songs though.

We were able to rush over to see the last 3 songs of the Deaths for their performance and Nuno's upstairs. Ran into a few MN people including Dave Campbell, Ross Raihala and Adam Turman.

We ran over to catch the 88 one more time before heading out. This time, there weren't any more myspace "grinding dancers". But it was definitely in some sort of college bar. After that, I ran down to see The Bedroom Walls and The Owls at the same place Dressy Bessy had performed. This time, we got in ok, but there was still a very healthy crowd. It was obvious that The Owls certainly have drawn attention outside of Minneapolis. There were many people singing along to the tunes.

Earlier in the day we'd been invited to go to a party hosted by Kimberly Gottshalk, formerly of Sue McLean & Associates. It was a very nice little party on the patio at the Driskill, with free booze. Lots of free booze. I was able to finally pull myself away from the dancing and drinking to go to the final event of the night, Jucifer, which could be heard from 4 blocks away. Needless to say, it was as impressive as always. Saw a couple of Minneapolis folks there too, which was nice.

Luckily, we were able to get some breakfast at the famous Magnolia Cafe Sunday before getting on the road. We also picked up a stray, Sam Keenan, to join us on the ride back. My brain and body are fried, but of course I have great memories that help alleviate the negatives."