This year after speaking I ended up getting on camera a few times. It was fun. I also made a point to combine suggested band selections across three different folks. Specifically, I muxed the musical picks of @netik, @tdavidson, and @bradbarrish. This amalgam served me well.
So who did I end up catching live and on the silver screen? More on that later below…
First, I’d like to say something to AT&T considering their complete failure last year for SxSW 2009:
Good job AT&T *
Why the * ? Well, I was able to actually use my iPhone this year. Crazy right? Yes. The only issues I had were obviously backhaul related during times where even with prior planning — the provisioning lacked capacity to accept that many people at one time.
So, I had full signal for the majority of my stay in the densely packed downtown areas of Austin for SxSW 2010. While that didn’t mean I was always able to use the network it did mean that my battery life was greatly improved. I was able to top off at 6pm and have it last until 2am most nights. Kudos on the signal.
I am guessing that asking around greater Austin would bring the same mixed results as last year though since this was an engineered event experience. So, AT&T…. please bring your “A game” to the rest of your “map” and everything will be alright.
BTW, it was nice seeing Luke Wilson driving around the CoWs.
Okay on to the music and film selections…
The following are from my Foursquare notes from ~200 Twitter updates during SxSW. Oddly enough, my only real use of geolocation “games” during SxSW involved notes of being somewhere for a band. I was able to catch +35 bands and +5 films. As they say… if you can’t say something nice… well… the ones listed made the cut. This is ordered from last to first
Legend: anything listed is worth catching and anything in bold is worth catching again and again. I’ll come back with complete hyperlinks later but I’d suggest Google query of the artist name and sxsw 2010.
Film:
And Everything Is Going Fine – Spalding Gray sliced and diced in a tribute to mixed media and self reflection over a long career of pieces, interviews, and conversations by Steven Soderbergh
Life 2.0 – Second Life impact with special guest appearances of Club Penguin by Jason Spingarn-Koff
Music:
Grady – ZZ Top meets Black Sabbath — and I saved the best for last
Minipop – sugar sick pop
Maren Parusel – earwig generating hooks machine
Transfer – a nice cup of San Diego to help the medicine go down
John Dear Mowing Club – tortured folksy country artist from the Netherlands that fed me tasty BBQ brisket
Bear in Heaven – just enough cowbell
The Rescues – takes over rooms and makes you love them
Mads Langer – the Olive cover is worth the price of admission
The Dollyrots – 100% pure rock star
Carolina Chocolate Drops – the real deal folks
Lights – clever and pounding
Noush Skaugen – the most playful performance of SxSW
GWAR – uh, GWAR
Citizen Cope – great melodies
Chip Taylor – could read a soup can ingredients list and make it danceable
Andy Clockwise – by far the best smelling concert at SxSW… girl guy ratio of audience was easily 80:20
Get Busy Committee – this says it all
Jennie Alpert – one of the bigger voices I caught this year
Heavenly States – fun pop with a much harder edge on stage as compared to preview tracks
Arms – Todd Goldstein keeps it real with a new edition for 2010
Amaral – makes me wish I could understand other languages
Frightened Rabbit – phenomenal songsmiths
Male Bonding – loud, loud, loud, loud, oh… louder
Japanther – performance art with a punch of punk pop
The Middle East – haunting melodies and refined musicians make for a memorable performance
Bison BC – thunder on demand… they blew a frikkin head on stage — how cool is that????
Here We Go Magic – breathy and light
George Lynch – was a serious treat seeing him throw down
Ruby Isle – I will never think of Guns N’ Roses the same way again
MC Frontalot – consummate showman and my first big music event to kickoff the convergence of Interactive and Music… and the whole thing was being Filmed.
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