Results tagged “sxsw2005”

Imagine you are a 14-year-old musician living in Australia, accustomed to recording songs for your punk rock band in your bedroom. All of a sudden, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth is singing your praises, and you sign to Grand Royal (the Beastie Boys’ now defunct label). Over the next 11 years, you release five solo indie-pop albums, start your own record label, and collaborate with artists such as Ben Kweller, Ben Folds, Petra Haden,...

Musicians always claim that Austin is one of their favorite cities to play, and while this makes perfect sense to us and we hope that it's their honest opinion, we never really know if they're just buttering us up, before moving on and claiming that Houston is the coolest city in Texas. So it warms Austinist's heart and reassures our ego when we hear public praise of our fair city. Cary Brothers, whose song "Blue...

So ends the time of the year where hipsters everywhere take notice of our uncanny little city/big town, and it becomes the focus of all the world for a short time. We will have to wait a whole year for a particularly disgusting New York VICE magazine to insult our beautiful Austin, mine it for drugs, and pretend they own the town. Too bad.

Unless you are on the list. And it rocks. And it is hosted in someone's house, sponsored by serious magazines, subsidised by booze companies, laden with live bands, and still alive and kicking when the sun has lit the sky.

A 24-hour all-night nap has expelled my usual post-SXSW gloom, so we are able to see the events of the past week in full perspective. Every time we started grumbling about these foreigners invading our town, we caught ourselves, because we remembered that's one of the reasons we moved to Austin in the first place. We don't want to seem provincial now, do we? So then why do we still feel sour today? It's...

Like the recent rumblings of St. Helens to the Northwest, the crowds, spotlight, and of course MUSIC of SXSW have shaken the earth under Austin for almost a week... But now the crowds are thinning, and the wristband wearing, badge waving, industry scavengers are going home to nurse a mean Texas sized hangover with a valium and a Fiji water. We could go on and on about how SXSW has become corporate, and has lost sight of the point - and we'd be right - but Austinist would rather take this opportunity to celebrate what is still cool about the festival: Mainly... Austin.

Like bare-knuckle brawling and rock and roll? Well, you are guaranteed at least one of those at a Maxïmo Park show.

SFist editor Jackson West writes in: So of course everyone in the know is going to be at Austinist Ben's party tonight, but what are your plans for late-night shenanigans? Do they include beer, barbecue and funky live music by local musicians? All for just ten bucks? Well, they should. Local boy made good Topaz and friend Kevn Kinney are hosting a "Sunrise BBQ" party at the offices of the Austin Daze tonight, starting at...

Through a series of shady dealings and lucky circumstances, Austinist and its posse ended up in the private Napster party last night. As we stood at the bar, we noticed that people were being given little bags as they left. "What could be in those bags?" we wondered. Having seen the freebies given out by the parties at the Interactive festival, we figured it was probably a teeshirt, possibly a sticker, and maybe a hat.

The Austinist recently called our friend. Lets say his name is Bob.

Remember when we told you about the Gorillaz listening party. The one that's happening right now at Red Fez. Well our man on the street has just reported that Damon Albarn himself is there. So if you did not heed our advice and go, go now! Listen to the album with the lead singer, drink free beers and ask him if he prefers Blur or Oasis. Okay, don't do that last part.

With so many bands to see, how will you ever decide? We'll give you OUR approved list every day! 9pm Kaiser Chiefs at La Zona Rosa 10pm The French Kicks at Buffalo Billiards 11pm The Futureheads at La Zona Rosa 12am Hot Hot Heat at La Zona Rosa Nini Camps at Crowne Plaza Young Heart Attack at Momo's Bavu Blakes at The Vibe The Hold Steady at The Whiskey Bar 12:30am Fat Boy Slim at...

Austinist was planning on taking it easy last night, as the first day of the music festival is the sixth day of SXSW for us. But the lure of rock and roll is very strong, and we found ourselves wafting towards downtown at a surprsingly early hour to see shows. And what dids't our little eyes peep? Crowds! Crowds everywhere! And not an internet nerd in site! Before we go into our writeup of...

The affable folks at Jane magazine are hosting a SXSW party this Friday, at the local Elks Lodge. (700 Dawson Rd at Post Oak St) There will be BBQ and bathing suits involved. We at the Austinist believe in equal-opportunity partying. So go here, to see the line up and RSVP. It's an afternoon bash, from 12pm-6pm. We recommend that you stay hydrated, so that afterwards, you'll be able to stumble from showcase to showcase....

Earlier Austinist let you know that we're here for you, we want to guide you in the right direction so you don't end up at the wrong show this week, we want to make your life easier and narrow down your choices. We want to hold your hand. But we know there are some of you who want to make your own choices, so independent you are! For you we direct you to Oh My Rockness!, the beloved little New York indie rock broadsheet has adapted itself in order to cover the center of the music universe this week, Austin. Check out every single show listing happening around town over the next few days right here. We must warn you though, if you're already torn on what to see then this will not solve any of your problems. Austinists collective head nearly exploded upon trying to make the decision of whether to see the Album Leaf, Asobi Seksu or Billy Idol tonight. The knowledge of knowing that the Thermals and the Wrens are also playing, does not help (although it did help bump Billy Idol out of contention, what were we thinking?!) Our best advice to you is to check out your "must-see" bands entire SXSW schedule because they're probably playing more than once over the next few days, and make your decisions from there. Or get drunk and go wherever that dude in front of you is going to, we're sure it'll be great. Drinking makes music better, so even if you make the wrong decision - you'll still have fun.

Anyone who has been to SXSW before knows that you can easily suffer from band scheduling overload. Looking at today's schedule, there are a virtually uncountable number of bands, and that doesn't even include all of the day time showcases and unlisted events. What to do?

If you don't have a wristband for the music festival, or if you're an anti-SXSW nutjob who still wants to see a few bands tonight, you're in luck. There are a few great shows by local bands tonight that are free, free, free!

Want something worthwhile to do during SXSW? Miss the days when unsigned bands were what this festival was all about? Don't have a wristband or badge, or enough pocket cash to get into all the big shows? Can't get into those pesky 21+ bars? Not interested in waiting in line for three hours next to some yuppie jerk on his cell phone? ainjel emme cares, and offers you a refreshing alternative... AE at SXSW! friday...

Über-hipster magazine, VICE, has a surprisingly large presence at this years music convention. Their party schedule features Bloc Party, Death From Above, and the creators of [adult swim]'s Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

The Gorillaz - a band of cartoon monkeys which features the lead singer of Blur and Del, the funkee homosapien - are coming out with a new album soon, and you can be one of the first to hear it by coming out to their world premiere listening party.

Ana Marie Cox, hot off of her SXSW keynote, was denied entry into the Sidebar while attempting to attend Austinist would like to apologize to Ana Marie for any distress our fine city has caused her, but everyone knows you don't go down to Sixth Street without an ID.

This burning news just in! Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette is a Texan! She grew up in the hill country. NOW IF THAT ISN'T A SCOOP, we clearly don't know what is. More interestingly is that Ms. Cox is currently destroying the egos of many bloggers by presenting a very good argument for why blogging is not journalism. Why? Because journalism involves actual reporting, whereas bloggers blog about people doing reporting. Snap! Notable quotes...

We wouldn't normally do this, but we happen to be in a position of unusual power, and feel that we are obligated to lend a hand to someone looking for a SXSWi missed connection. We saw the following post on Austin's Craigslist:

The temperature outside dropped from near-80 to 50 degrees this morning, which brings it back into line with how the weather here in Austin is Marches, and this reminds us of a funny little thing about the SXSW festival.

Just in case you check us out in between the 10 and 11:30 panels -- wait, what are we saying? Of course you'll check us out in your 10 minutes of free time! Ahem. The Austinist editor will be speaking on the Humor on the Web panel with Laura Swisher, and a whole host of internet comedy microcelebs.

The hipster digirati were rolling up in their white, stretch-suburbans (complete with WiFi and Instant Bloggerfication), decked out in their designer square-toed shoes and ironic glasses. That, or they were stumbling in from the pre-party from the dauntingly long, but surprisingly fast-moving beer lines across the street at Brush Square Park, laden with laptop bags and the heavy burden of a SxSW badge around their necks - a noosed reminder of a profession with a very questionable future.

This was the SxSW 2005 Web Awards, and Austinist was there to revel in all of its geekerific splendor, and to imbibe the tall servings of Miller Lite, the event sponsor, and what we are generously calling "beer." Not really; for web-head lovefests like this, we prefer 4 cold bottles of the smooth, smooth Heineken action served with a wink by gorgeous, Hilton Hotel barmaids.

And the winners are...

There are so many panels at SXSW Interactive, we hardly know which ones to go to, but we'll do our best in recommending the exciting and/or most relevant ones. 1130: How to Leverage Solipsism - Lead by Peter "I coined the term 'blogger'" Merholz, this will be a panel about tagging and taxonomies -- the stuff that powers Flickr and Delicious. If you're into emerging web tech, which we very sadly are, this is one...

Because we find reviewing parties to be the utmost of wankerdom, we will limit ourselves to only five words about each party, so that you will get a vague and mostly inaccurate idea of what happened.

Local literary celebrity/gadabout Neal Pollack, author of Never Mind The Pollacks and Nerve's Bad Sex column will be performing today at the SXSW day stage. If you haven't seen Neal perform before, you owe it to yourself to stop by. He is a consumate performer, an hilarious writer, and just plain fun to be around. Plus, he was totally the king of political bloggers for like 6 months....

Though we arrived tragically late at the spectacle of dozens and dozens of SXSWi attendees playing a game of vigorous and sweaty kickball for the annual KICK! event, we did manage to capture one of the comical underhand-pitch / 50-people-run-to-catch-oversized-ball / grunting-run-to-first-base "at bats," and the "hey man, congrats!" hand slapping finale in ultra low-res video. Click here to watch it.