seven day fool

Sitting on a plane full of good looking, ragged and ruggedly handsome music peeps.  I feel like the new kid on the plane and I want to talk to everyone around me.  Too bad my seatmate just wants to sleep.  She’s boring. I haven’t slept much since Sunday because I’ve been so excited to get to Austin.  

So here I am sitting and patiently waiting for the nearly 4 hour flight to go by.Listening to tunes, reading up on bands I want to see, and working out my SXSW schedule.  Talk about severe anxiety. I need a solid Xanax/Adderall cocktail to get through the schedule-making process alone.  Creating this schedule is a producer’s nightmare.  You just can’t be in five places at once.

From what I can tell from the blogs, tweets, reports and posts, the 25 year old festival is in the midst of a pretty big growth spurt.  There are more bands registered than ever before which is good news for an industry that’s been in decline for quite a while. And the talent hunt to sign new bands is really on this year.

For the first time in the festival’s history, the music showcases are launching a day earlier than in the past. Bands start playing today rather than the traditional Wednesday because there’s so much music.  And it’s also the first time that the Interactive and Music portions have overlapped.  While things are looking up for the Music side of the festival, SXSW Interactive continues to be a larger draw and a much bigger moneymaker.  This year there were more than 14,000 paying folks registered for Interactive alone.  Has interactive saved the day for the music industry? Or is simply taking over?  All I know so far is that Austin should plan on building some more hotels if this growth continues. Everything has been booked up here for months.

I know you guys will be hearing about Interactive and Film from the folks who’ve been out here this past weekend.  So I figured I would share a few bands I really want to check out live.  In no particular order: Yellow Ostrich, Thao, Black Angels, Yuck , Dirty Beaches, Wild Flag, Das Racists, Other Lives, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Hooray for Earth, J Mascis, The Antlers, Yeasayer, Austra, Oh Land, Le Sera, Young the Giant, Wise Blood, Mister Heavenly, Charles Bradley.

Bands I would see again if I happen upon them…Summer Camp, Lower Dens, Marnie Stern, The Papercuts, Odd Future, Twin Shadow and, of course, Theophilus London. Such fun.

I uploaded some tracks for you here of the above:

http://wtrns.fr/2OfaY4G3aEBk_g

And here are some others as well:

http://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/4hicxs

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/08/134363760/sxsw-2011-preview

See you next week when my tush is 5 times bigger from all the meat and queso.

Jessica