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SXSW where Live music Lives

Posted at 1:45 PM on March 19, 2009 by Jim McGuinn (2 Comments)

Ok, first thing first: The weather is amazing. It's about 80 degrees and sunny and man oh man do we feel pale. Hate us if you want, or just be green with envy, but it feels gooooood!

The iPhone is struggling. I read somewhere that AT&T has trucked in mobile mobile towers to help with all the traffic. The iPhone really dominates the music industry (for obvious reasons) and all that usage in a concentrated time and space has completely overloaded the network's resources. It's slowed us down a ton in our coverage as well - what worked quickly and efficiently when we tested it in Saint Paul the other day is creeping if working at all here in Austin today.

Dayparties rule. It used to be back in the day that you came to SXSW and had one shot to see a band play - at their showcase. Nowadays, the hottest and hardest working bands end up being invited to gig non-stop day and night, to be seen by as many audiences as possible. When you look thru the official and unofficial dayparty schedules, you really see who is in demand - and suddenly you have 8 or 10 chances to see School of Seen Bells or Handsome Furs or even the Hold Steady, who have been harped on for playing Rachael Ray's dayparty (haha!) but are playing about 5 other gigs this week while they are here. And if you are a band and you can't get extra gigs, it almost becomes not worth it to come here at all. In fact, many bands these days get passed by the official SXSW screening committee but show up anyway and if they can play a bunch of dayparty and extracurricular events make it worth their while.

Although it's crowded at times and a little hipster elite beyond belief in places, there really is something special about SXSW... for a huge music fan it's like the universe is perfect for these few days - great bands are playing in front of huge crowds of appreciative music fans, beer and bar-b-q is flowing freely, and everyone you meet likes great music too. One of my favorite things is asking other friends what they are looking forward to seeing that night - invariably it's something you've never heard of or that's far from your radar - but equally cool, and that's how you learn - you grab a friend and go to one of their picks and take them to one of yours. There is no way for one or two or even ten people to totally cover all that's going on - it's that massive an orgy of music happening non-stop from noon till 2am.

We're finally about to dive in for the day - look for more updates from Melanie and I on the Current's Twitter page, and another audio update and series of blog postings sometime between the end of the dayparties and dinner!

Jim McGuinn at SXSW

Comments (2)

I heard on the radio that there is a podcast of the Decemberists live show from SXSW, but where is it??

MPR you need to shape up your website navigation and search, I cannot ever find what I am looking for after getting all excited.

Search for 'decemberists' brings results in an article from last week but nothing about the live show.

Posted by Jeffrey Thomas | March 20, 2009 7:35 AM

the decemberists podcast is at npr not mpr

Posted by k | March 23, 2009 4:56 PM

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