Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Are you feeling steam, punk? Are you?

What sounds like a really cool interactive steampunk (whazzat?) event will benefit the Electronic Frontier Foundation Austin on Monday, March 12 at 7 pm at Scholz Garten.

The oldest little pub in Texas will host an interactive showcase called, ”Futures of the Past: A Steampunk Adventure.” Austin’s White Ghost Shivers will share their musical talents, and so will a local vaudeville troupe. Oo-la-la! But the evening’s highlight sounds like the Modern Marvels exhibit, “...which will hold visual and interactive artworks from local and national artists who specialize in Steampunk styles. Included works involve hand-made shadow boxes, a time machine booth, and candles that spin under their own steam power.”

Anachronistic mecha, Austin music and vaudeville too? Woot! Austinist has the details.

How Do Those Bands Make Money?

If you’re like me, you might sometimes wonder just how the bands who play SXSW manage to make ends meet if they’re playing so many free shows, not selling merchandise, and paying inflated hotel room prices. Well, the Austin American-Statesman blog South by Southwest Source has the details as to why they don’t. They’re paid far too little, and most give up that small amount for a badge + wristbands.

The 1,300-plus acts scheduled to play SXSW this year are getting a bump in pay, though most will refuse it. In the past, each act — big and small — received a flat fee of $175. That total’s gone up to $225. Bands also have the option to waive the fee and instead accept the much more valuable package of credentials, which includes one badge (value: $650) and wristbands for each member ($160 value each). Usually the only acts who’ll take the money are those who are just in town for a day to play their showcase.

Hugh Forrest Interview & SXSW Preview

Ewan starts his SXSW coverage by going right to the top, literally, interviewing the very tall Hugh Forrest, event director for the SXSW Interactive Conference and getting a preview of the 2007 event.

Clickguides for iPod are Back

Carry around the entire Interactive, Film, or Music schedule in your pocket with the SXSW Clickguides—just download an iPod Clickguide and follow the easy instructions to install.

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Free Interactive, Music, Film Events At George Washington Carver Museum

Here’s a rundown of the free and open-to-the-public events:

• Friday, March 9, 2007 at Boyd Vance Theater
  5:00 - 6:00 pm
  Your Video Blog Can Save the World
  Michael Verdi, moderator (michaelverdi.com), Jay Dedman (RyanisHungry.com), Ryanne Hodson (RyanisHungry.com)
  Learn how you can effortlessly set up your own videoblog—and contemplate the immense power inherent in this new form of media. We’ll show you what people are doing today, take you through the basics of getting started and look at what makes videoblogging different than filmmaking or television.
• Thursday, March 8th (7:00 - 10:00 pm)
  SXSW Sundown Surprise Film Feature

• Saturday, March 10 (1:00 - 4:30pm)
  Mini-Film Fest East Austin Stories
  Experience the acclaimed series of short documentary films currated by University of Texas film professor Andrew Garrison. This collaborative effort between East Austinites and UT filmmakers has been a sensation around Austin, as they detail intimate and interesting tales around the East Austin neighborhoods.

• Saturday, March 10 (5:00 - 6:00pm)
  Filmmaking 101
  Get tips and tactics from working filmmakers at this special discussion.
  Andrew Garrison Dir of Welcome Home Productions LLC
  Greg Carter Filmmaker
  Christian Raymond Dir of Outreach and Education for Austin Film Society
• Tuesday, March 13, 2007 (5:00 - 9:00 pm)
  SXSW and The Recording Academy present a special event at the George Washington Carver Center. Grammy® Award winning Houston-based rap artist Chamillionaire sits down with HoustonSoReal’s Matt Sonzala for a motivational interview, followed by a short performance. Local favorites Gutta Gang take the stage after Chamillionaire, and the music wraps up with a performance by New Orleans/Austin hybrid Cyril Neville and Tribe 13, which will put chili in your gumbo.

  This is a free, all-ages event that will kick off SXSW Music 2007 honoring the innovations of African-American artists in popular music.

  5:30pm - Chamillionaire Interview
  6:30pm - Chamillionaire Houston TX
  7:20pm - Gutta Gang Austin TX
  8:10pm - Cyril Neville & Tribe 13 Austin TX

The George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center located at 1165 Angelina Street (512-974-4926). 

Venue Maps Now Available; Film Festival Grid View

Check out the 2007 film venue and music venues [PDF].

And the Film Festival now has a handy online grid view.

Still Not Registered?

Online registration for Film, Interactive, Gold and Platinum badges will close on Thursday, March 8th at 6pm CT.

Walk-up registration for Film, Interactive, Gold and Platinum badges will open at the Austin Convention Center at Noon on Friday, March 9th., CT

Online registration for Music badges will remain open until 6pm CT Monday, March 12th and open onsite 10am Tuesday, March 13th.

Podbop’s Awesome SXSW Music Coverage

It’s about a week until SXSW Music and the crew at Podbop have unveiled their awesome Music Festival coverage.

First up, a top ten list of Music Festival resources that we at SXSW Baby! love, and not just ‘cause we’re on the list. Donewaiting and the Austin Showlist rightfully take the top spots.

Secondly, they’ve unveiled a very snazzy Scheduling App. Sort through all of the unofficial events, free shows, daytime parties, and official showcases at a glance, as everything’s broken down into a giant grid by time or venue. Add items to your personalized schedule and get a clean, well-designed page back that’s printable and everything. Super-cool, especially since they’ve included so many of the daytime events. 

For those of you just joining us…

If you’re new to SXSW Baby!, here are a few pointers to get you up to speed:

• Kathryn’s Music Festival FAQ is a must-read if you hope to navigate the maze of showcases, day shows, wristbands and such. The resource for free live music during the day is Showlist Austin: it’s comprehensive, up to date, well-organized, and updated often.
• A few Interactive parties you may not want to miss. And a few more.
• Conferenceer social networking app brings the people, posts and panels together
• Barbecue, breakfast tacos and all sorts of eats.
• Share your notes from the conferences in the Notes Exchange Wiki

Of course, check out the “Baby by the Categories” links at the right to read more, more, more, and remember the Ride/Room Share board is available if you’re still looking for or offering a crash spot.

Film Festival Venue Guide

Jette Kernion at Slackerwood has written up an awesome guide to the Film Festival’s six screening locations, including each venue’s pros and cons, food and parking information, and wireless Internet availability!

SXSW Film Festival has six venues this year, and if you’ve never been to Austin you may not know where all the theaters are located and all of their little quirks. You might think it’s possible to run from the Paramount to Alamo on South Lamar on foot in ten minutes, and you’d schedule movies accordingly, and then be sad later. Or you might make it through the entire festival without trying the root-beer float at Alamo Drafthouse. I thought I’d offer a guideline to the Austin theaters playing SXSW movies to help visitors who want to maximize the number of films they see in a day or who want to make sure they’re able to find decent meals in between or even during the movies..

I’ve personally only ever made it to the Alamo Downtown, Alamo on South Lamar, and Paramount since I’m usually stuck downtown sans car, but this is a superhandy guide for people who want to get the most out of the Film Fest. 

Conferenceer: A SXSWi networking app and more

OK, this is just deeply cool. Conferenceer is a SXSW Interactive-centric social networking app and content aggregator with several great features. Post a profile on the site, then browse the list of panels. You can add a panel (or a day’s worth) to iCal, follow the feeds of presenters on the site or in your favorite newsreader (through OPML downloads) and create XFN-ish lists of attendees you’d like to keep in touch with.

Perhaps the neatest thing about Conferenceer is that it represents at once two fantastic things about SXSW Interactive. First, that folks such as creator Jacob Patton are so passionate about the conference that they take it upon themselves to build nifty tools like this, and second, that it attracts such big, delicious, nimble brains. (Jacob says he built the site “in the wee hours of the early days of March, 2007”. I mean, I barely managed to make two or three weblog posts in that time and this genius went and built a hugely useful application.)

Monday, March 5, 2007

SXSW: When A&R people go on holiday?

Drowned in Sound takes a look at SXSW and the music industry, especially from the perspective of those traveling from the UK:

Between the 13th and the 18th of March, the entire music industry ups sticks to Austin, Texas for the biggest music conference of the year. SXSW (or to give its full name, the South By South West Music and Media Conference & Festival) sees a small college town in the middle of America become the epicentre of the world. The promise is that careers are made, people are ‘reached out to’ and good things happen, but seemingly more apparent is that a lot of booze is imbibed and an equally impressive amount of BBQ is digested.

So is SXSW really the career-making event it’s painted out to be? Does business really get done there? Or is it merely a massive, backslapping piss up?

SXSWi Party Map

Want to know where all the cool SXSWi parties are going to be held? Then check out Adactio Austin. Not only does it show you the location of all the cool happenings, you can subscribe to all the events using iCal. Cool huh?

Posted by Andy Budd on 03/05 at 07:31 PM
Interactive | Events & Parties | (2) Comments | Permalink

The Great British Booze-up

If you’ve been to SXSWi the past couple of years, you may have noticed an increase in the number of funny accents. No, I’m not talking about your Canadian cousins, I’m referring of course to the British invasion. Go back in time a few years and while the SXSW festival was big news amongst the UK music industry, the interactive festival barely registered as a blip on the average web designers RADAR. Then in 2004 the bloggers arrived and launched the interactive festival onto a global stage.

I remember reading posts from the likes of Dave Shea and Doug Bowman and thinking how much fun the event sounded. Rather than just another web design conference, this was an opportunity to meet your web design superheroes. The people whose books you’ve read, whose feeds you’ve subscribed to and whose work has inspired you to be a better web designer.

2005 saw a small but hardy group of British bloggers travel over to the US and take Austin by storm. Their quirky accents and taste for Shiner endeared them to their American counterparts and earned them a somewhat undeserved reputation as party animals. As tales of their antics reached their home shores, the buzz surrounding SXSW amongst the UK blogging scene was palpable. Word obviously got round, as the number of UK attendees doubled or tripled in size the following year. It seemed that everywhere you turned there was a gaggle of British web designers experiencing Southby for the first time.

This year looks set to be even bigger than last year, and if the buzz on the blogosphere is anything to go by, the number of British attendees will double in size once again. To celebrate this fact, we’ve organised a party at the Lava Lounge on Monday, 12th March at 7:30 pm. Entitled The Great British Booze-up, this is your opportunity to come drinking with the Brits and meet some of your favourite British bloggers. There will be free food, a free bar (while stocks last) and some great British tunes. Just make sure you get there early as space is strictly limited.

Posted by Andy Budd on 03/05 at 07:27 PM
Interactive | Events & Parties | (0) Comments | Permalink

More on Eating and Drinking During SXSW

Two things:

1. Chow.com has an interactive map guide to eating and drinking during SXSW, but I couldn’t get the Google Maps portion to work properly. You can also grab it as a handy but long PDF. They cover eats both Downtown and elsewhere, as well as tips on curing hangovers and how to eat a taco.

2. And here’s an awesome tip from Tom of Austinist:  there’s a brand new late-night eats place just steps away from Emo’s on Red River. It’s called Go Bites.

Matthew Odam of the Austin American-Statesman says:

Schumacher plans to offer fancy grilled cheese sandwiches, gourmet sliders and hand-cut fries to his (most likely) boozy patrons. Judging by the items sampled last night, the young chef will most likely be the preferred stop for folks looking to add a little sustenance to their bar-hopping plans...We sampled each of the grilled cheese sandwiches, which resembled something I would try to make for friends after a late night out on the town, given I had the ingredients and/or energy to do so. The grilled-cheese menu consists of mango and swiss, gruyere and onion, prosciutto and fresh mozzarella, and fresh mozzarella and white truffle oil.

...

The blue cheese and grilled leek [slider] was as savory as any full-sized burger I have had in town, and then I ate the BBQ, grilled onion and jalapeno-jack slider. The blue cheese burger hid its face in shame. At this point I had reached man-in-“Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life” status, but I promised the cheddar burger I would have a bite of it. So I did. And I was pleased with the flavor but maybe not the decision to fearlessly eat my weight in food.

The new quick eats joint is located at the serving window just feet away from the entrance of Emo’s on Red River Street.

Sliders, grilled cheese sandwiches, fries, and rock’n’roll? I’m betting this place is going to have a line down the block during the Music Fest. In any case, it all sounds delicious to me!

Go Eats (former location of K-Bar, same location as Emo’s IV Lounge)
600 E. 6th St. at Red River
6 p.m. to 3:30 a.m.