It's Texas, but not as you know it. Laura Barton and Amy Fleming take in one of the world's biggest rock festivals and find a bohemian oasis in the Lone Star state. It's a weird little city, Austin; a ramshackle clutter of voodoo emporiums, thrift stores, psychedelia and dive bars, nestled up against state buildings, hi-tech industries, mountains and lakes.
There are wide streets and high-rises, the headquarters of Whole Foods Market, and more bloggers than anywhere else in the US.
It is also, according to the city's official slogan, "The Live Music Capital of the World", and twice a year, Austin hauls out its finery and its southern charm to play host to two of the biggest annual music festivals in the world.
South by Southwest - an industry showcase gone wild - sprawls across the city in various venues over the course of a week in March. Austin City Limits (ACL), for which we have come, follows the regular rock festival format of several stages erected in a big old field for a weekend. Though we are here for the delights of ACL, the scruffy allure of the city keeps us in town more than we'd anticipated.
A bohemian oasis in a redneck state, Austin has always been fairly cosmopolitan for its size (its population has recently swelled to a modest 1.5 million), inhabited by University of Texas students, aspiring musicians and a fair few eccentrics.
The capital of Texas has long been associated with partying, a reputation dating back to the 19th century when General Custer's troops frequented the city's numerous nightspots after the civil war. Since then, the area around 6th Street and 4th Street have remained the hubs of the city's nightlife where you'll find music venues such as Stubbs BBQ, Emo's and the Parish Room.
Austin's eclectic music scene is as old as the city itself, on account of its Mexican, German and colonial origins. By the 30s the city streets were swarming with jazz clubs such as the Cotton Club, which were gradually replaced by blues bars in the 60s and then, in the 70s, country music came to Austin and it all got mixed up.
Today, this is where country and bluegrass meld awesomely with stoner and psychedelic rock.
Local musical heroes have included the be-plaited Willie Nelson (still going strong at 74), Roky Erickson, Daniel Johnston, the Gourds, Butthole Surfers, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and the Black Angels. To name but seven.
We arrive late on a muggy evening, wired from jetlag, and sit out on the porch, chit-chatting and drinking all night long. Via the online noticeboard, craigslist.org, we have rented a little wooden house 10 minutes' walk from the centre of town. Renting a stranger's home for the weekend is always a bit of a gamble, but this place is clean and cosy and pretty, with a Day of the Dead toy skeleton sitting cross-legged on the garden bench.
Austin is a fine city for breakfasting: huevos rancheros, pancakes, quesadillas and watermelon juice are menu staples, and our night of travelling has left us ravenous.
We hop on a Dillo (as in armadillo, varnished wooden buses that patrol Austin's streets with a jovial air, and cost precisely nothing to ride) and head downtown, over the Colorado river, to South Congress and the promise of one of the best diners in town.
Congress is a broad avenue that bisects the city, with the magnificent dome of the state capitol building perched at the top.
It used to be the main route into town, but during the 1960s gleaming new highways beckoned the traffic away from the once prosperous South Congress neighbourhood, rents went down and artists and independent retailers moved in.
Today its bohemian tendencies, record shops and vintage stores have earned it the nickname "SoCo".
The Magnolia Cafe sits plum in the middle of SoCo. It's that American diner of your dreams: low-lying, neon-lit, promising root beer floats and apple pie.
It's busy this morning, with a queue that snakes out into the parking lot. There are omelettes, sandwiches on rye, fries and mighty fine burgers.
ACL puts on special buses for the festival, ferrying the revellers from downtown to its venue at Zilker Park on the outskirts, and the next day we hop aboard. It's a good-natured festival, the attendees meandering leisurely from stage to stage, and we join them until we grow so hot and dusty that we feel compelled to plunge into Barton Springs - the natural cold springs just across the way from the festival site.
The next day we are somewhat bedraggled. We haul ourselves to Guadalupe Street near the university, and sit in silence at Kerbey Lane Cafe (12602 Research Blvd, kerbeylanecafe.com), hoping that eggs and coffee might revive us.
A little refreshed, we lope around some more vintage clothing stores such as Creme Vintage and Blue Velvet, and admire the Daniel Johnston graffiti, before seeking refuge in a cab ride across town. Big mistake.
Upon discovering the fact that we are British, the taxi driver launches into a manic defence of David Icke's theories of alien lizards walking among us, for he has, he says, seen them too. Our heads pound, the driver rolls forth on his lizardy monologue, and the streets of Austin rush by, a blur of finger puppet shops, crawfish restaurants and cheap bars. Oh, we think, what a weird little city.
