Work for trade — that’s how I got into South By Southwest this year. I shot a full day for them with my video type stuff and in return they gave me a badge. So, for the first time in a decade, it was fully on for me at SXSW.
No, that’s not me. But it kinda looks like me. Unfortunately.
Three things I took away from a week of hanging out with the cool kids from your town and mine:
1) Dance pop rules all.
As public acknowledgment of the developed world’s impending demise grows, one might predict the music scene would turn dour and coat itself in funereal flannel. Instead, it appears we’ll be bootyshaking our way down the 6-lane highway to hell.
2) Indifference is dead.
As a corollary to #1, bands seem to have eschewed ennui and affected boredom for pure enthusiasm. Everyone I saw (except possibly the Vivian Girls, who also wore flannel now that I think about it), was incredibly positive and gracious to the audience. I was thanked at least 9465 times last week for my attendance.
3) You need no official gear to have a blast at SXSW.
All you need to do is get here. There is so much free music, and free food+booze, it’s astounding. Nobody I know without a badge or wristband had any less of a glorious week than I did, though the ability to get into DEVO alone made it worth the ugly neck garb/lame status symbol of the badge. Anyway, point is, just come. It’s awesome.
I’d been feeling my mp3 collection getting stale lately, but the haze of 20+ shows in 4 days certainly cured that. In the interests of sharing, I thought I would present an mp3 sampling of the bands that blew me away. I hope a few of these rock your world, too. If any band wants their song taken down, just say the word…
Recently