Any band that descends upon Austin for the annual all-out fest SXSW will tell you that sure, the music is nice, but the BBQ is killer. Here, Oakland’s the Matches, who just released A Band in Hope this week and have embarked upon a mega tour behind it, share with us their best in BBQ bites from Austin mainstays Stubb’s and Ironworks. If you ask drummer Matt Whalen which of the two spots he preferred, Ironworks wins in a landslide of sauce and Texas-sized sweet tea.

Here is the band at Stubb’s, where Whalen says they scarfed down “better-than-decent pulled pork with its accompanying mediocre BBQ sauce,” made better when washed down with sweet tea.

At Ironworks, the Matches overhear other SXSW-goers discussing “how awesome Vampire Weekend is” while coming to a favorable realization about the President. “We waited for a relatively short 20 minutes to get in to Ironworks, which is known as a favorite of good ol’ George W," Whalen says. "The food was so good that I ate too much and almost collapsed in a BBQ coma [ed note: there is photographic evidence of this below] while playing our second show of the day later that night. Lesson learned. George W. does know one thing: Where to get good BBQ in Austin.”

But for the vegetarians in Austin, as Rachael Ray can attest, there’re fewer options. Singer Shawn Harris tells me about his mission to “to discover if Texas BBQ is not just for the carnivores.” Was he successful? Totally! But we can’t print how happy he was about a spot called Mother’s, which is located off the beaten 6th St. path. “The menu featured Mother’s special: BBQ tofu baked in a tamari peanut marinade and topped with a house BBQ sauce served with sage mashed potatoes and black eyed peas--for less than ten dollars! Video was shot of the meal, which was later found to be mostly unusable due to a smattering of expletives throughout, such as ‘F***! This is the Sh**!’ Humans and farm animals applaud.”