Youtube

This is happening thought you shoudl know :)

The Last Post . . . for now

Hey I have enjoyed doing this blog and I had one entry left before I was done, but really it gets covered in the other online blog having read my notes I can really say this. Don't blast people with e-mails and try and make things tailored to each fan. Got that? Good.

Its Sunday night and I'm shattered and I want to go home, thats for tomorrow so I shall call it a night. I am going to keep posting at a later date, because I think generally this is a good thing to do and I want somewhere to put ideas up specifically about the business.

I'm coming home, see you Tuesday.

You and me at 6 at 10

Hey its not easy coming up with Blog titles especially when I have done 20 in a week. So You and me at 6 then. Scene kid friendly post hardcore from Surrey. How did they do? Well they did very well, for the restrictive environment they where in. They where giving it gangbusters, playing hard and tight. They where as my saying of the week has been "Export Ready" no nerves, a good tight set, but they where in the wrong place. Latitude the club they played has one issue, to many English people. Looking around I saw way to many badges to get atmosphere, everyone was way older than the band and where there to appreciate. If they had been down at Emo's They would have done a lot better, this place is way to Indie heavy for them to play and I would say the majority of other British bands there that night would have run into the same problem. Kerrang was running the show, and as I walked past a ton of Journalists I been disagreeing with for years I was happy for the band, they did the best they could. But circle pits, where this band really thrives, where not going to happen. Good try though.

Sent by Angels

The ARC Angels where formed in Austin in the mid nineties more or less by accident, Charlie Sexton was rehearsing at the ARC, Doyle Bramhall II had a song and played it to Charlie. Double Trouble Chris "Whipper" Layton and Tommy Shannon were in the next room working in some stuff to get back in the groove after Stevie Ray's untimely death, and so as great accidents happen a band was formed. However things went array and after two years and one album they called it a day, the Austin Super Group moved on to other things. However Friday, minus Tommy who was in town but apparently doesn't want to continue as an Angel, they where back. There is something special about watching live music in Austin, something even more special about watching the ultimate Austin band play to Austinites outdoors. My previous sunset over Austin experiences gave me high hopes and I wasn't disappointed. Charlie's perfect cheek boned rock voice matched with the deep soul of Doyle Bramhall's voice kind of remind you of Pearl Jam but with a harder edge. More bluesy and laid back but with still powered up open chords and drop tunings. There was some new material but everyone came to hear the old songs and they did not dissatisfy their either. Hopefully the second go round will prove more fruitful.

Inspired

By the my visit to the panel the other day I opened a ning account. Go take a look its in Beta stages at the moment but I shall add more over the coming weeks.

Anti-Socially Social

This panel featured this panel featured;

* Chris Bucchere - The Social Collective
* Tom Chernaik - BlogTalkRadio.com
* Ariel Hyatt - Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR
* Brad King - Northern Kentucky University
* Micki Krimmel - Sugar Packet, Inc.
* Rachel Masters - Ning

There was a lot of talk about personal space on the internet and how much you chose to give away. Micki Krimmel is an example of giving it all out online and as such makes a living as web consultant, designer and blogger. She uses all the tools at her disposal to make her web presence felt. There are a lot more tools available now to help your online presence Reverb Nation was pushed a lot as a great set of tools for promotion, ning.com was another to help you develop your own social network, which is something I may do later today. The general idea, which happened a lot this week, was to develop relationships with your fans and try and bring them in to your world. The best piece of advice was to not make it about you, give people something and they are more likely to come on to your way of thinking. So don't mass mail everyone your tour dates unless you have something for them to encourage them to look at them. Can you afford to give our promotions? Knocking some money off from a show, or giving away a free video clip is a great way of developing a relationship you can develop.

I already listed up some websites in the previous post check them out.

The good housekeeping research institute

Apparently this place really exists according to the commercial I am watching on Comedy Central. However back to Thursday and the panel Making Money from the Music Industry and Keeping it. This was a panel run by people who new the industry from all sides. There was Mike Jacobs from Jacobs & Associates who is a drummer, real estate entrepreneur and also played with Charlie Sexton and opened Austin Rehearsal Complex, where the ARC Angels started, but more of them later. Giti Khalsa a financial adviser from Smith Barney and former drummer of 7 Mary Three. Don Harvey who is like Don Harvey. Actually hes a former label owner and record pusher who helped break The Offspring and No Doubt and is therefore responsible for my entire career, I thanked him later.

The basic idea behind this panel was instilling some basic common sense in financial approach to the music industry. Basically the music industry is like a roller coaster ride when it comes to income. I am living proof, sometimes your up some times your down, and its impossible to say when you can save and invest. So the basic advice was to keep saving wherever you can. The thing is its hard to compartmentalize your life but when it comes to money you need to. Money gets in the way of music a lot. You can't do even basic things without the right equipment, which costs money, but so long as your realistic you can put a lot of money away for things you will need in life, like your house or an education. If you are planning a career in music I can say this, learn some accountancy. figure out where you can save money until you need real help. Your not going to need an entertainment lawyer at the basic level, but you are going to need one when you get up in level to top tour gigs and recording jobs. Even then you can save money by asking around, reading reviews and asking opinions.

There was some other advice but I shall save that for lessons, the only other advice that may be a little out of your range was buy a house in LA now and become a US citizen because you can get a $8000 grant to buy a new house.

Just a thought.

Sorry I been busy

Okay no posts for two days whats he been up to? Well a lot to be honest and no time to write so first off lets put up some pics to make this place look a little more visual.



The line at Emo's Saturday morning.



Stevie Ray's Marshall from the early 80's.



Austin City Hall.



Something new on Lady Bird Lake.



A random band I found at Frost Bank.

Ok I am not gonna give you a big update today cause I am going to save that till the morning I have a lot of stuff to do this evening but heres somethings to look at while I am working up a good blog lol. First off go check out these sites for your marketing needs;

http://www.mickipedia.com/ to see how you can fully intergrate your myspace, twitter, face book and all other social networking streams.

http://www.reverbnation.com/ has lots of free tools for bands and artists to use on all sorts of sites and how to build a market and track it.

http://www.ning.com/ allows you to build your own social networking site for anything you want, but you could say build a list of super fans or a street team and give them incentive to be on here over say myspace or Facebook.

Here are some actual pictures see I am still working on the live band stuff but tonight I promise.



Another view from the convention centre bare in mind this is a car park and they don't usually look this good anywhere.



The small but perfectly formed Austin Cathedral.



Way back when the University of Texas was given land by the state to graze cattle on, hence the nickname Longhorns, someone had the bright idea of drilling for oil, and here is where they drilled and the drill itself. Of course they found oil and now Texas State is considered Public Ivy one of the richest schools in the country.



And this is where the Longhorns play, Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

Views of South By

You may have noticed attentive blog readers that there is a lack of pictures of live music, there is good reason for that. I am not allowed to take pictures inside clubs because as they don't allow cameras, so I am restricted in my picture taking hopefully tonight that wont be a problem as I am going down to Auditorium Shores for the ARC Angels. Plus I will try and find out whats going on Downtown. So here's todays pics.



People working at sunset.



This is Antones, the place to be.



Best burgers in town.



Just part of the line for something on at Emo's.

Camping Versus Urban

I have two panel write ups for you today, as many as there is alas a lot are concurrent so I am trying to cherry pick the most valid ones to find information on. The two I chose today are relevant because they lie in the two biggest growing areas of music outside the web; music licensing and festivals. Jeff and Todd Brebec have been involved in music publishing for over twenty years and where hear to partly sell their book and partly to impart knowledge on the not so dark art of music publishing. The bigger issue with publishing is trying to get into new markets and being aware of your product and its limitations. A Lot of what goes on at SXSW is based on you being pro quality, this is no exception but the best piece of advice I can give anyone is be prepared and ready for your market, because if your not then things won't happen for you. The best phrase I heard for it today was Export Ready. Anywho back to the licensing. There are 56 different licenses available in the US. Different markets have different rules but effectively that's a guide on how to make money. Some of the biggest talk points aside from the usual MCPRS/PPL style licenses is currently based in games, the advice given was play a few games and buy a few magazines to find out if you have music that would fit into a relevant game. With the number of games available now lots of different soundtracks are required and you maybe able to find something to fit into your chosen sound-scape. There is of course the more traditional method of making money from music, ie mechanical rates from CD's however that market is dropping away as downloads take over. Certain artists are doing well, Taylor Swift is the current example, but the majority of music buyers are now downloading legally rather than any other method. However the new methods stretch into all areas of media. From greeting cards to toys licensing really is where the long term money is at.

Last year I attended a panel called International Festivals and this year was a follow up with pretty much the same panel. The festivals represented included Glastonbury, Bonaroo, Pedrosa Stump and WOMAX. The general gist of this panel was to give people an idea of what was necessary to put a festival together and to get onto festival bills. There are basically two kinds of festival, for the sake of argument because no one has really defined them anywhere I'm going to call them Urban Multi Stage and Rural Main Stage. I realise that's a great over generalisation, but you get the general picture, within that frame work you have industry and retail festivals. SXSW is a Urban Multi Stage Industry festival, Glastonbury a Rural Main Stage Retail festival. When your trying to build a festival its important to know where you want to go with it and one of the things talked about most was aiming at a market. Keeping your approach broad has its advantages, keeping it narrow has its advantages too. Small festivals may do better working on the narrow model, but it doesn't have to be genre based. Festivals in Holland that concentrate on new European only bands do very well, as does Pedrosa Stomp who concentrate purely on long forgotten artists. The bigger festivals survive by being broad with many smaller stages to give everyone something to enjoy. My own take on this is festivals this summer will have to work really hard to keep customers. Prices keep increasing but no one seems to be improving the product that much. Leeds last year was great musically one of the best I have seen in many years however the parking was still a night mare, the stewarding was understaffed as always. Things like this annoy people, being used to it, it doesn't bother me that much, as I go every year and will put up with a certain amount to be with my friends. However in the long run will younger people put up with it? The other worry for the bigger festivals is the lack of sponsorship, Carling pulled out of Leeds last year. Some of the smaller festivals struggle with the lack of demographic development in the niche festivals. However the general feeling of how to get around this was to concentrate on building up relationships with the City or host area and see how much money can be put into the local economy. WOMAX uses this model when it comes to finding a host city. The raise in business revenue while impress most City Councils but certainly the bigger Rural Main Stage Retail festivals will have to find new ways evolve.

That's all for now more pictures in the next post.

First Panel

So South by Southwest really got underway today, I took in my first “official” bands and went to my first serious panel discussion. The panel was based upon a list called “39 annoying things bands do”. Now I do want to save some stuff to discuss when I get home, but here is a general overview of what the panel talked about. First off the panelists where not to happy about the lit existing, and here is the list for those of you wondering what the hell I am on about.
Top 39 Annoying Things That Bands Do

1. Bands that feel compelled to bang on their drums and guitars in an annoying display of lack of talent before the doors open. Usually this occurs when we are trying to talk to someone on the phone or give instructions to employees. There is a place for this type of behavior, its called your basement.

2. Out of town bands that show up and say "We decided to bring another band with us, don't worry, they just need gas money and pizza."

3. Out of town bands that watch you order their pizzas with "the works" and after they arrive tell you "Oh, we're all vegetarians, can we get buy-outs instead?"

4. Local bands with managers.

5. Local bands that have a girlfriend as their manager. This usually marks the beginning of the end for most bands at the Creepy.

6. Bands that bring their own "personal" sound-tech. After seeing him try to operate the soundboard for 5 minutes the house soundman concludes that this guy has absolutely no clue how to operate a PA. Accordingly, the band sounds awful.

7. Bands that have more roadies than band members.

8. Bands that spell their names with a strange spelling twist e.g., junkeez, katz etc. After meeting the band, however, we are left with the impression that they didn't intentionally try and spell their name with a twist but rather they probably just don't know how to spell.

9. The out of town band that was lucky to get the gig, brought absolutely nobody, bitched all night long about their time slot, when told they had 1 song left in their set play 4 more anyway who when being paid out $50 in gas money asks "Is this the best you can do?"

10. Bands that arrive and state that they talked to someone at the club and were told they get to play 3rd at 10:30 and can play for an hour. When asked the name of the person they talked to they suddenly forget their name but are sure they talked to "someone".

11. Bands who all arrive at the same time but no one is willing to play first. Subsequently the show doesn't start until 11:30 and everyone has 10 minute sets.

12. Top 3 signs that the band will bring no one to the show - 1) 2 Weeks before the show they say "We're gonna pack your place!" - 2) 1 Week before the show they ask - "What's your capacity?" - 3) Upon arriving at the gig they ask "So how many people do YOU usually get on a Wednesday night?"

13. Bands who draw is so bad that even their guests don't show up.

14. Bands who have no guests because they have no friends.

15. Bands who bring absolutely no one to their first gig and then call back incessantly to ask for another show and can't understand why they haven't gotten asked back. That's fine, we don't have to eat this month and we really dig watching you guys rock out to our empty club. Bands who fit this category don't need to bother calling back because the booking guy will always be away when you call.

16. Bands who after drawing no one at the end of the night apologize by saying, "geez, after you booked us we booked ourselves to play at the Hi-Pointe last night and we told all our friends to go to that show, that's probably why no one came tonight. BTW, when do you think we can play here again?" (Note: see above for our response).

17. Bands who pester you to book their bands "side-project". Side-project is another name for self-indulgent crap so embarrassingly bad they can't dignify it with a name and gives them a cover why none of their friends will come see them "perform". Note to bands: think of your side-project as a project never to get booked again.

18. Bands who show up wearing "All Access" laminates around their neck. (Note to these bands: We honor these laminates for the bathroom and parking lot areas only.) I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up but you don't see me walking around wearing a spacesuit at the club. We're convinced these people are recovering air guitar addicts from the 80's.

19. Bands who right before their set ask to play without a PA so it won't be deducted from their pay. (This has actually happened before). Sure, we'll just ask the sound guy to go home for a 1/2 hour.

20. Bands that want to play in front or the side of the stage.

21. Bands that suck and then ask if you'll swap them out a shirt. You know, our shirts actually cost us money and I really doubt anyone at the club wants to wear your shirt. How about if we swap stickers and call it even?

22. Band members that ask 10 times throughout the night for a water or soda (usually in a nasally whining voice). Typically this occurs when your in the middle of doing something important like counting down the drawer or dealing with actual paying customers. They usually like to precede their requests with a "Do you think its possible I could get a...." etc. etc.

23. Parents of bands... this could be a whole top 39 list on its own... Parents who either a) insist on standing next to the owner all night and talking his ear off about how great their 14 year old kids band is (who BTW sound like they had never picked up an instrument in their lives before they started "playing" that night) b) insist on standing next to the the soundperson all night and making stupid suggestions on how to improve the sound of their kids band to the soundperson all throughout their set c) going to the bar while they wait for their kids band to play, consuming way too much, and then going to stand next to the owner and talk his ear off about how he used to jam in a band that was huge 25 years ago but now their kids band is going is going to hit mega-stardom any day now and makeup for his missed.... oh right, this is only supposed to be a paragraph.

24. Bands that leave gear behind. This happens at least several times each week and then we get the deluge of frantic phone calls in the following days about have you seen this or that piece of equipment and on the phone act like we should know where their stuff is. Its amazing how something that is so important to them the next day gets so carelessly left behind the night before. We're the Creepy Crawl, not Bob's Nightclub and Repository of Leftover Band Equipment.

25. Bands that send us emails that say: "We're XXX from XXX. We wanted to play your club on XXX date. How about if you book us a show, put a bunch of good drawing locals on that bring a lot of beer drinkers and then you guys can make a lot of money and we can put on a great show in front of a big crowd and get paid. That way we all win!" Here's an idea, why don't we book a show with a bunch of good drawing locals that bring beer drinkers, we make a lot of money from the show and you can keep you can stay in XXX? (Really, we're not making this stuff up, we actually get these emails.

26. Bands who when you tell them they have 1 more song left because they're running late into their set decide to play a 45 minute opus full of self-absorbed guitar solos which in the course of playing covers in its entirety side 2 of Pink Floyds' Dark Side of The Moon.

27. Bands that pester you constantly to open for a particular touring band because they swear they worship their musical footprints and are the heaven endorsed guiding light of their musical lives. On the day of the show and after you told them sorry but the show was already filled up they don't even bother to come to the show. However, someone at the show reports hearing they decided to catch the Story of The Year show at the Pageant that night.

28. Bands that can't play longer than a 15 minute set.
29. Bands that can't draw two people but keep telling you that they can play as long a set as you like. "We can play an hour, an hour and a half, two hours if you want." That's kind of a like a doctor rushing to the scene of a car accident and asking the victims "If you need me to help prolong your bleeding I can do that."

30. Bands that moan and beg to play a longer 45-50 minute set. They do this knowing everyone else only gets a 1/2 hour slot. We finally relent and rework the whole show to accommodate them and they still wind up playing the same rush-through-it-because-we're-dstupid 23 minute set they play every other night they play. Apparently they live in a different time dimension than everyone else on the planet. They thank you profusely at the end of the set for letting them "headline" for their fans but we make sure they buy us and everyone around us shots at full price.

31. Bands that give big lectures on stage about how important it is to support "the scene" but at the end of their set want to get paid ASAP and don't want to wait until the other bands get done.
32.Bands that give long-winded lectures about respect... how we need to respect each other, the world we all live in, ourselves, God, our fellow man, other "artists", Picasso, Left-handed midgets, respect this, respect that etc etc... What are these guys in the Mafia? The next morning you discover the parking spot they were parked in the night before is completely covered with empty water bottles, soda cans and Taco Bell.

33. Bands that are booked for a show but email every 12 hours to tell you they have changed their name and to please update your advertising. Pick a name and STICK WITH IT!

34. Pathetic reasons why bands cancel. Bands that cancel 10 DAYS ahead of time because they have to go to a funeral! We feel so sad for these bands. Geez, I didn't know your grandpa was being stored on ice for 10 DAYS! Who is he, Walt Disney??? If your going to lie, try and come up with something half-way believable please.

35. Shows where the 4 local bands collectively can't outdraw the one out of town band you threw on the bill for gas money but through their own initiative and hustle actually manage to outdraw the 4 local bands (this BS actually happens!) We feel sorry and embarrassed for the out of town band who usually when getting paid out their gas money ask us quietly "whats up with the locals, who don't they have anybody come see them?" and we tell them as loudly as we can "BECAUSE THEY ARE PATHETIC & RETARDED LOSERS". Invariably (and we do mean invariably) their has to be the one local band who shoves the out of town band on the way to the door guy, lives 20 minutes away and brought a negative number of people, (they sucked so bad they ran off our happy hour crowd early) ask how much did they make and we tell them zero "BECAUSE THE BAND FROM 1/2 A CONTINENT AWAY OUTDREW YOU". Actually we don't say that because we're so pathetically nice, we usually say " you guys rocked, let us know when you want to play again!".

36 - 38: Bands that don't correctly understand the definition of these terms -

Load-In Time
CORRECT UNDERSTANDING: If a band has a load-in time of say 6:30 from that time they may attempt to enter the premises and inquire about loading in of their gear. If they by chance happen to arrive early they can occupy themselves with other activities to fill in the time, such as: visit the library, worship at a local church or synagogue or beating up the homeless guy living in the dumpster.

INCORRECT UNDERSTANDING: If a band has a load-in time of say 6:30 they arrive at 1:45 in the afternoon and knock incessantly on the back door. Usually they knock while the owner is in the basement knee-deep working with a plumber to fix a leaking drain pipe. After trudging all the way upstairs to find 5 snot nosed kids asking if they can load-in now (and hang out all day!) they are politely told to go away and come back at 6:30.

Promoter
CORRECT UNDERSTANDING: This is a person who actively works to promote a show. They promote by distributing flyers, plugging the show wherever they can and try to get as many people as possible to come to the show. If they have an out of town band booked on the show they take financial responsibility to ensure they get paid and are taken care of in whatever way they need. They also take charge in organizing the show and making sure all the bands know when they are scheduled to play and how the money works for getting paid.

INCORRECT UNDERSTANDING: This is a person who after asking repeatedly to put on a show does the following 1) fails to promote show in any way 2) fails to communicate any show details like lineup or order of the bands to the club (or the bands themselves) 3) makes themselves very scarce at the show , assuming they show up (they sometimes make a pathetic phone call just before doors to say they've just contracted a rare disease and to please take care of the out of town band). If they do show up and when questioned about things like band order, who's taking care of the bands etc. only respond with a blank stare.

Gas Money:
CORRECT UNDERSTANDING: Gas Money is a term used to designate an amount of money to get a touring band to their next show. It sometimes includes a little more than that so they buy themselves some fast-food on their way or if they are lucky enough to cover a room at a Motel 6. Generally gas money would be considered anything from $30 to $75 and depends on how well the show goes.

INCORRECT UNDERSTANDING: $200 is not gas money. $200 is we're partying all night on the East Side and getting privates at Roxy's for everyone in the band.

Touring Band:
CORRECT UNDERSTANDING: This is a band that is engaged on a "tour". They come to the Creepy Crawl while on their tour and often come from far away places such as the far corners of the country, Canada, Europe or Asia. They are on the road for extended periods of time, sometimes for several months at a time, in a van or bus and experience many new places along their journey. These bands are always entitled to at least gas money or more.

INCORRECT UNDERSTANDING: Driving up from Festus does not make you a touring band.

A "Following":
CORRECT UNDERSTANDING: A "following" is a collection of fans that attend the performances of a particular band. This is what bands try to develop to get ahead in the business and grow over time and is a measure of their general popularity. The larger a bands following generally means they will be booked more often and on better nights at the Creepy Crawl

INCORRECT UNDERSTANDING: A "following" does not mean all the people that attended The Queens of The Stone Age show you opened for to cover the last minute cancellation of a contractual local opener counts as your bands following (perhaps the rush to the bar by the entire club and club staff when you started playing was an indicator). And, yes, this means the Jager girls at the club that night probably didn't come to see you and probably won't be following you to your next show.

39. Bands that read this list and then send us emails like this one.
"dont take this the wrong way i am just a guitar player but ur annoying list was some what funny, but it makes u guys seem like a bunch of jerks u would not have ur joint with out the annoying bands. i frequent ur place when my friends play but if u dont treat the bands that deserve respect with respect they will not play shows and tell others and so on and so forth just a little concernced."

rick branstetter
... This is just a small sample of annoying things that bands do that we came up with at the Creepy. We could go on and on with this....

Once you have read it you will see it is quiet mean spirited and thankfully the club that put it together has now closed down. Clearly our friend Rick was right. I will admit as being a promoter some of these things actually happen and have happened to me and I'm sure if you talk to Danni of Lets Rock Cancer, Jan at the Imp, Chris at the Freedom Club and every other promoter you come across will say yeah it happens, but lets make this more positive and flip it into the general model, and have “39 things bands can do right” I am going to start with some helpful suggestions from the panel and my own experience.

1.Be polite. This should go without saying, but if your working for a club or bar its like any other job, and you wouldn't be rude to your boss. Just think how you would treat people if they came to your house.

2.Work hard. I have seen international touring bands help sort out PA's when things where not going right, and have been polite and supportive to everyone around as well as loading in their own gear after traveling a couple of hundred miles from their last show. This is a good thing, it means the locals give them respect and are more than willing to help them the next time they play. Its a good example, people may not need your help but they will certainly appreciate the offer.

3.Advance things. Make phone calls and e-mails, check up on things, make sure things are going OK and everyone is in the know as to what you are up to. Making sure they got your posters and promo packs is not pestering its a good way of making sure everyone is in the know.

4.Be prepared. This means Mapping out routes, understanding where the club is and what time your supposed to be there, and being on top of your equipment, take spare strings and sticks with you because stuff breaks. I have been guilty of this I played on show earlier this year and for the first time in ten years didn't take a spare guitar with me, of course I broke a string this will never happen again cause it threw my whole performance, so make sure you sort yourself out.

5.Make deals before a show starts. This is standard practice in some city's in the US and really should be everywhere. If your going to get paid you need to know how much money your going to get to see if it is worth your while. If its not politely decline the slot early, you may think you can make up for it in merchandise sales but this isn't always the case so its worth knowing where you are ahead of time. At the beginner level touring is expensive relative to costs but probably the reason why you started in the first place so don't let your dream die because you are 5 quid short on petrol money have and understanding before you leave and you have some recourse to come back to.

Thats my first 5 see what else you can come up with.

See you around more pics later.

Pics of the Day

A busy 6th on Saint Patricks Day



Busy again, but not as busy as it will be this weekend.



SXSW staffers going home.



My Free stuff from the good people of SXSW.



The Convetion Centre skyline.

Drunken Lullabies

Hey hows it going, today you may have noticed is Saint Patrick's day, which isn't a huge deal in Brigg. Even though the town was built by Irish people, but here its a big deal. For everyone. I mean everyone was wearing green, like everyone. I have seen Black people in green, Latinos in green, Asians in green, even Native Americans in green. Its slightly ridiculous really sop I bailed after a couple of hours tonight to come back and blog. I thought I was gonna start seeing things in green. There was one Irish bar starting at 7am with a $15 cover charge to get in at 7am! $20 after four. But anywho on with my day.

I got up late, this was a bit of an issue as I didn't want to get to the convention centre to late as that could mean queueage. Thankfully rock and roll types being the way they are got in and out in a record ten minutes. I had a look around the new growth of tents that wont be filled till tomorrow and then down to Daddies for lunch. Their Pork Drums are wonderful things served with waffle fries and spicy Barbecue Sauce.

Back for coffee and Bobalu and then home for a shower and change before back out tonight for the ill fated Saint Pats trip. I have more pics to make up for the lack of action today they will be up and captioned soon.

Tomorrow SXSW starts proper so I will have actual music business news till then have fun see you on the other side.

Todays pics;

At Congress and First.


Stevie looking after the Austin skyline, Thursday night I get to see Double Trouble in their current day job of being ARC Angels.


South Lamar and possibly the best view in Austin

Blue Monday

Ron Silver 1946-2009

On a sad note I would like to show my regret for the loss of Ron Silver, for those of you who don't have my pathological love of the West Wing, he was a great actor who took on the role of Bruno Gianelli the campaign manager. His Machiavellian character made his West Wing appearances memorable. Fox ran a piece on him today about his outspoken political views, a life long liberal who believed in President Bush despite losing friends. Goodbye Ron and thank you.

Today was another day with not much in the way of doing big music stuff. Just a day wandering around with no aim in life, this is what a vacations supposed to be about I guess but I am eager to get things done. So I took pictures instead, a lot more than yesterday. These will be followed up shortly, but I went down to the heart of old Austin on South Lamar to catch up with a friend Steve at Austin guitars. He was telling me how business was down which is a story all across town. There is a huge guitar show on Saturday which he is not attending he believes he will be busy enough through South by anyway. This is big business for everyone in town and the investment in Austin is huge, 136 million last year and rumours of upwards of a billion dollars this year. This blog though is about the heart of Austin and the things that make it move. There are two main published newspapers in Austin; The Austin American Statesman and the Austin Chronicle. The Chronicle is a weekly and is seen as the liberal paper that keeps an eye on city hall. The Statesman is a traditional daily that is seen more as the established press, as the years go by it makes things more difficult for the Chronicle to pitch itself as the young start up when everyone in town is advertising in it but for liberal commentary about what's happening in Texas its a good read and also has some odd things to say at times in its job to Keep Austin Weird. Compare yourself at Austin Chronicle and Austin American Statesman
South Lamar feels like the heart and soul of the city, its quiet underdeveloped with lots of independent stores and very few chains the occasional strip mall offers alternative medicine, music, clothing, and movie theatres. A strange selection of stores very individual to South Austin, it is a wonderful thing to just hang out down there and watch the world go bye.



I am having a rest up for the rest of the day so have a good night and the pics will be posted in a minute, have a nice day.

Pics

Here is somethings I took today;



This is a shot from the bus stop, a little boring I know.



Ok so now you know I am here.


And now some Downtown.

More tommorow.

Sunday

Hey, how you doing? More greetings from South Austin for you. Today though I ran up north. I am trying to get my body clock somewhere near US central time so I got up early and went to Denny's for Breakfast, this was for my Dads sake as it is his favourite place to eat in the US. Later ion the day I head out to old haunts to get myself back in Austin mode. Bobalu is my first stop, the coffee shop on East 6th that is my base of peace and quite during a working week. Then on to BD Riley's for dinner. A couple of things struck me today that deserve a paragraph or two to themselves . . .

No where feels like home more than where the homeless live. - Clive James

Today I was walking in down town and one of the most depressing things about Austin is the homeless situation. You see them at every bus stop, asking for change or selling trinkets. The worrying/positive things is its the same guys (mainly) I saw last year. Bad because they are still lost souls, good because at least they are still here. I have a feeling some of their brethren have not been so lucky. It is good to see it though as a week of over spend is before me, not just from me, but in Austin generally. Money is being spent like its going out of fashion, and I guess in the US it is going out of fashion quickly. Talking to John at Bobalu today he commented that it feels like the US has grown up since the fateful night in November. Alas grown ups have big bills to pay and it seems the guys down on Congress busking their way through the day with comical results at times, I saw one guy beating on a stick with another which I don't care how you sell it isn't that entertaining, will keep being the visible conciousness of the US people. There are victims of Katrina still waiting to go home. On a positive note I saw a mass party for these guys at the Austin Homeless persons centre and they was getting down, so you know someone's caring.

Old Ghosts
I love US history, my own country's history being so huge and long I appreciate a place I can grasp in short order. Today I went to the Texas State Congress to take as few pics and complete my “I'm in Austin so its all good” trip. There I ran into some things that are new, mainly a new Secretary of State, a woman, Hope Andrade. The first female secretary of state was Emma Meharg who was put in ower by Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, the first female Governer of Texas in 1925. As the 29th Governor of Texas she was a one woman force for female change.

Another old ghost was Clifford Antone, there is a plaque I must have walked past a hundred times and not read until today it honours the great man himself who brought blues and roots based music to the for in the 1970's. I walked past Antone's today and was pleasantly surprised that Jimmie Vaughan is playing Tuesday night, I don't get a free pass to that show sadly so I don't know If I can go, hopefully Jimmie will be around town somewhere else this week.

That's all for now folks more soon as I get to it.

SXSW 2009
So here is the first post of SXSW 2009, coming to you live from Concourse C of Chicago's O'Hare Aiport. I am killing time between flights. Shame that when they refitted they sprung for free power up points but not free wifi. Ah well someones gotta make a living. Today was travel day. It started really on Friday night with my train trip to Manchester. I set off from Brigg with the help of my Dad got on my prepaid Apex Ticket and added to it with a lil help from the lady at the desk of First Class Travel through Manchester. When your going through Hulme First Class you know you have arrived, not even Morrisey does that . . . I'm not sure theres any recordings of him being on the Trans Peninne Express mind but you know I'm gilding the lily somewhat, sprinklin' some fairy dust cause lets face it how do you glamorize a train ride through Manchester?

After a night at Bewleys Hotel, just at the station though its a lot longer walk around than that, it was back to Terminal three at the exact same gate we got back to last year. So after being told that we had to check in 3 hours early which I duly did, we had an hours wait for staff to sort our bags out. Confusion reigned, but the good ladies of BMI have stood me well and I am checked in through to Chicago. The trouble with plane rides is that you do a lot of sitting and my trip to Heathrow was no different just sat for 40 minutes then more sitting as I found my Virgin Flight to Chicago. I loathe Heathrow, I have to say after two hours there and no matter how friendly the staff where it's just to damn small. I am sat in Chicago right now which serves more people and has about four times the space, but anyway I shall digress from my jet setting life style and get back to the story.

The Romance of Fight is something I find hard to get myself up for because the last 5 times I have flown have all been long haul and it stops being fun after the first meal. So being a world weary traveler and a little blasé, I was ready to be floored. The Virgin Flight into Chicago goes over Greenland and Canada into from the great lakes and into O'Hare. What knocks you out is how close to the arctic circle you get, after dozing and watching films for three hours I look out the window and everything is white, for as far as the eye can see. Just snow, you can pick out mountain ranges and features, where rivers should be but are block ice, it is just stunning to look at from that height.

And thats about it for now people, I will add more on my Austin leg but after traditional Chicago burger ands fries I am about stuff and have 3 more hours to wait so I shall catch you soon.

And here I am in Austin SXSW doesn't start for another three days so I have some time to unwind and unpack. I am at a little Howard Johnson hotel on south I-35 for those of you who want to Google where I am and its pleasant but wet. I am now off to go sort some shopping and possibly find lunch/breakfast or whatever my body can tolerate at this time in the day. See you in a bit.

James

SXSW 2007

This is when I was an angry and slightly younger man, back in the day on my first SXSW trip. I didn't have the fancy camera then, just words which makes me thinks how much I rely on the camera now when I used to just do it all by typing. Both are fun though so here's a contrast to the more media embracing 2008 week.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

The getting there . . .

Current mood: accomplished

Category: Travel and Places

So here I am in Texas.

It took 10 hours of flying, 8 hours of hanging around in airports, a train and three cab rides to get me here but I made it.

Along the way there have been Wednesday night was the night Manchester United played Lille in the European Cup. the net result was 6 bus loads of aggrieved Frenchmen coming back once the game was over. Needless to say the slammed doors didn't help with my sleep patterns, but then again nothing else in the next 24 hours did.

Up at 6am and caught a cab to the airport where I had a three hour wait for my International flight. The flight was pleasant enough really, I am used to the 8 hour long hauls now so I got to see Rocky Balboa (predictable) and A night at the Museum

(even more predictable), so sleep called on and off but eventually I made Atlanta by lunch time, well a late lunch time even though my head thought it was bedtime.

After a pleasant time at US customs :), I hung around in Atlanta Airport for five hours waiting for my flight. Atlanta is a whole bunch of humanity, the busiest airport in the world it just never stops moving. This is cool if you like observing the pace of the world not so cool if you want to eat because the good restaurants where over flowing so I settled for a Diet Coke and a pack of Lays (walkers to you lol).

Eventually I was in the air again sandwiched between, as one helpful lady put it, the two biggest guys on the plane. Then one more cab and I am at the Quality Inn, or Best American Value Inn as it is now known since I made my booking. By then I was shattered so it was time to sleep and try again in the morning.

So this morning I hit the buses. The thing is you expect America to be full of gas guzzlers and to an extent it is, but they do know how to run a fine public transports system or Mass Trans as it is known here. One dollar gets you a day pass and lets you ride all day anywhere in a city that is huge. My trip this morning was to buy a laptop with which this blog is being written and to go downtown to my favourite eatery JB Riley's on 6th Street. At night time 6th is where the action is, with live shows every other building, during the day its a chilled out tourist zone. However Riley's is and Irish theme bar which does an incredible burger and fries for $6.95.

After that I cam home set up this website and chilled out. That pretty much it for me today, so I will be back later with some history stories. . . .

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Austin History 1

Current mood:Educating

Category: Travel and Places

Austin is the 16th largest city in the United States. There are 1.65 million people in the greater metropolitan area and has been around as an official settlement for 170 years. Before the Europeans came along there where settlements by three different tribes, Tonkawa, Comanche and Lipan Apache. The first European settlers came from Spain and was officially part of Spain until the Mexican revolution, it then became part of Mexico.

During this period a large proportion of United States citizens began settling with the approval of the Mexican Government. After problems began to arise with the Mexican government. Texas then declared independence, then in 1844 Texas became a state within the United States, with Austin as its capital. From colony, to province to nation, to statehood, then a change of nation as the United States Civil War saw Texas become part of the Confederacy and then once the war was over back to the Union. Austin is named after Stephen F. Austin who is generally considered to be the founder of Texas and the leader of the first settlers from the US.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Lone Star State of mind

Current mood: accomplished

Category: Travel and Places

Austin is a company town with three different companies that rely and nurture each other. Politics, music and education. First came the politicians, they brought the money in to build the Universities and the students demanded to be entertained. That's an over simplified sentence but you get the idea so today we are gonna concentrate on politics. Saturday is a good a day as any because Congress is open to the public. The congress building itself is an incredible structure, built from granite and marble it dominates the skyline of Austin. Built facing South (I wonder why) it houses the offices of the 181 legislatures of the Texas Congress and Senate.

The current Texas constitution dates from 1876 and has stood the test of time remaining unaltered, it has its own bill of rights like the American Federal constitution but with some extras unique to Texas. Along side the legislature there is a whole other raft of elected officials. Head of which is the Governor, then the Lieutenant Governor, State Comptroller that basically give a whole new edge to the American democratic model, the general belief is that the Governorship is the lesser office than that of the Lieutenant Governor as the LG is the head of the senate and therefore has much more direct control of debate. In actuality the Speaker of the House (leader of the dominant party in state congress) is the most influential person in the state.

Texas has had a lot influence on national politics, former Texas Governor George W. Bush became President, his father began his Presidential run by building his base in the Texas Republican party. Dick Cheney also lives in Texas though his political career has mainly been in other parts of the country. However even back in the sixties, President Lyndon Johnson lifelong Texas resident was put in power by the second big shift of American culture and politics after FDR's great reforms of the prewar and war years. So Texas has always been a microcosm of what has been going on nationally but also more directly the South.

The state building itself is huge, three floors of offices and chambers that house not only the senate and congress but an office for the Governor to receive official state guests and the Texas Supreme court, as well as the court of appeals. The Supreme court is given higher rank by means of furniture everyone else gets oak the Supreme court gets Walnut. The congress sits only every other year for six months, setting an agenda and leaving it to the workers of the state to enforce it. However sometimes this doesn't always play out as necessary, like last year when the education board found out it didn't have enough money to buy books or pay teachers so The Governor Rick Perry called a special session of the congress and senate to hammer out a new education budget.

From a cultural point of view Texas tends towards a conservative social and fiscal model, originally solidly Democrat it is now more or less solidly Republican. This is can be put down to the shift in the mentality of the parties. Austin itself however is one of the Democratic, strongly progressive politically and with a strong activist streak. Today for instance I had the joy of watching a choir sing about the need for a re-evaluation of consumerism whilst outside Starbucks, whilst across the street outside the Congress building one group was trying to explain that the whole 9/11 disaster was a conspiracy and finally a gospel choir supporting community development.

Just a cool story I found today, during the 20's there was trial which involved a high profile "gentleman's" club, as each member of the supreme court was a member of the club they couldn't sit on the case, eventually the governor promoted 3 female attorneys from doing regular research work to become the three judges on the Supreme Court because they couldn't find any male qualified judges who where not members of the club.

Well thats Texas politics, tomorrow I'll take some pics of the local, local political places.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Longhorns and other such animals

Well Today is wet, so I'm staying in my hotel. So lets talk education. Specifically Higher Education which is big business here in Austin. The main player in the game, in more ways than one, Is Texas University. It is huge, I mean really big but the biggest building's are not part of the faculty. The Texas state system is a large sprawling affair, each state in the US has a State system with campuses all over the state specializing in certain disciplines. The University of Texas at Austin Campus houses 50,000 students. To give you so idea of scope, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam Universities combined house around fifty thousand students. Nearly half a million people have passed through it's doors since 1883 an is considered the flagship of the University of Texas system.

As early as Texas's Mexican history there where rumors of a statewide research and education facility. Upon the Texas Revolution the original constitution set aside land for Texas to have its own state University in Austin, giving over a million acres in grazing rights to the University so they could raise continuous funds. However in actuality not a lot was done about it until after Civil war, building then began on the old main building. Slowly but surely the state system evolved, however after the Civil war public money was tight and the University couldn't expand the way it wanted to. Fortunately the forty acres that Texas U called home in Austin happened to be on top of a large oil field. This money helped build on of America's best publicly funded and owned Universities.

Texas State is considered "Public Ivy", that is to say the educational standards are considered exceptional and almost on a Par with the older Princeton's, Brown's and Harvard's of the North East which are considered on a par with Oxford and Cambridge. But what really sets Texas apart is its sports program. Austin has no full time, grade A professional sports team. It recently received a minor league Basketball franchise and has a numerous other minor league attractions such as Ice Hockey and baseball, however the only top level sport on offer in town is through Texas U. The Longhorns as they are known offer around 13 scholarship programs. The scholarship programs are based on paying students tuition and living costs for their participation in various sports, this has been seen as a great economic leveling ground in Texas allowing otherwise ineligible students who may have the qualifications but not the income to afford University, especially those from impoverished none Caucasian backgrounds. It is hard to describe what an American College Sports campus looks like, its huge when your used to only going to one Varsity game in a British university where there's only about 400 people who have gone to see their mates and boo at people from the University across the street, seeing a stadium with 80,000 seats for American Football, then next door a 20,000 seat soccer stadium, then next door to that a tennis complex, across the street a ten thousand seat volleyball dome which also houses a the wrestling arena, oh and down the street theres the local arena where the college and professional basketball teams play and you can see that Texas takes its sport seriously. Theres good reason for this the competitions each year bring in millions and millions of dollars as every Mall in Austin seems to have a Longhorns store that sells T-shirts and caps and other memorabilia, plus income form the home games.

Texas State is not however the only place of higher learning, Austin also supports Austin Community College,Concordia University, Huston-Tillotson University, St. Edward's University, the Acton School of Business, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and a branch of LeTourneau University. That is overall thats a lot of students and campuses, and the architecture that supports it most of it untouched externally since it was built shows off Austin's growth.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Three steps to a good Austin trip

Current mood: happy

Category: Music

Today was the day, today is the day, today was a great day. There are three things I have to do when I am in Austin to make my trip complete, I have to a) Have a coffee and Bolabua on 6th, b) buy a guitar from Austin Guitars at the South Lamar strip mall, and c) go see the SRV memorial on Auditorium Shores.

The a) of that equation belongs to myself and my father as we went down there nearly every day on our last trip. In fact the store clerk asked after my Dad who is at home this year preparing for a trip to Barcelona. They do amazing coffee, their latte's are amazing, a nice chilled out atmosphere to sit and read my paper of choice, today The Onion (http://www.theonion.com) the local humor rag that is infamous world wide on the web, but actually based in Austin and gives out a free copy at most stores.

Trip b) is necessitated by a ridiculously low dollar value that I have mercilessly exploited for the last three years and today was no different. Steve who runs Austin guitars is as cool and as knowledgeable gentleman as one is as likely to come across. He kindly set me up with the Epiphone Les Paul Special you see in my pics page. That will keep me in practice till I get home, and give me something other to play than a strat or a tele which has been my career guitars so far, but you know a change is as good as a rest, and I'm never going to stop playing guitar so its nice to change it up every once in a while.

Trip c) is the main one, I go say hello to Stevie whenever I am in town because well I'm, never gonna get to see him play live however he and his brother Jimmie have had more influence on me than any other 2 musicians I can think of, my "Holy Trinity" of guitar players is made up by Mark Knopfler, the guy who really got me into guitar playing but Stevie and Jimmie became my route map to the blues and what to listen to and why. Stevie taught me that blues that is slow doesn't have to be boring and repetitive. Jimmie taught me to service the song is all that matters. Here I give you 2 examples, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBIbJKjAZQ is Stevie playing a club in Canada with the large set and title piece of his first album Texas flood. Note how the slow tempo does nothing to slow down the intensity of the bands ( Double Trouble) playing as they hit the same three chords over and over again but approach each verse with a new sense of design.

Conversely Jimmie's band is all about restraint, playing the right notes at the right time and not waisting motion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_GfyW2sQQQ feature Jimmie's song Boom Bappa Boom from his first solo album. Featured guitarist on this song is Denny Freeman formerly of The Antones club house band and known Texas wide as The Professor pretty much knowing every blues lick ever played he grew up the Austin Scene that catapulted Jimmie and Stevie Ray to the upper echelons of guitar folklore.

I know earlier this week I talked a lot about politics and education, and I kinda touched on how they helped Austin become the live music capitol of the world. Well heres some insights into the full story. Texas is a notoriously conservative state, back in the sixties Dallas, Houston and other urban areas in Texas had not really evolved much sociallly from an acceptance stand point. You have to remember this was at the time of the great Civil Rights movements and things down south had barley moved on from the days of slavery, thought obviously this is generalization it still holds true that Black Music and Black culture wasn't wholly accepted, and the people who listened to it and performed it where not wholly accepted either. When long hair could get you beaten up for having long hair, and playing guitar was seen as a waste of time Austin was an oasis of people who understood. The Universities that where funded by the politicians brought with them liberal elites, middle class faculty members who set about liberating their students. The student body in return started listening to greater and greater voices, and those voices included the Black population of Texas and they played the Blues. What the youth of Dallas and Houston discovered on their AM radio's late at night was what the Austinites wanted to hear so a mass migration of talent occurred in the late nineteen sixties which gave Blues music a new home and a new generation to perpetuate its growth. The politicians also helped in their own small way, they may have a respectable veneer now however back in the day they pulled every dirty trick on the book, publicity stunts and corruption abounded and as Austin police had enough to deal with. Which meant they cared little about a bunch of long haired guitar players. (I was watching SMokey and the Bandit 2 before I cam out here and the opening sequence features a Texas Gubernatorial election going array as the candidates bomb each other with various substances at campaign rallies, this unnervingly was pretty accurate as one set of congress actually punched each other out on the capitol steps whilst singing the national anthem.) Bands and musicians form all over Texas flocked to a place where they could play AND make a living meager though it might have been. Billy Gibbons came up from Houston and got together with Dusty Hill and Frank Beard of Dallas (eerily enough they grew around the block form the Vaughan Brothers) to form ZZ top the blues and boogie band still playing today. Doyle Bramahall Austin native finally had people to write for who understood his music as well as perpetuate his solo success. Lou Anne Barton who sang with Stevie Ray in Triple Threat found a home here, then they began to bust out on the road as their live reputations took over. The Fabulous Thunderbird's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRWV9ajLzXQ) Jimmie Vaugahn's band where getting rave reviews in Chicago as the blues legends they supported down south went home and spread the word. When they where out of town Stevie's band Double Trouble (the post Lou Anne Barton line up of Triple Threat after Lou Anne got a solo deal) would fill the T-Birds slots impress the Chicago talent and get their tickets to tour as well. One guy who had a bigger input than most was Clifford Antone, the son of an immigrant green grocer who set up a club in Austin who new everyone on the blues scene and wanted to get the living legends down to Austin before it was to late. Remarkably I walked past there today and took a few shots and found out this years anniversary show guest is Clifton Chenier the same Cajun accordionist who opened Antone's in the late Seventies. Clifford passed away last year and will be remembered at this Saturday's Austin Music Awards. Stevie's passing was even more tragic after 20 odd years of substance abuse he was finally cleaned up and reaching a new plateau in his musical output and quality when he was killed in a air accident after supporting Eric Clapton and trying to fly home early. Stevie is remembered on Auditorium Shores he has a permanent shadow casting over the city, much like his music.

Best over heard conversation of the last 2 days;

Two guys riding unicycles down Congress on Sunday afternoon doing about 20 miles an hour and shouting directions to each other.

Austin PD Officer 1: What in the HELL are those boys doing?

Austin PD Officer 2: about to get themselves run over, thats what.

They promptly ignored them Unicyclists and went on policing the demonstration.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Flooding down in Texas

Category: Music

So today was registration day, not much going on really. Though I would advise you if you have never been to a trade show of any description you should go, purely to see the herds of people with mobile phones stuck to their ears. Its a commandingly stupid site lol. In my pics today you get to see the storm that stopped me doing anything more interesting than having as quick flash round the interactive exhibition having lunch and coming home, you also get too see my pass which is worth currently about 200 quid and is made of paper so when it rains your screwed lol, it rained a lot today so i stashed it away until necessary still a little damp though. After last nights epic write up I don't have much to say today really hopefully later I will go out to dinner with an old friend but thats not really the music/history crossover you have come to expect lol. So tonight I'm gonna take it easy watch some TV and get some rest for tomorrow starts the hard work of being a pundit.

Friday, March 16, 2007

. . . then no one will

So I haven't posted in a couple of days, there is a good reason for this and as I sit in my hotel room desperately trying to find something to watch other than CNN, I shall explain, after I have made coffee.

OK I am back, yesterday was the first full day of bands and I decided to spend the day meandering about looking at bands very few people have heard off. The only person I wanted to see was Jimmie Vaughn at the end of the night so I had no real agenda. The day stage is a quiet little industry venue on the second floor of the convention center, its kinda cool but soulless. Thats not the fault of the people watching its just hard to get that feel of a dirty packed club. Stand outs from this session where Say Hi To Your Mom who have been doing the rounds for quit sometime but played a delightfully whimsical set that reminded me of Stereolab and the Pixies, no bass player just drums guitars and keyboards so it really let the harmonies fly.

The other was a little strange, The Gray Kid sounded like Def Jam Records had wondered on to Broadway and found an Emo kid who could rap and sing and wanted to be part of the Misfits. Strange but entertaining. After that I mooched around town for a while, then came back to hotel got changed and headed back out. I spent the evening firstly going down to the convention center and catching Blacktop Mourning, this was an expereince just to see how live bands are put on Tv, firstly we where harangued by the director a Cockney, then by the an Irish Executive Producer who wanted us to not like act like music Execs and started to cajole us to party, which was nice. Overall they where pretty good, but that said its kind of hard to get into a band in a TV studio, bottom line its still flat when your listening to a band you have never (or anyone else for that matter, this was their first tour) in a room thats meant to hold 2000 people.. Emo's the punk/metal club at the end of 6th was a different story. The line at Emo's was huge, so I opted for annex, or gazebo as I believe they are called. A shot of pop punk (1997)and some Hardcore (A Day to Remember) later and it was all better.

After that I shot over to the Convention center for the Austin Music Awards. There I got to see the hero's of Austin music take a bow. However when I walked in I found Pete Townsend on stage playing in a tribute to Austin native Ronnie Lane the former New Faces member who passed away last year. The prizes where great however the music was amazing in tribute to fallen band mates Freddie Fender and Doug Sahm the Texas Tornadoes reformed with Doug's son whose own band also played the Tex Mex Experience, Tex Mex is probably the truest form of Texas roots music an even blend of country, blues and traditional Mexican sounds mixed in with rock to give you "A whole Texas thing you wouldn't understand.". I do, I like :). Then Ray Benson and his Western swing veterans Asleep At The Wheel won five awards including best band, not bad for a bunch of guys who have been on the road for 34 years. To close the show Guy Clark Jr. and Jimmie Vaughan lead an all star Acoustic Jam to pay tribute to Clifford Antone. Words really don't do justice to how privileged I felt at this very moment here I was an outsider getting to celebrate with the true Austin heads who had been there since the very beginning men of true greatness.

So then home, this morning I went down to Second and Lavaca where I was promised Roller Derby, that didn't happen for whatever reason so I had another day wondering down to Convention Center however there where two people in my sights for tonight. Booker T and the M.G.'s and Bob Mould, unfortunately I was not the only one who wanted to see him apparently half of North Texas did. So instead it was back to the annex where I was treated to Stephen Brodsky who was quite good if you like that kind of thing, which I did. Atonal acoustic rock who had the good sense to get a cheap pop with "Its all right" by Buddy Holly, go with them Texas natives when things are going slow and you don't know anyone.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Bring the noise!

To be honest I only saw two bands worth mentioning today as I was trying to take a break after the hardcore music week, and to be fair all I have to say is when you hear Pete Shelley say "Ever Fallen in love?" and the E-string riff kicks in you know you have a little bit of manchester going on in your heart.When the sun sets on Town Lake and the lights go out, Security of the First World come on stage and you hear the words "Welcome to the Terrordome" your in for something special as Public Enemy own the city of Austin.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Final thoughts

Current mood: frustrated

Well here I am stuck in Austin for an extra day, unfortunately my flight got changed to tomorrow, so I have some time to reflect on whats been going on here this week but first an update on what happened yesterday.

I started of late wanting to stay in town and catch really only two bands, firstly The Buzzcocks again in the tent across the road from the convention center. The where OK really, I know that doesn't do one of the great bands justice but the sound was awful, you could here only one guitar and they just seemed annoyed about things. However when things got going they improved still impassioned after all these years its great to see guys in their late 40somethings rocking this hard. Even if I couldn't understand a damn word they where saying

My meandering got me to SXSW closing down, they where still registering people up until 4pm though not many of them would have gotten to see much. I did get an interesting conversation lol. Guy at a film restoration stand said to me "theres a face thats hard to forget" I had never met him before . . . what can you do? Lol.

Then on for the main course of Soup. You know people give them a hard time for being commercial, but they can play and know how to work a crowd. The place was sterile as hell as I mentioned earlier this week however Bowling For Soup where they guys to make it work, possessing as good a sense of humor as they are a live band, I guess they did their best to annoy producers of the show however they really wanted to do a New Kids on the Block tribute because they all had radio mics but forgot to get the clearance. Ah well they smoked anyways and then it was time for home.

Or so I thought, my ticket got changed to the 19th not the 18th as I had originally booked so here I sit writing to you with a day to kill, so I am gonna have a think and post some thoughts about Austin and about SXSW.

Austin is an amazing place, if you like sport, education, music and film this is the place to be. I know other places can claim to have more heritage, but Austin has the heritage and the atmosphere and the pro's to get the job done. Its remarkable this week how many people I have seen who call or have called Austin home. The reason is because its such a good place to be to be a artist. Its not just music, Robert Rodriguez and Richard Linklater call Austin home or did too. Museums abound beautiful scenery and you can't help but be inspired. The flip side of this from a performing point of view is with that much competition you got to be better than great to get noticed. When I was at the Austin Music Awards on Tuesday it startled me as to how many people not only where locally considered top notch but where also nationally recognized as well. They are just world class.

Now as far as the industry side is concerned and for those of you who make music what can I say? You need to get better, then even better than that. I saw around twenty odd bands this week, even the ones playing for tips in the free shows that where nothing to do with SXSW where top notch quality pro outfits. Even the cover bands who make a living playing bars on the outskirts of the fashionable areas are better than any cover band I have ever seen in the UK at any venue. They are authentic well placed, slick professional, know how to work a crowd, know how to pace their sets. That is one thing that makes American music so consistent, if you tour here anything bigger than your home state its going to take 3 months. You get good or you starve trying. So should you take it upon your self to try and get a SXSW showcase start practicing and playing as many gigs as you can right now.

As far as a the direction of the industry goes, I think like most people have come to realize the future isn't in your traditional; record CD, get airplay, tour kind of package obviously touring is going to be the bread and butter of any band, but downloading is the way to get it out there. There was an interesting film about the music industry in general called "Before the music dies", I strongly recommend you go see it, or at least find it it explains how the US model of music business is changing and why. It is vital to understand the difference between the UK and Us music industries, here everything is ruled by the radio and as people are switching off the radio because it has been neutered to the extent of bland revivalism people are turning too any other form of listening to music they can get cheaply or freely top find the songs they want to hear. As on line play lists get better and more user friendly and directed they appear to be the way to go. What you have to do as a performer is make yourself stand out form the groundswell of people getting on line, this maybe be a more democratic way of going about things but it means its going to be much harder work for you in the long term. That means better graphics, take a media course, try and do things other people are not already doing, we all do myspace so lets try and find the next big thing, whats going to improve our network in the long term? Whats going to make us better at what we do.

Thats just my thoughts and I'll be happy to answer any questions you have, for now I am going to go find some lunch somewhere.

Then it was back over to buffalo Billiards for another set by Say Hi To Your Mom and then my legend for the day Bob Mould, I have loved his guitar playing since Husker Du, and tonight he played out his hits filling in with new stuff but he wanted to make sure his Austin fans (again he used to live here) went home happy so dug out some Sugar classics, including my personal favorite "If I can't change your mind", made my day.

Well its 12.15 here and I wanna get some sleep and I need to post some pics so I'll sign off here, tell you whats going on tomorrow, tomorrow.

SXSW 2008

This is some of the articles from last years SXSW and I shall repost 'em all cause, you know I am good like that :).

So here's the deal, as youtube sucks and won't let me upload video, and myspace times out all the video I shot, no one is going to see it until I get home. So I thought we would go old school tonight and have a text/video blog bonanaza as we didn't dso anything of note that pictures won't describe today.

Day one was wet, like really wet, you wouldn't believe how wet it was, ok it wasn't that bad but getting woken up at the crack of dawn by a thunder storm is not good. This is Congress from the Capitol.

For some reason I love this shot even though its just a hinge. Texans take their poltics serioulsy, if you can spend this much time on a hinge democracy is in safe hands.

This is the Texas Senate debating chamber, note oak chairs (Senate is not in sessions so they put these in for show purposes, in reality they get big leather bound comfy numbers).

This my friends is a dome.

This is the other end of the capitol; Congress they sit here in nice leather seats .

This is where it all happens, 6th Street just as the sun starts to shine.

My favourite modern building in Austin.

The Campitol from the outside.

We have actually done some SXSW things in the last 2 days, today we collected our badges as seen here, and got our bags below. The bags are intersting combination of information and sales pitches.

Tommorow we will have actual SXSW stuff to do, as not a lot happens on a Tuesdasy. However here is my list of things that you should know if you come to Austin.

1. As a pedestrian you are inconsequinetial to way Austin runs, they even managed to make cross walks extra thrilling by allowing cars to come across it when your on it. Cars turn into you at will most of them don't use turn signals either (I am sorry about the Americanisation of this blog).

2. The food is awesome and varied go eat, a lot.

3. Amy Winehouse is taller that you think, at least I am pretty sure it was Amy Winehouse, she looked the same as Amy Winehouse, and had a tag that read "Winehouse, Amy" guess she got her Visa then.

SXSW more pics

Hey we have a ton of bomcastery to catch up on but I thought some visuals would help so here some more pics;

I want this view when I wake up.

Ice Cube will playing here tommorow night.

Pilgramage to see Stevie.

This is how busy 6th Street gets during the day its twice as busy at night.

Rileys my favourite eatery and band venue on 6th.

The Driskill the oldest hotel in Austin Kate Nash plays here tommorow.