Thursday, March 16, 2006

SXSW BLOG

My SXSW BLOG:

I arrived in Austin yesterday just moments before I was to play on KLBJ at 10:30 from a remote feed set up at the Hilton Hotel right across from the Austin Convention Center. This is the 'host' hotel for SXSW, and the corporate presence was huge. Gibson Guitars had TWO tour buses all decked out for showing artists around and hawking their wares. I haven't been to the trade show yet, but there is bound to be some great things to see. Ditto on the SXSW panels/lecture.

This is the 20th year of SXSW and the fesival is making a really big deal of it. I came to support some friends in the 3rd year of the festival. Back then, it was largely unsigned artists. Now, most of the artist are signed to smaller labels, and are looking to move up the food chain. This is interesting from a TLM standpoint in that so many artists are 'doing it yourself'.

Our radio show for KLBJ went great! One song, slam bam, thank you, mam, and we were out of there. Maggie and I left straight from the Hilton and went directly to rehearsal, where I met the other musicians in Maggie's band. They are all world class, so it made me work hard to shine.

After rehearsal, I went and snagged my hotel room, and went to collect my credentials at the Convention Center. There I saw SO many people and performers. It felt great---thousands of 'music people', MY people!!! I made friends in line, saw people I knew, and found myself basking in the love of people who were sacrificing a lot of $$$ and traveling very long ways to come to Austin for the fesival. It's unreal,.... and I love it.

Christi got into town about 7pm trundling out most of our closet and bathroom (I have the pics to prove it).

This morning, I had to get up at 5:30am(!!!!) to make it over to The Four Season sHotel for their famous (to everyone but me) morning concert series. Maggie and the band played two songs, broadcast live on KGSR, for about 200 early risers and didn't-go-to-bed'ers. It was AWESOME!!! Lyle Lovett was there, and Joe Nick Patowski (most excellent Texas Music Journalist) came up to me after the show and pumped my hand. Everyone stopped me and asked about my Casio SK-1 which I had played during the set. It was a real crowd pleaser. The show went so well that we were intervied for the local news (Austin channel 8). We were also asked to play on an El Paso radio station that was broadcasting from a suite upstars. Well helll yeah! We played 'Cowboy' right after an Audioslave song. We kicked Audioslaves' ass with some ambient girl-rock!!! The folks were mighty kind to us on the radio.

I have two more full shows to do with Maggie. 8pm Friday at the Copa for a SXSW Showcase, and on Saturday, it's Maggie and I (on the Casio again), for 'Love on the Lawn'--a SXSW tradition. It's outside, (I don't know where, yet) and I hope that it doesn't rain.

I'm going to take a bit of nap & I'll report more later!

Dan

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