SXSW - take 1

spent the last five days shooting at South by Southwest in Austin, TX. i was expecting it to be a little crazy, just like any other music festival. but i have to say i was wrong; it was definitely more madness than i could have imagined. now that the festival is officially wrapped up and i have more than 10 minutes to go through photos, i figured i'd finally get to blogging about the whole experience. here goes with the first day's events.

WEDNESDAY:

i arrived in Austin on tuesday afternoon with Zoneil, editor-in-chief/writer for Oh Dang! Magazine back in SF. we got our wristbands and tags for my cameras, and made a game plan for the following week. started fresh on wednesday, meeting up with Todd Spoth and checking out Wavves at Emo's. i'd been hearing about this kid from fellow photographer Jason Fritz, and the live show was a great way to start out the day.
then wandered 6th street for a while before meeting up with the kids from iLL-Literacy and heading to the fader fort to get wristbands and see what was going on there.Adriel, iLL-Literacy, in line at the Fader Fort:later that evening, caught a hip-hop showcase at the back alley social. really tight show. saw Doomtree, U-N-I, Blue Scholars, Common Market, Blu, and a few others. caught up with U-N-I for an interview for Oh Dang!, stood in the street to people watch, ate tacos from a truck, chilled with some rappers and DJs, then hiked back downtown.Sims, Doomtree:Cecil Otter, Doomtree:Dessa, Doomtree:Sabzi, Common Market/Blue Scholars:Geologic, Blue Scholars:Geologic and Bambu, rockin' the taco truck:after some debate, and my futile attempts to convince everyone i knew out here to come along, Zoneil, Todd, Chris and i went to see Billy Bob Thornton & the Boxmasters at Smokin' Music. i know, i know, Billy Bob Thornton's band? i have a soft spot in my heart for that country-music twang, so the novelty of the performance was too much to pass up. even Matthew McConaughey was there! haha.

at one point, the very small woman standing in front of me slipped Billy Bob a note, at which point he stopped the band mid-verse. on the paper was scrawled "I can't hear your voice!"

"Whoa, stop, hold on a second," he says. "First of all, you never slip a note to a musician as they're starting a song. Second, there's these big, black boxes on each side of the stage called 'speakers'. If you can't hear my voice, it's probably because you're standing at the center of these speakers. Or maybe it's because you're in a CLUB. If you really want to hear the vocals, you might be better off buying a CD."

HAHA.

then he continued to hassle the poor lady by leaning into her face and enunciating every word to every song, and at one point even spoke the words to the entire next song before singing it. and throughout it all, she meekly held up her camera and took photos. what a trooper.wrapped up the night around 2:30 with a little more people-watching, some photo editing, and planning for the next day. stay tuned for more bloggage from SXSW.

ALSO check out Oh Dang! Magazine for more photos and play-by-play breakdowns of the madness.