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14 march 2006
sxsw, redux
tuesday
i arrived in austin, texas for sxsw on monday night/tuesday morning at 4am, cabbed it to my friend brent's house, and dove face-first into bed. it was a little brutal when the alarm went off at 9am, but i got myself up and together and after hugging and jumping all over brent and getting a proper tour of his new house, hopped in a cab and headed to the convention center to get checked in and to do the Future of Radio panel that i was on.
I got to the convention center a bit later than i'd hoped... and was very worried when i saw the line to check in for the panels. but a magic elf named shawn o'keefe tapped me on the shoulder and whisked me through check-in all VIP-style (thanks shawn!). i got into the green room and met my fellow panelists, all really nice people, and then the next thing i knew i was up on a stage with a mic. i think the panel went pretty well... i felt like i didn't get to say half of what i wanted to, but time was very limited, and i was too tired and not pushy enough to get what i wanted to say in. it was really great to finally meet tim from pandora, as i'd been hearing about him for a long time. he's a really great guy, i hope pandora is a success. the idea behind it is really cool.
i went and found my friends that do wireless for the interactive event afterwards, and we in turn found the free beer. mmm, beer. ran into a bunch of friends that we made last year, which was really fun. got questioned about how cliff and i made into the staff-only party last year, since we weren't staff, and they've been stringent for years about it being staff-only. :) also ran into one of my old co-workers from addicted to noise/sonicnet that i hadn't seen in years, which was weird.
after hanging out in cliff and davel's hotel room, a pleasant walk across austin, and a nice dinner with brent (i miss him so much!), it was time to go see my first sxsw show: sleater-kinney at the interactive into music party, signifying the change from the interactive portion of sxsw into the music portion. i got there a bit early, and found myself in a corner chatting with a bunch of porn stars and porn film producers. it was weird... i have to admit, i really didn't know what to say or do when two of the film guys started complaining about how they hated when they had "actors" who couldn't act and after a couple of hours on set would complain "can we just fuck and get it over with?" ...i also didn't know what to say to the cute little porn star girl who proudly told me about how she'd fucked 11 guys in 3 days the year before.
ian and kevin arnold from IODA
ian, annie, tim, jack, and julie
jack from IODA and julie zee
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luckily, i got a phone call to pull me away, and then shortly afterwards found my friends from IODA who were in town a bit early, as their day party was first thing in the morning. we drank a bit too much of the free beer and wine, and then i hopped on a bus, helium balloons in hand... we sucked helium and made funny station ids as we were waiting for the bus to go, which took us back to the main drag of sxsw, and from there we went to a bar, where a bunch of other friends met up with us. i met a band from england called art brut when i walked over to chat them up and interrupted their serious conversation about lawyers and such (oops, sorry guys), and then found myself sitting on ian moore's lap telling him i wanted a barbie doll for xmas. heh. when the bar closed, we all poured out, and my friends were all staying in nearby hotels, so we said goodnight and i tried to hail a cab... no luck. but some locals pulled over and offered me a ride, and i said "sure!" and hopped in. two hours later, we finally found brent's house. turns out i wasn't the only drunk person in the car. ;)
total panels sat on: one
total bands seen: one
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