Howdy from Texas - the land of big hats, big hair and bubbaque!

This is Thorn, blogging from Austin, TX where the 2005 South by Southwest music festival is in full swing. This is basically the center of the music universe right now as more than 1,200 bands converge on one small Texas town in hopes of getting a record deal, or a bigger record deal. And where the bands are, the fans are, as music lovers also descend in the hopes of seeing a ton of cool bands in the space of just a few days. This is the festival’s 18th year, and despite being in this industry over ten years myself, this is my first trip to Austin and to SXSW. I’m completely overwhelmed. I’ll admit that flying into the Austin airport I was a little skeptical as we passed over trailer parks, quarries and cattle, but Austin is a beautiful city with fantastic, friendly people (and really good food)!

There are two things that have struck me since I got here. One, there’s music EVERYWHERE. I avoided planning an itinerary before I left. While looking at the lineup of showcases and bands I realized that if I tried to see everyone and everything that I wanted, I’d most likely wind up disappointed thinking about everyone that I hadn’t seen. So I’m heading out each morning with a rough agenda for the day with a few things that I’d like to do and letting the rest just happen. So far the strategy seems to be working as one magical musical moment after another keep happening.

The second thing I’ve noticed is just how connected Minnesota is to this festival. The land of 10,000 lakes seems to be a spiritual twin of SXSW. Aside from the actual Minnesota artists that are here (like Robert Skoro, Mark Mallman, Hockey Night, Dan Israel, and Jeff Hanson) I keep bumping into Minnesota wherever I go.
It started before I even left Minnesota – one of the nights here at the festival is designated Japan Nite and the plane from MSP was filled with Japanese rock bands that had made a connecting flight. Once I got here I went to an opening night dinner and the first person I spoke to was a guy named Paul who had recently graduated from a recording school in Minneapolis and was now making the festival rounds networking. Before Austin, he had been in Cannes. He was looking to hook up with a record label as an A&R rep for hip-hop acts.

As I was walking into my first panel yesterday (a discussion about US/UK radio exchange) I ran into Dave Campbell from 2024 Records who took the opportunity to give me the new Fitzgerald CD. He was just leaving a panel about how to create musical ringtones (so if you hear the Olympic Hopefuls on a cell phone soon you’ll know why).
After the panel, I got into a discussion with a producer from the BBC (who’s favorite band is Husker Du) and a young woman named Christie Kruger from Dallas who just released her second CD (which features a little help from Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum). A few hours before that I saw Sarah Lee Guthrie (Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter) and Johnny Irion live at Club Deville. Their new CD was produced by Gary Louris (of the Jayhawks) and Ed Ackerson (of Polara).

Today I was at an in-store performance by the Blind Boys of Alabama and ran into Sean, a guy that I always run into at shows in Minneapolis. He and I are about to run over and try to catch M.I.A. live. She’s from Sri Lanka and is one of the hot new artists of the UK Grime scene, but I bet I run into someone from Minnesota at the show.

Oops…that’s my cell phone. Gotta go!