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The amount of people and shows is too long to list, but the food is much more manageable – about one per day. It was mostly tex mex on the food front, with not many new places except the oldest place in town, the Hoffbrau. I had chicken and salad as often as possible, much to the dismay of my friends and often, the hosts too. I hit the Salt Lick. Maudie’s, Churra Grill, Maria’s, Green Mesquite, Guero’s, Magnolia and Nau’s are some of the famous places I stopped by over the six day stint in the Capital of Willie.
Jack White's revolutionary music truck
It’s so overwhelming, you have to focus. By concentrating on food and people, I had a good basis for networking and getting things done.
Two fantastic events I attended were the Chimera Music/Yoko Ono show and the premiere of Billy Bob’s Willie Nelson documentary, The King of Luck. Though I stayed off Sixth Street, the massive crowds and even the presence of Jay-Z and Kanye West at a closing night show held in a former power plant only attest to the growing importance of SXSW, and more than symbolically how it has swallowed Austin, Texas in the past twenty years.
The new Austin City Limits Theater
Everything is getting souped up, including the Austin City Limits studio, now housed in a new W hotel on Willie Nelson Boulevard (formerly 2nd St.). I took a brief look inside before the room was taken over by Lost Highway’s tenth anniversary show. I was happy to run into Dave Derrick but missed Robert Keen and his guitar player Rich Brotherton since I had to bail. Went up to the Continental at some point to hang with Aggie and Amber Digby was still on stage. Who knows where the week went. Like I said, I had these enchiladas…
One of the more interesting events on the business side was the Accelerator competition for technology entrepreneurs. Seeing presentations on companies like Next Big Sound, Roqbot and Rootmusic was informative about where music and data is headed. Roqbot, a virtual jukebox system for businesses seemed especially inspired, since it is an old and proven idea with the convenience and speed today’s mp3-based libraries and phones afford. How would the Fonz hit that jukebox?
