Saturday, March 15, 2008

Greetings From SXSW!.....Finally.

If any of you ever find yourselves in Austin, TX at SXSW never commit to writing a daily blog.

As you know, I made this mistake this week. Between all the hipster madness that is SXSW I thought I would be able to get away for a little while each day to write a blog. Obviously I was dead wrong. Since we landed at the beautiful Bergstrom International Airport (really, it's beautiful. One of the nicest airports I've seen) on Wednesday it has been absolutely non stop go go go all the time. To Party Girl Stacey's delight, I have to confess that I did sneak away on Thursday and took a much needed nap. I will never hear the end of this from Stacey but I had only slept four hours in two days. It was less about my choosing to take a nap and more about my body saying to me "Dude, seriously I'm done. I don't care about your stupid SXSW adventure, I'm crashing for three hours."

The broadcasts have been going awesome. The usual technical problems here and there, but for the most part it's been a success. (I'm literally knocking on wood right now because we are going on the air in an hour.) If you've been keeping up on our website I'm sure you've seen the pictures. We've had Moby, Daryl Hall & T Bone, Steve Lillywhite, The Duke Spirit, The Republic Tigers and Shepard Fairey all stopped by over the past two days. Today we have some more great guests coming by so make sure you listen at 12 bells.

It is an impossibility to catch all the bands and shows that you want to see here at SXSW. So many bands so little time. Between working all day at our broadcast and there being 8,000 venues and a million bands, I honestly didn't think I was going to see any of the bands I wanted to. There are some bands I missed that I wish I had been able to check out, but I have seen some amazing shows.



Here are some highlights:

R.E.M. @ Stubbs Wednesday Night:

This was the first night we were here. There was tons of buzzthroughout the streets about the R.E.M. show. There is always thosecouple shows that everyone is talking about at SXSW...this was one ofthem. They sounded great. Personally, I would have liked to here morehits, but the new songs sound pretty good. The atmosphere was electricat Stubbs. We have spent a lot of time at Stubbs. It is a fantasticvenue, one of the best here. Picture a giant backyard party with astage and about five bars. The sound is surprisingly really good too,even though it's outdoors.

The Wombats @ Cedar Street Courtyard Friday afternoon:

This is the venue we are doing our broadcast from and also where our INDIE 1031 showcase is taking place tonight. This is the second best venue at SXSW. There is this little alley type courtyard in the middle of two buildings/bars with the stage at the end of it. Such a great spot to hang out for the day. A friend of mine had sent me some tracks from The Wombats a couple weeks ago. These dudes are the future...young, British, energetic, really fun band, tons of hype right now. I knew they were playing here at SXSW. They were even on my "bands I NEED to see" list but, I had no idea when or where they were playing. Then from our little secluded broadcast cave I hear "EELLLO south by southwest, WE ARE THE WOMBATS!" I actually yelled and ran out to the middle courtyard where the stage is, and they absolutely KILLED IT! Great band....great show...believe the hype!

Some other bands that I found a way to see and were great:

MGMT last night @ Stubbs
Electric Feel is the best song of the past 6 months.

The Ting Tings last night @ Stubbs
This girl is crazy hot and an awesome performer.

Nada Surf last night @ Cedar Door
They are always great. They went on at 1am in a giant tent. Gotta love SXSW.

My Morning Jacket Thursday night @ Austin Music Hall
They played for for 2 hours! One man can only take so much My Morning Jacket (I mean R.E.M. only played for an hour 45 minutes) but they put on a good show.

N.E.R.D. last night @ Stubbs
what can I say...I mean, it's N.E.R.D. They bring down the house where ever they play. They could have played the Iron Works BBQ joint on Red River Street and would have killed. If I could switch lives with Pharell Williams of N.E.R.D. I would.

I'm really looking forward to our showcase tonight. We have some rad bands playing. Should be a great time.

Party Girl Stacey and I got some bad-ass cowboy hats for ourselves and Jonesy this morning. We are now officially cowboys...and cowgirl.


Jonesy and I are getting on our horses tonight and riding off into the sunset back to Los Angeles.

Jonesy just got here, we are about to go on the air so I have to get going.

Thanks for Reading!

Begley

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