Music & More

Bob "Daddy-O" Wade's hand colored photo-canvas measuring 5' x 10'. (courtesy BobWade.com) I'm writing this at the Austin airport Monday morning, awaiting my flight back to Philadelphia where I'm told the forecast for this week is temps in the 40's, arghhh. After a week of shorts and t-shirts, that's harsh. Some more Austin pics follow, in the wake of SXSW got the chance yesterday to visit Waterloo Records, Cheapo Records, Amy's Ice Cream, the flagship Whole Foods store and finally Hut's Hamburgers . How great is it that on top of all the music in Austin, they've got what could be the best hamburger joint, ice cream parlor, and record stores in the known universe. From the SXSW band list of approximately 1,800 bands playing the festival, I earmarked a total of 240 bands as possibilities, with 35 designated as priority choices (saw about 15 of those 35). I'm headed home with 2,100 photos to sort, edit, process and post for 38 total sh...

A couple of thoughts came to mind as I was walking to the first gig today. One being that with all the great music heard in the first three days, if the festival were over now, it would still seem mighty worthwhile to have come here. The second thought, and I realized the very same thing about this point in the week last year, is that with up to 80 shows going on simultaneously at any given hour of the night, and with all the figuring out who to see where and running back and forth across Austin from one venue to another, that by day four one should logically be exhausted and somewhat freaked out, but quite the opposite is true, I find it relaxing, exciting, and exhilarating. It's sort of like a beach vacation where 6th Street is the boardwalk, but instead of beach and ocean, it's live music all day and night. The day got off to a fine start at the Aussie Music Showcase WAM party, WAM being Western Australia Music. Then on to a sparsely attended but very mellow and excellent se...

Day three began early with a panel discussion which was not only highly interesting, but altered the course of the night's events, more below. Leaving the convention center, there were two day parties with excellent food going on at Brush Square Park. First up was the "Listen to Berlin" party featuring several German bands with bratwurst sandwiches and German potato salad, a group called Popular Damage was a fun listen during lunch. On the other side of the square, it was the Aussie BBQ with a slate of bands and singers from Australia and more BBQ. I caught a couple of up and coming new artists there including one who is apparently about to hit the states in a big pop/rock way, Gabriela Cilmi. The afternoon was rounded out nicely with some great music courtesy of D'Addario Strings at the Rusty Spur. It was a full night of showcases, actually squeezing two half hour sets into the 8pm hour and still having time to hoof it across town to La Zona Rosa to see Camera Obscur...