Vivisecting Media

Tales from SXSW (pre-flight check)

I am currently sitting at a bar in the Oakland Airport with a Jack and coke at my side and a lack of internet connection. They “claim” terminal-wide WiFi and I see a network but it won’t give me a valid IP or when it does it won’t provide a DNS server or gateway. Why am I not surprised?

So, I spent last night prepping for the trip, and by prepping I mean formatting my iPod, getting it configured to my Wintel box (I used to have it sync to my old work Mac) and getting my music catalog in shape. Lord did it need a lot of work.

Niki, my SXSW partner in crime, old band mate, and good friend hooked me up with one of the SXSW torrents that contain all the MP3s that are posted on the SXSW site. 712 tasty tracks, 2.94 gigs of new music and all in one place that you can download. Sweet. So that had to go on my iPod, plus there is all the amazing FS material that I could finally load onto my iPod since I am lazy and never got around to updating my iPod for over 6 months (see above).

Anyway, I jumped on the AC Transit 15 this afternoon, plugged into my iPod and started peeping all the bands that I won’t have time to see. Seriously, it is ridiculous how many bands are playing and there is no way I will be able to see a 1/10th of what is out there. But, even if I won’t see the bands this week I will be hearing all this new music and its already paid off with the band “Why?”. They are on Anticon Records, and they will be a feature on the Lab Report for sure (thanks Shaun).

I will be trying to blog from SXSW but I make no promises. I have a feeling if I still know my own name by tomorrow night I will be lucky. I mean what the fuck, free open bars to badge holders… oh my god I can’t wait.

(this was posted later from Dallas, once I got the “internets” and yes I know SXSW is in Austin and not Dallas, we are driving down tomorrow thank you very much…)