Small Sins Devour BBQ with Jimmy Kimmel at SXSW -- Road Report

For Spinner's SXSW Road Report we wanted to find a band that wasn't afraid to get down and dirty, and, of course, tell us all about it, which is why we've teamed up with Toronto's Small Sins. No stranger to the madhouse that is Austin mid-March, the enterprising indie rockers are seasoned pros at making the most of the five-day blitz (March 16-20), taking in the sights and sounds and BBQ of SXSW at all hours (and we do mean ALL hours). Stay tuned for faithful updates from keyboardist Kevin Hilliard as he details Small Sins adventures (and misadventures) while in the good ol' Lone Star State this week.

Day Five:

I was almost brought to tears twice on Saturday at SXSW.

Since all of our official "work" was done, we were now free to do whatever the hell we wanted to during our last 24 hours in Austin. The first choice was to head out to the holy grail of BBQ, The Salt Lick. If you ever come to Texas, this is the place to go. As a fully meat-eating band that tours a bunch I'd like to think we know our stuff when it comes to the smokey arts. Quite often a meal will be dissected in the van for a while afterwards: How was the texture? Smokeyness? Flavour? Many an hour has been killed deciding who has the best pulled pork versus who has the best beef brisket. On Saturday (March 19), we had a clear winner.

When you pull up to The Salt Lick, you immediately know you have arrived at something special. There had to have been 300 people just milling about waiting for a table, watching the live band playing out in the courtyard, drinking beer from their coolers (it's BYOB) and just chillin' in the sun. When we were told it would be an hour wait we headed immediately for the bocce pit and took on some unsuspecting Americans.





Watch Small Sins' Perform at the Winery in Austin

An hour later we were knee-deep in the best ribs/brisket/sausage I have ever had. Several of us were on a meat high and on the drive back to Austin, I started tearing up at what had just gone down my throat.










It was almost a religious experience, one that we shared with TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who was also there chowing down. Good enough for Hollywood, good enough for post-boop/pre-blog Cancon I say.











Later that night, we hit Momo's to see The Autumn Defense and that too blew my mind. If you don't know who they are, just get out there and buy any of their LPs. They are all amazing. For those who don't know, the masterminds behind the group are Wilco's John Stirratt and Pat Sansone. Picture Wilco meets Bread and have a good idea of what went down. The show was phenomenal. Their version of 'Feel You Now' gave me actual goose bumps and by the end of the set this jaded old fart was actually welling up. For the first time since I was 15, I bought a band T-shirt. From sarcastic bastard to fanboy in 45 minutes. Anything is possible at SXSW folks.

That's it for SXSW '11. I want to thank Spinner.com for letting me rant on their space and I hope to see you all at SXSW '12! If you need me, I'll be blogging by the pool.