Last, but not least, the most important part of my SXSW experience: marathon show-going.

EVERYONE I SAW
In chronological order, some for a song or two, some for full sets. Some good, some bad, some worth blurbs in the next section.

Say Hi To Your Mom
Robyn Hitchcock
Future Clouds and Radar
Brighton, MA
Jamie T
Lily Allen
Razorlight
Saul Williams
Busdriver
Scott Matthews
Architects
RJD2
The Walkmen
Land of Talk
Treaty of Paris
The Spill Canvas
Armor For Sleep
The Dears
Bloc Party
The Honorary Title
Aqueduct
DATArock
Andy Jackson/Hot Rod Circuit
Peter, Bjorn & John
Andrew Bird
Brother Ali
Perry Ferrell’s Satellite Party
Badly Drawn Boy
The Good, The Bad, and The Queen
Spitalfield
The Good, The Bad, and The Queen (yes, again)
Circa Survive
Locksley
Jack’s Mannequin
A Fine Frenzy
Paolo Nutini
Kings of Leon
Spoon
The Stooges
Junior Senior

SPECIFICS

Razorlight: The first performance that I was really impressed by at the conference.

Saul Williams: He is crazy and one of the most energetic performers I’ve seen. Also, he is an excellent dancer. If you plan on seeing him, please bring ear plugs; the volume is deafening.

The Spill Canvas: Surprisingly good live. I thought I’d enjoy it, but they really impressed people in the crowd.

The Dears: Ended with the frontman’s memorable quote, “Stick around for the next band so you don’t have to ask me to sign your Bloc Party CD.” (Bloc Party was up next, in case you didn’t put that together on your own).

Aqueduct: Downright endearing. Ended with the theme to Walker, Texas Ranger. The new stuff sounds excellent.

Andy Jackson/HRC: Acoustic with pedal steel guitar or bass. Played lots of new stuff, I can’t wait to hear it. I think the new album may have dropped this week.

Badly Drawn Boy: Kept stopping in the middle of songs; not sure if it was due to technical difficulty or the band’s timing being off. Kind of annoying, but excellent while they were playing. Ended with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” which was both ridiculous and crowd-pleasing.

The Good, The Bad, and The Queen: Biggest buzz band turns out to be fantastic and worth waiting in line for an hour to see.

Kings of Leon: Great performers, go see them.

The Stooges: I left after three songs. It was noisy and awful and apparently perfect for those who were actually fans going into it.

Junior Senior: In one of the most beautiful and moving musical experiences I have witnessed, Junior Senior got everyone to band together without provocation during “Move Your Feet”. Though many bobbed their heads throughout the set, when that song came on EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the room danced their asses off. Strangers danced with each other, and every person I made eye contact with had a grin from ear to ear. It was amazing. The new material is also as danceable and entertaining as the rest.

So there you have it. More than you ever wanted to know about my SXSW 2007 experience. Who’s joining me next year?

More SXSW drivel.

CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS
I am still 100% lame and get excited by (or at least am interested in) celebrity sightings. Here are those that I remember and/or thought to write down:

David Cross: We stood next to each other during Saul Williams’ set; sadly it was far too loud to talk to him and he wandered off to a better spot behind the sound board before the show ended.

Matt Pinfield: Broadcasting from a glass booth off of 6th Street for DirecTV.

Steven ? [Steven's Untitled Rock Show]: He alternately hid by ducking down into a crouch position and mugged for fans with cameras at the Alternative Press Showcase. Also the inspiration for the post title.

Dennis Miller: Taking the down escalator while I was going up. I couldn’t think of anything to say aside from “Hey! Dennis Miller!” so I instead said nothing at all.

John Norris: At Stubb’s with everyone else to see Bloc Party.

Paul Scheer & Rob Huebel [Best Week Ever]: Wandering around outside the Hilton as I crankily waited in line at the taxi stand for almost two hours. It took everything I had in me not to ask Mr. Huebel if he was treating himself tonight (he is currently in an Olive Garden commercial that drives me nuts). It wasn’t anything person, I had just been WAITING FOR A TAXI FOR TWO HOURS.

So I guess my ‘celebrity sightings’ were more along the lines of ‘people who are on VH1 countdown shows and MTV News,’ but that’s okay.

PARTIES, ETC.
During the day, magazines, labels, agencies, and the like host parties to entertain people who don’t want to spend their time in the stuffy convention center and would rather be drinking for free and listening to bands.

purevolume.com Indoors: I stopped by for an acoustic set by Treaty of Paris, recently signed to Andrew McMahon’s (Something Corporate, Jack’s Mannequin) label, had a free strawberry daiquiri, and watched attendees play around with expensive-looking keyboards, samplers, and a totally sweet electronic drum kit.

Fader Fort: See also: hipster heaven. Free water, beer, and SoCo punch, along with an appearance of The Ice Cream Man (independently wealthy gentleman who tours the country to materialize at shows with free, no-strings-attached ice cream treats) and impeccably chosen musical guests (DATArock, The Good, The Bad, & The Queen) made this ridiculously large building a beacon for the hippest SXSW attendees.

Next up: the music. Who’d have thunk?

From March 14-18, thousands decended upon Austin, TX for its yearly music-industry gathering South By Southwest. Here is a quick wrap-up of what went down:

PANELS & SPEAKERS
Over the course of four days, I attended a grab bag of discussions and interviews hosted by industry insiders. Some were highly entertaining, and some were highly time-wasting.

Touring On A Shoestring Budget: Helpful if you have never ever worked with or in the touring business before; an utter waste of time and cause of great annoyance if you’ve booked more than two shows or gone on a single tour.

Demo Listening 2: I attended this session with Jessica Larabee of the Brooklyn outfit She Keeps Bees. Three panelists listen to a song of your demo/ep/album and give you constructive criticism. Demo2’s panelists were Tom Gimbel of High Wire Music, Eric Kupper of Hysteria Productions, and Dez Dickerson of Pavilion Entertainment and THE ORIGINAL GUITARIST OF PRINCE & THE REVOLUTION (in the video for “1999″ he wears the sweet Karate Kid bandana). They were funny, exceedingly nice to people, and best of all loved She Keeps Bees.

Keynote Conversation - Pete Townshend: Who knew the crazy, windmilling guitarist of The Who was so funny? Also, being in the same room as a legend is awesome, even if you’re twenty rows away.

Record Companies - Who Needs Them?: The Talking Heads’ David Byrne is fantastic, even at making PowerPoint presentations. Though very informative, I think most people were there to bask in the white glow of Mr. Byrne as opposed to learning about the cost & profit breakdown of CD production.

Placement in TV and Movies: I missed most of this panel, but being a music supervisor for movies and television sounds like a pretty fantastic career that I should look into.

SXSW Interview - Booker T. Jones: I was really excited to see Booker T (of MGs/”Green Onions” fame). However, he is an extremely quiet and soft-spoken man who doesn’t offer much beside the direct answer to a question. It didn’t help that two ultra-nerdy superfans from the leading Chicago newspapers were his interviewers. Their questions were ridiculously specific and without an extensive background knowledge of Mr. Jones’ career, it was hard to fully appreciate it. So I ducked out early and went to…

Comedy on the Music Circuit: Bob Mehr, Jon Wurster, Henry Owings, Andrew Earles, Tony Kiewel, Zach Galifianakis, and David Cross attempted to discuss comedy in relation to music, but mostly just sat there looking bored and knowing that everyone in the audience was there to see them be funny. You think this would be a trainwreck, but it ended up being the most entertaining panel I attended. One exchange went as follows:

KIEWEL: “At that time we [Sub Pop] were inches away from bankruptcy.”
CROSS: “Would you say you were seven inches away?” [smiles, nods, puts his hand up in the air in a 'goodnight and thanks for coming' fashion]
GALIFIANAKIS: [deadpan] “I don’t get it.”

Later, Galifianakis proceeded to become extremely disinterested in the discussion and took his name card, drawing an exclamation point in Sharpie after his name. After getting a laugh, he took Cross’ and added a question mark. Punctuation jokes(?) are right up my alley and I found it to be hilarious. Galifianakis then put his new DVD on display in place of his name card, and finally replaced it all with a sign demanding everyone in the audience purchase a copy. I wanted to get the name cards to take with me, but Galifianakis took his with him when he stood up to leave.

SXSW Interview - Iggy Pop: Iggy and the other two Stooges gave an amazing interview Friday afternoon, the day before their festival-headlining performance. I had grown up with Iggy Pop being a man who sang “Lust for Life”, played Michelle Trachtenberg’s dad on The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and supposedly cut himself with shards of glass onstage on a regular basis. Though much calmer while being interviewed, he did not disappoint. He was funny, didn’t give canned answers, and proclaimed “That was cool!” after explaining that he had almost been mowed down by John Wayne and his car.

Covering Music in New Media: More a 75-minute advertisement for leading music websites than informative panel, it was still enjoyable. The woman from Pitchfork was predictably Pitchfork-y, Michael Azerrad proclaimed that “We’re dealing with a post-literate society”, and I now have plenty of people to bug with this website in an attempt to be legit.

UP NEXT: Random sightings and goings-on of the conference.

In The Show I’ll Never Forget, editor Sean Manning collects fifty recollections of various writers’ and musicians’ most memorable concert-going experiences.

In many cases, the concert itself serves as a launching point for the author to talk about a certain time period, an old friend, or being beat up and left bruise-free by Madison Square Garden’s security staff. The only essay that stood out to me as being focused on the music was by Thurston Moore, whose primary occupation is that of music-maker.

The collection is arranged in chronological order (save the introduction), with concert dates spanning fifty years from 1955 to 2005. Almost every essay was enjoyable to read, regardless of my knowledge of either the author or the band. The only flub was Rick Moody’s sterile and overly long account of a show put on by The Lounge Lizards in 1992.

Among the best were those with a resonating personal story (David Ritz/Jimmy Reed, Jennifer Egan/Patti Smith, Dani Shapiro/Bruce Springsteen, John Albert/Black Flag, Thomas Beller/The Kinks), the attempted brush with fame (Tracy Chevalier/Queen, Max Allan Collins/Kevin Spacey), and downright enjoyable writing (Marc Bojanowksi/Beck, Chuck Klosterman/Prince, Jerry Stahl/David Bowie, Daniel Handler & Andrew Sean Greer/Metric).

If you are at all a music geek, or a fan of excellent writing, you can pick up a copy of The Show I’ll Never Forget here.

If you’ve ever wondered how I view mixtapes in society, how I feel about music, or how nerdy I am in real life, please direct your attention to my long-lost twin Rob Sheffield and his latest release Love Is A Mix Tape.

Love Is A Mix Tape is both a story about Sheffield meeting, marrying, and losing his wife Renee, and an introduction to the culture of the mixtape.

Each chapter opens with a track listing for a tape that was made by Rob, Renee, or someone close to them. It includes the tape that brought them together (one Rob made featuring two Big Star albums plus other tracks to impress Renee), as well as a mix of the songs they were listening to on the day she died.

Early on, Sheffied explains the different types of tapes that exist, including “You Like Music, I Like Music, I Can Tell We’re Going To Be Friends” and “You Broke My Heart and Made Me Cry and Here Are Twenty or Thirty Songs About It”.

Throughout the story, it becomes clear that for Sheffield and his wife, as well as many of their friends and the people who pick up this book, music is more than just background noise. Music serves as a platform to build relationships upon. It helps us explain ourselves, it helps us to cope, and it helps us remember the people and experiences we love.

Love Is A Mix Tape is one of the most beautifully written and bittersweet books I have had the pleasure of reading. You can find out more about the book and Mr. Sheffield here.

As most of you have probably noticed, lately my updates have been non-existent.

Fear not, they will return.

I’m currently in the process of relocating to Austin, TX and have been busy quitting my job, travelling, and getting the flu. For the last three days the longest I’ve been able to remain vertical is 30 minutes [excluding the time it took me to get my new tattoos, because I am a badass]. Awesome!

So I beg of you, please don’t forget about us. It’ll be a rocky couple of weeks but I’ll do my best.

Once again, I can’t thank you enough for your support.

xoxo,
-staceymixtapes.