SXSW 2013: what was that again?

I just got back from attending the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, TX once again. My feet are swollen, my ears are ringing, and my stomach just said “go ahead – I dare you to eat another pulled pork taco.” And I want to go back to sleep. But it was all worth it. I got to see long-established artists who I had never seen before (Nick Cave, Kelly Hogan), buzzy up-and-comers who were worth the hype (Rhye, Savages), and I also got to stumble onto previously unheard-of acts that were satisfying (San Cisco, Heliotropes). It’s all about trade-offs. Yeah, I missed a shot to go see Prince and A Tribe Called Quest, but in that time I scurried around to see nine bands at six different venues, and when do you ever get to do that?

For a music fan it’s an embarrassment of riches, really. It’s almost like you don’t even need a guide. You just think of a band you like that put out
a record in the last year or two and voila! there they are, playing two blocks away. You only have to fight your way through all the ”Free Hugs”and the sidewalk drummers and DJ Babychino, supposedly “the world’s youngest DJ” and the DJ who additionally sounds like a fancy coffee drink.

Anyhow, with two thousand bands performing it does become a challenge to figure out who you want to see, and it’s even more of a challenge to figure out who you did see. So I made this list to help me remember.

I also took some video, since the Flip camera hasn’t given out on me yet, and put together my own little highlight reel from this year’s experience, below. It’s best viewed eating a pulled pork taco and drinking a Shiner Bock.

SXSW: Epic Text Tag

I may put up something about our SXSW panel later on, but I wanted to upload this first. A friend of mine who blogs for a magazine was also in Austin there interviewing people, and we had agreed to meet up at some point. The problem was that, because of the zillions of bands and events and parties and distractions that occur there, our schedules never actually crossed, despite constant attempts to do so (well, I actually did run into her on the last night, but it’s a lot better story this way). Here is the full account of our back n’ forth across Twitter and then SMS texting (pixelated for privacy):

Vote for our SXSW Panel!

My friend Austin Kleon has put together a panel for next year’s SXSW Interactive about the relationship between words, pictures, and humor. Sound familiar? The title is Your Caption Here: How To Manipulate Images Without Photoshop, and the panel is full of talented folks: Kleon, who recently published Newspaper Blackout; Jessica Hagy, of Indexed; Maris Kreizman, of Slaughterhouse 90210; Ross Nover, of The System; and myself. It should be great, because each of the panelists’ work comes from a slightly different angle, but each is wonderful in it’s own right. You can vote for the panel here, on the SXSW Panel Picker site. Whether you’ll be at SXSW 2011 or not, please vote!